Overview

A stunning full-colour art book and the first to explore the career of award-winning visual artist Sandra Meigs Part philosopher, part filmmaker, performer, writer, tinkerer, prankster, conjurer, naturalist, upholsterer, and teacher, Sandra Meigs has typically been referred to as a painter. But she engages whatever media or form she chooses to probe to the limits of the ideas circulating in her work. Meigs's work has been presented across Canada, the U.S., and Europe; it is represented in major public and corporate collections; and, among many accolades, she received the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2015 and the prestigious Gershon Iskowitz Prize in 2015. The book tracks how Meigs herself understands her art and her career, a story told through 17 major projects that best demonstrate her preoccupations; four essays written by Meigs and accompanied by sketches original to the book; as well as long-term research and investigations. The Way Between Things: The Art of Sandra Meigs samples a prolific and extraordinary artistic oeuvre.

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9781770415973

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Reviews

For more than four decades, Canadian artist Sandra Meigs has engaged her volcanic creativity to produce paintings, installations, kinetic sculptures, and sound works that express her distinctive subjectivity. Exploring personal narratives, interior spaces warped by memory, gendered experiences of the natural world, Gothic themes and slapstick comedy, and mystical states, Meigs leads us down rabbit holes of consciousness to destinations that never fail to intrigue. -- Sarah Milroy, Chief Curator, McMichael Canadian Art Collection Both an artist's book and an art book, this stunning publication brings together Sandra Meigs's extraordinarily varied and original oeuvre in a long overdue overview. The combination of Helen Marzolf's clearly written analyses, Meigs's varied forms of commentary, and the profusion of coloured images provides great insight and pleasure. A must-read for anyone interested in painting, contemporary art practices in Canada, and the work of this always surprising artist. -- Reesa Greenberg, Adjunct Research Professor, Art and Architectural History, Carleton University The Way Between Things leads readers, like guests, into the artist's space, an experiential ecosystem filled with emotion and wonder, and articulates and synthesizes Meigs' astonishing imagination. -- Galleries West Anyone who has been at all in touch with Canadian artmaking over the last three decades has been aware of the fierce, eccentric imagination and intelligence of Sandra Meigs and her work. But with The Way Between Things, the first substantial monograph on Meigs, even her biggest fans are likely to be amazed at the sheer range of her work and at a quality that never lets up. Those of us who have thought of her mostly as a painter will wake up to the importance of her work in film and installation. If we've been impressed all along by how Meigs's art has struck an unlikely balance between the tough and the cute, this new book forces us to refocus on the deep cultural insights and vision that drive it. -- Blake Gopnik, regular contributor to the New York Times and author of Warhol, a comprehensive biography of the Pop artist Energy, fearlessness, and commitment to the prompting of the imagination are the qualities I attribute to the art of Sandra Meigs. I don't know if Sol LeWitt would have recognized her as a conceptual artist, but she definitely fulfills his dictum that 'irrational thoughts should be followed absolutely and logically.' The rigor with which she realizes her dark projects is in itself a joy. I envy Helen Marzolf for having been able to immerse herself so deeply in this oeuvre which is, as she concludes, 'disarming, mysterious but unfailingly familiar, and ultimately transformative.' -- Barry Schwabsky, art critic, poet, and author of The Perpetual Guest: Art in the Unfinished Present (2016) and The Observer Effect: On Contemporary Painting (2020)

Anyone who has been at all in touch with Canadian artmaking over the last three decades has been aware of the fierce, eccentric imagination and intelligence of Sandra Meigs and her work. But with The Way Between Things, the first substantial monograph on Meigs, even her biggest fans are likely to be amazed at the sheer range of her work and at a quality that never lets up. Those of us who have thought of her mostly as a painter will wake up to the importance of her work in film and installation. If we've been impressed all along by how Meigs's art has struck an unlikely balance between the tough and the cute, this new book forces us to refocus on the deep cultural insights and vision that drive it. -- Blake Gopnik, regular contributor to the New York Times and author of Warhol, a comprehensive biography of the Pop artist Both an artist's book and an art book, this stunning publication brings together Sandra Meigs's extraordinarily varied and original oeuvre in a long overdue overview. The combination of Helen Marzolf's clearly written analyses, Meigs's varied forms of commentary, and the profusion of coloured images provides great insight and pleasure. A must-read for anyone interested in painting, contemporary art practices in Canada, and the work of this always surprising artist. -- Reesa Greenberg, Adjunct Research Professor, Art and Architectural History, Carleton University Energy, fearlessness, and commitment to the prompting of the imagination are the qualities I attribute to the art of Sandra Meigs. I don't know if Sol LeWitt would have recognized her as a conceptual artist, but she definitely fulfills his dictum that 'irrational thoughts should be followed absolutely and logically.' The rigor with which she realizes her dark projects is in itself a joy. I envy Helen Marzolf for having been able to immerse herself so deeply in this oeuvre which is, as she concludes, 'disarming, mysterious but unfailingly familiar, and ultimately transformative.' -- Barry Schwabsky, art critic, poet, and author of The Perpetual Guest: Art in the Unfinished Present (2016) and The Observer Effect: On Contemporary Painting (2020)

Author Information

Sandra Meigs is an award-winning Canadian painter and Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria. She derives the content of her work from her own personal experiences and develops these to create visual metaphors related to the psyche, and is dedicated to the possibilities of enchantment that painting presents through color and form. Her work resides in many major art galleries across Canada, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Vancouver Art Gallery. She lives in Hamilton, Ontario. As Executive Director of Open Space, an artist-run center in Victoria, British Columbia, Helen Marzolf presented Sandra Meigs's The Basement Panoramas in 2013. Marzolf has organized contemporary art projects and publications at Open Space, the Dunlop Art Gallery, the Mendel Art Gallery, the Mackenzie Art Gallery (Regina), University of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon), University of Alberta, University of Victoria, and Carleton University. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia.

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