Art With Heart returns

An evening of art and philanthropy comes alive at the AGO Tuesday, October 18. Hosted by Casey House in support of people living with and at risk of HIV, an amazing collection of art by Canada’s foremost contemporary artists will be auctioned at Art with Heart. 

Stephan Jost, the AGO’s Michael and Sonja Koerner Director, and CEO, is a long-time ambassador and advocate for the improvement in care and treatment for those living with HIV/AIDS; he returns this year as honorary chair.

Here are some artworks in this year’s auction collection by artists who also have work in the AGO Collection.

Lexson Millington (2020) by Bidemi Oloyede 

Bidemi Oloyede, Lexson Millington, 2020. Baryta fine art print, edition of 7. 24” x 20”. Courtesy of Nicholas Metivier Gallery and the artist.

Toronto-based artist Bidemi Oloyede is an emerging street and portrait documentary photographer born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Using black-and-white film, he captures both vulnerable and vibrant images that tell a story about his subjects and community. Click here to read our past AGOinsider Q&A with Oloyede on his artistic practice. 

A school groundskeeper (2022) by Moridja Kitenge Banza (Image at top)

Moridja Kitenge Banza’s artistic approach puts cement between reality and fiction as he questions the history, memory and identity of the places where he lives or he has lived in. Drawing on current or ancient realities, Kitenge Banza organizes, assembles and traces figures and revisits parts of their history by re-appropriating the codes of religious, cultural, political, social and economic representations. Currently on view now at the AGO through November 2022 is Banza’s solo exhibition, Et la lumière fut (And there was light).

Revision and Resistance: mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People) at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2020) by Kent Monkman 

Kent Monkman, Revision and Resistance: mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People) at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2020. Copper plate etching with watercolour on acid-free paper, 11.5” x 9” printed and signed book and custom cloth-bound box, 13.75” x 16” x 2”, edition of 30. Courtesy of the artist.

Toronto-based Kent Monkman is an internationally renowned Cree artist whose impactful works explore themes of colonization, sexuality, loss, resilience and the complexities of the Indigenous experience. He’s best known for recasting popular figures in art history with Indigenous people, often highlighting how Indigenous people were traditionally misrepresented and objectified in art history. This boxed set was created to document Kent Monkman’s diptych commission mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People) for The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Each handcrafted box includes the book Revision and Resistance: mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People) at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and two limited edition etchings, hand-painted and signed by the artist. Monkman’s powerful, large-scale painting The Academy is in the AGO Collection; it spectacularly references artworks you may recognize from our European galleries but not in the way you’re used to seeing them. To learn more, click here. 

Composition (Fire at School) (2020) by Shuvinai Ashoona 

Shuvinai Ashoona, Composition (Fire at School), 2020. Coloured pencil and ink. 23” x 30”. Courtesy of Feheley Fine Arts.

Contemporary Canadian artist Shuvinai Ashoona is one of the most highly sought Inuit artists. Her work is characterized by a confident sense of colour, a sure hand and a unique vision. In 2018, Ashoona was awarded the Gershon Iskowitz Prize, which recognizes and supports artists in Canada. As part of that prize, the AGO invited her to show her work in the solo exhibition, Shuvinai Ashoona: Beyond the Visible. 

Blue Devil 2022 (2022) by Natalie Wood 

Natalie Wood, Blue Devil 2022, 2022. Acrylic ink, marker. 8.5” x 11”. Courtesy of Paul Petro Contemporary Art and the artist.

Trinidadian-born, Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist Natalie Wood explores her fascination with discovering counter-narratives, healing cultures and arts-based icons that engage in practices of liberating Black and Queer communities. Depicted in this artwork are Blue Devils, archetypal masquerade characters that emerged from the imaginations of emancipated Africans in Trinidad at the birth of Carnival. They are known to scream, to dance both frenziedly and erotically and then become a cathartic release of the pain and trauma of slavery, colonialism and racism. Wood’s art was previously shown in the AGO exhibition, Fragments of Epic Memory – click here to learn more. 

For details about the annual charity art auction and this year’s collection, visit www.ArtWithHeart.ca.