Lorraine Simms: Shadowland at the Redpath Museum

McBride Contemporain is pleased to share the upcoming exhibition by Lorraine Simms at the Redpath Museum as a part of her Shadowland series. Drawings from her ongoing series will be exhibited within the permanent collections throughout the two second-floor galleries. 

 

OCTOBER 19 – DECEMBER 15, 2023

OPENING

Thursday October 19, 5 – 7 pm

Artist in attendance

 

Redpath Museum

859 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, Quebec, H3A 0C4
Tel. : 514-398-4861

Opening hours: 
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday: 9:30 to 16:30 
Saturday, Sunday, and Monday: Closed  

In these works, Simms faithfully represents the shadows cast by the skulls and bones of endangered animals. Working with specimens from the vast collections at the American Museum of Natural History in New York (NY), the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa (Ontario), and here, at the Redpath Museum in Montreal, Simms’s drawings explore concepts of absence, empathy, and loss. These ghostly drawings suggest disappearance, both of individual animals and of their species.

Time expands in these drawings: months of forensic attention are devoted to the process of transforming traced outlines into luminous grey tones. The subtle sense of movement created by these transparent overlapping shadows conjures the spirit, or ghost, of each animal. This haunting evocation of a once living animal encourages feelings of reverence, empathy, and kinship.

Lorraine Simms has exhibited her work across Canada and in the United States over a career that spans more than 30 years. Drawings from Shadowland  have been widely exhibited, including at the Canadian Museum of Nature (Ottawa), the Beaty Museum of Biodiversity (Vancouver), and the Illingworth Kerr Gallery (Calgary). Simms is the recipient of numerous grants from the Conseil des arts et des letters du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts. Lorraine Simms is based in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal. 

Built in 1882 to preserve and display the collections of Victorian naturalist Sir William Dawson, the Redpath Museum is now home to a vast collection of scientific and cultural artifacts.