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The Exhibition:

The exhibition centres on Kiyooka's art between 1970 and 1971, the most intensivepersonal, creative and productive period of the artist's life (he was 45 year old at that time). In the span of 16 months, Kiyooka completed the StoneD Gloves: Alms for Soft Palms, which was presented in 1970 at the National Gallery in Ottawa, followed by the Cedar Laminated Sculpture series, which were featured - along with the Ottoman/Court Suite of silk-screen prints - at the Bau Xi Gallery in Vancouver in 1971. The 16 Cedar Laminated Sculpture exhibition at the Bau Xi Gallery in Vancouver in May of 1971 was a celebration of his art and culmination as a maker of art. This was the only exhibition of the cedar sculpture during his lifetime. Writing on his decision to shift his creative interests from the studio arts to the written word in the catalogue Roy Kiyooka: 25 Years, he stated that by the late 1960's he had come to " … a dead-end viz painting …" but that he still wanted to continue making "something". The cedar laminates continue his work as a painter: "… the cedar laminates take up the ellipses again and sandwich them in 3D. I wanted them to be of a size that would have an actual presence in a room. I wanted them to be of a size that could be handled, a bulge, if you want, in your line of sight. A presence you couldn't ignore …".

Curated by Harry Kiyooka, his brother, artist, and academic - the exhibition iscentered on 13 cedar sculptures of the 16 that comprised the series. The presentation will reconstruct (informally) the Bau Xi exhibition of 1971, with anadditional focus on the hoarfrost and ellipse paintings from the 1950's and 1960's, and the 1970's Ottoman Series of silkscreen prints. Videos on the artists, poetry reading and panel discussion on the underlying reasons for Kiyooka's mid-life change of artistic direction and consequence will be presented in a series of adjunct segments accompanying this exhibition.

Click here to view the rest of The Roy Kiyooka Collection