Kim Ondaatje, Blue Bedroom
Kim Ondaatje. Blue Bedroom (or “Bedroom”), 1970. Screenprint on paper. Image: 75.5 x 61.5 cm. Purchase, with funds from Joyce and Fred Zemans, 2020. © Kim Ondaatje. 2020/12.
What colour is your bedroom? What makes it unique to you? How does it make you feel?
In the late 1950s and '60s, when artists felt pressure to live and work in the metropolitan centres of the world, artists in London, Ontario felt otherwise. This is when and why the London Regionalism movement was born: a group of artists who found inspiration in the allure of their home region and the beauty of the everyday. While we've had to spend so much time at home, we can be inspired by artists like Kim Ondaatje, who was drawn to the beauty of ordinary subjects and to the mystery within her own home.
ACTIVITY
Kim Ondaatje is a painter, photographer and documentary filmmaker. Born in Toronto in 1928, she studied at OCADU and McGill University and later became a full-time artist when she moved to Piccadilly Street in London, Ontario in the '60s. Reflecting her new situation, she created a series of seven screenprints, aptly titled The House on Piccadilly Street, which captured the interiors of her century-old house, without any people. We can relate to these works, recently acquired by the AGO, and the depiction they present of familiar places and surroundings.
Draw your secret room. Perhaps it has familiar elements from your current home, as well as other furniture from other spaces, whether real or invented. Is it a calming place or a space way out there – a bubble, a spiral shape or a boxy room – where no one can find you? Show us here.
Draw (or colour) your secret room
- If you have access to a printer, print the activity card and colour in the line drawing.
- If you do not have access to a printer, create your own room, using pen, pencil and a blank piece of paper.
What does your final composition look like? What would you try if you did it again? Share it with us at #AGOmakes @AGOToronto