Catherine Heard's Votive installation at St. Anne's Church / photo Barbara Solowan
There are many churches in Toronto, but few as remarkable as St. Anne’s on Gladstone Avenue in the city’s west end, celebrating its 150th anniversary this month. Think of it as the art church: it’s best known for murals by three members of the Group of Seven—J.E.H. MacDonald, F.H. Varley and Franklin Carmichael—and for its statues by Florence Wyle and Frances Loring. In 2010, Shary Boyle collaborated with musician Christine Fellows for an overhead-projection performance there as part of the Images Festival. Now, in a short run that ends this weekend, local artists’ collective NetherMind has transformed the church with large-scale installations in an event entitled “Mirabilia.” From Mary Catherine Newcomb’s wheat-field-among-the-pews to Tom Dean’s etched-glass version of the Ten Commandments to Max Streicher’s gigantic inflatable sculptures, it’s a not-to-be-missed spectacle. Canadian Art’s art director Barbara Solowan recently visited St. Anne’s and documented the mayhem and the mysticism; to view her pictures, click on the photos icon above.
