Wallflower 2026

Through contemporary and historic painting, photography and installation, Wallflower offers a peek inside the intimate and private spaces that wallpaper envelops. Wallpaper can, however, be more than a silent observer within the home. Through the inclusion of wallpaper made by contemporary artists, wallpaper shifts back and forth between wallflower and protagonist. With its use of repetition and repeating cycles, wallpaper shows how the habitual can become commonplace and invisible. Organized by the Art Gallery of Alberta and curated by Lindsey Sharman. This exhibition is by the Poole Centre of Design, an integrated series of exhibitions and programs that investigate elements of contemporary design. Artists: Cindy Baker, Maxwell Bates, Roger Bezombes, Stanley Brunst, Randy Burton, Millie Chen, Lawrence Chrismas, Lionel Cormier, Meribeth Coyne, Marie Elyse St. George, Britton M. Francis, Dana Holst, August Klintberg, Dorothy Knowles, Donna Kriekle, Zachari Logan, Irene McCaugherty, RFM McInnis, Charles Millar, William Notman, Thelma Pepper, Alfred Walter Roper, Inglis Sheldon-Williams, Utagawa Kunisada II Artist Bios: Cindy Baker Committed to ethical community engagement and critical social enquiry, Cindy Baker's interdisciplinary research-based practice draws upon 30 years working, volunteering, and organizing in the communities of which she is part, engaging with queer, gender, race, disability, fat, and art discourses. Helping found important community and advocacy organizations over the course of her career, including the Saskatoon Diversity Network and the Artist-Run Centres and Collectives Coalition of Canada, notable awards include Toronto International Body Image Film & Arts Festival's Body Confidence Canada Award, and Toronto's South Asian Visual Arts Collective (SAVAC)'s Collaborator of the Year Award. Instagram: @cindebeeFacebook: facebook.com/lovecindybakerWebsite: www.cindy-baker.ca/ Randy Burton Randy Burton is a Saskatoon-based photographer and writer with an interest in history and the built environment. His work includes portraiture, landscapes both rural and urban, and documentary approaches to social change. He has also worked for many years as a journalist and professional communicator in Saskatchewan. His photography is included in a number of provincial and national collections, including the University of Saskatchewan Art Collection, the Remai Modern permanent collection in Saskatoon, the Saskatchewan Arts Board collection, the Canada Council Art Bank and the National Gallery of Canada. Most recently, Burton has published a book on the history of the cattle industry in southern Alberta, as seen through the eyes of his grandfather, an early rancher southwest of Calgary. Millie Chen Millie Chen. Photo: Cheryl Gorski Millie Chen creates installation, drawing and media works that challenge habitual viewing and emphasize sensory knowledge. Her work has been exhibited globally at venues and festivals including Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Centre Culturel Canadien, Paris, The Power Plant, Toronto, Centro Nacional des las Artes, Mexico City, The Contemporary Austin, Shanghai Expo, Hong Kong Asian Film Festival, and FILE-Rio: Electronic Language International Festival, Rio de Janeiro. Chen’s work is in several public collections including Buffalo AKG Art Museum, University of Colorado Art Museum, Art Bank of Canada Council for the Arts, Canadian Pacific Railway, and Toronto Transit Commission. Her most recent awards (media arts grants from Canada Council for the Arts and Ontario Arts Council, and a University at Buffalo Humanities Institute Faculty Research Fellowship) are for SRS (Silk Road Songbook) https://www.silkroadsongbook.com. Chen is a Professor in the Department of Art, University at Buffalo. Website: www.milliechen.com Lawrence Chrismas Lawrence Chrismas has been documenting individuals in personal or portraiture photography since the early 1970s. He has exhibited his coal miner portraits and stories widely in Canada since 1982, and his photographs reside in various private, public, and corporate collections. His books include Alberta Miners, CoalDusGrins, Canmore Miners, and Coal in the Valley. Website: www.lawrencechrismas.com/ Dana Holst Photo: Jay Walker Pronunciation: “Day-nah Whole-st” Dana Holst’s work as a painter, drawer and printmaker investigates the world of humans and animals from a psychological perspective. Beginning with her personal collection of taxidermy, antiques and vernacular photographs, she weaves these elements into her fascination with old master techniques, creating ambiguous narratives about the current state of our human condition. Deeply mysterious, often bordering on darkness, Holst’s intuitive work peels back layers of emotion as she wields allurement and entrapment as her medium of choice. Instagram: www.instagram.com/thedanaholst Website: www.danaholst.com August Klintberg Photo: Kyla Jacobs, Banff Centre for the ArtsPhoto: Kyla Jacobs, Banff Centre for the Arts August Klintberg (formerly Mark Clintberg) is an artist who works in the field of art history. He is represented by Pierre François Ouellette art contemporain in Montreal and is an Associate Professor at the Alberta University of the Arts. He earned his Ph.D. in Art History at Concordia University in 2013. He was Shortlisted for the Sobey Art Award for the region Prairies and the North in 2013. Public and private collections across Canada and in the United States have acquired his work, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, the Bank of Montreal Corporate Art Collection, TD Corporate Art Collection, the Edmonton Arts Council, the Dunlop Art Gallery, and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. His work has been shown at Walk & Talk (Azores, Portugal), the Dunlop Art Gallery (Regina), the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (Halifax), the Art Gallery of Alberta (Edmonton), the Illingworth Kerr Gallery (Calgary), the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), the Banff Centre, Centre des arts actuels Skol (Montreal), Art Souterrain (Montreal), and The Harbourfront Centre (Toronto). His research has been published in Printing History (2023), the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada (2019), The Journal of Canadian Art History (2020) and The Journal of Curatorial Studies (2016). Zachari Logan Zachari Logan (b. Saskatoon, 1980) is a Canadian artist working mainly with large-scale drawing, ceramics and installation practices, evolving a visual language that intersects memory and observation to explore figuration and selfhood. Employing strategies of visual quotation, mined from place and experience Logan rewilds his body as a queer embodiment of nature and a site of excavation. His work underlines a fundamental interconnection of the human as nature through methodologies of exploration that merge observation of landscape and overlapping art-historic motifs, engaging ideas of beauty, mortality and integration. As an extension of his studio practice, Logan has attended many residencies; including Vienna's Museums Quartier MQ21 Program, the International Studio & Curatorial Program in Brooklyn, Wave Hill Botanical Gardens Winter Workspace Program in the Bronx and Little Bird Artist Residency in rural Bulgaria. Logan was artist in residence at the Tom Thomson Shack at the McMichael Gallery in 2017, a commission of the Ontario Government to commemorate the centenary of Tom Thomson’s death. In 2021 Logan was the Koerner Artist in Residence at Queens University. This past year Logan was the West Baffin Cooperative’s 2025 Artist in Residence in Kinggait, Nunavut and is currently a resident of the Cite Internationale des arts in Paris, France. Logan has worked collaboratively with several celebrated artists, including Ross Bleckner and Sophie Calle and his work has been featured in many publications worldwide, including BBC Culture, The Boston Globe, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Border Crossings, Huffington Post, Canadian Art and Hyperallergic to name a few. Instagram: @zachari_logan Website: www.zachariloganart.com RFM McInnis I am now residing in Laval, Quebec after many years of living in Western Canada. My studio is one small bedroom in our apartment, which is shared with my wife Françoise Cardinal. Therefore, most of the paintings have been oil sketches on masonite panels of 8 x 10" and 9 x 12” of the generous views out the windows and off the deck. These oil sketches are augmented by line drawings enhanced with colour. I continue working with models for drawings. At 84, I am more restricted in travel and macular degeneration has affected my seeing.My work can be seen online: search “rfm mcinnis images”. My work is represented in Toronto by Roberts Gallery, in Winnipeg by Mayberry Fine Art, in Fredericton by Gallery 78 Fine Art, in Calgary by Masters Gallery, in Ottawa by Wallack Galleries, Grand Prairie by Grant Berg Art Gallery and in many public galleries across Canada. Most of my work, including journals, sketchbooks and papers are housed in the National Archives of Canada. My book, ART ATTITUDE: the random thoughts of RFM McInnis, can be purchased from Friesen Press or online at Amazon.