Rose-Colored Glasses

Rose-Colored Glasses

May 2 – September 7, 2015

Sweetness, with a dash of bitter, Rose–Colored Glasses includes artworks that forge vibrant pathways into the imaginary. Student curators in Dr. Carmen Robertson’s “Curatorial Strategies” class at the University of Regina, in partnership with the MacKenzie Art Gallery, have brought together a selection of works from the MacKenzie’s permanent collection that engage the idea of play in a variety of ways. Fantastical paintings, sugar-coated video art, and the occasional banana invite viewers to step back from everyday realities and consider how artists playfully peel back the sober realities of adulthood to reveal themes and colors that, on first glance at least, promise a magical utopia.
 

Rose–Colored Glasses provides an opportunity to engage with childhood curiousity and innocence, while contending with notions of loss and the passage of time. Enter into a whimsical playground through artistic encounters with Jeff Koon’s Blue Balloon Dog or Jon Sasaki’s Hang in There. By contemplating Ryan Arnott’s decadently absurd Cake Hat or by peering into the dark corners of a pastel fairy tale captured in Kenneth Lochhead’s Emergence, this exhibition invites you to don a pair of rose-colored glasses and let your mind wander.

Rose–Coloured Glasses is a permanent collection exhibition organized through a partnership between the MacKenzie Art Gallery and the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Regina.