Solstice: Renewing Our Bond With Winter
Story by Katherine Fawcett
Karin Bubaš, Woman with Eagles, 2017
Chromogenic print on paper. 101.6 x 289.56 cm
Audain Art Museum Collection. Gift of Michael Audain and Yoshiko Karasawa, 2017.003
Moody, reflective, and richly atmospheric, the upcoming Audain Art Museum exhibition Solstice: Through Storm and Stillness considers winter as both a physical season and an emotional state. The exhibition, on display from Oct. 3, 2026, to April 12, 2027, brings together works by celebrated and influential Canadian artists from the AAM’s permanent collection, including Gordon Smith, Gathie Falk, Karin Bubaš, Andrew Dadson, Kim Dorland, and Landon Mackenzie, alongside rarely seen works on loan from prominent private collections in Vancouver. Through painting, sculpture, and photography, the exhibition highlights themes of endurance, resilience, stillness, and transformation.
“Solstice invites viewers to pause and reflect on their relationship to life’s more difficult seasons through artworks shaped by the atmosphere, stillness, and emotional resonance of winter,” says Assistant Curator Cassidy Luteijn. "The exhibition offers a space for contemplation, connection, and renewal.”
Viewers can expect to see works from artists whose practices engage with landscape, memory, emotion, and the passage of time. Together, the pieces consider winter not only as a season of hardship but also as a necessary period of pause, reflection, and renewal.
Solstice: Through Storm and Stillness also marks the official renaming of the AAM’s Upper Galleries as the Gordon Smith Mezzanine, honouring Smith’s extraordinary contributions to the artistic and cultural landscape of B.C.
Gathie Falk, Arsenal, 2015
bronze with white patina, 71.12 x 80 x 66 cm
Audain Art Museum Collection.
Purchased with funds from the Audain Foundation, 2015.046
Gordon Smith, Winterscape, 1991
acrylic on canvas, 173.04 x 257.5 cm
Audain Art Museum Collection.
Gift of Michael Audain and Yoshiko Karasawa, 2015.014