Art + Parcel 2025: a holiday sale
Art + Parcel 2025: a holiday sale
By Maureen Korp
The end of the year will soon be here, and what have you done for yourself? Or for others? It could be time to have a look at Art + Parcel 2025, an art sale of original works by Ottawa-Gatineau artists, modestly priced, domestically sized to fit into a home, apartment, office. It may be where you will find that bright, good thought to cheer your day or someone else’s. If so, buy it!
Art + Parcel 2025 is an annual exhibition at the Ottawa Art Gallery. It is a good, big show of textiles, painting, mixed media, photography, sculpture, ceramics.
The cost? Many works are in the $100–$350 range, some less than that, some a good bit more, but nothing over $1,000. Most of the work displayed is already beautifully framed, and the frames go home with the buyer too on the day of purchase.
A tabletop steel and bronze sculpture by Cairn Cunnane prompted a few timely thoughts for this writer. “Encounters with Times,” series 1, 2025, priced at $700, is a graceful calligraphic line, almost a mobius loop, two curves reaching towards infinity. Yet, held within the loop is a small, rippled case. What is it? Something found, something marked, shadowed? Is that not how we live with time?
Several small, framed textile compositions by Greta Grip have been worked with trailing threads and her sense of humour. “LFG,” 2025, $250, meshes purples and yellows into an elegant composition. Élie Crighton, gallery coordinator, told me it’s title “LFG” means “looking for group,” to play a game. Cat’s cradle, perhaps?
Frances Laube’s textile compositions invite storytelling with the kids. “Horses in the Sun,” 2025, $350, is a small, framed composition of four soft, fuzzy ponies in an open field with the sun shining bright. The white, grey and black ponies are all headed in one direction: not so, brown pony. It stands alone. Why? Maybe the lonely pony needs a pat. Gently touch the little one.
Two small collages by Rebecca Clouâtre also invite storytelling. Both are shadow-box framed, elegantly suspended from satin ribbon bows. “Vase with a Dragonfly,” 2025, $135, floats bits of flower and leaf with bird and dragonfly within the composition. Its ribbon is dark green. The shadow-box framing “Margarita,” 2025, $135, presents a very small figure standing alone atop a mound of flower blossoms. More is happening in the distance. What can it be?
Across the way are three large ceramic pots by Monica Rosenthal. They are subtle, tactile work. “Wrapped,” 2025, $350 is an open, round bowl with a textured, brown glaze. It appears darkest at the rim. Ten uniform strips of tan have been laid tightly together over a bit of the edge.
As many know, trees speak to those who walk with them and listen. Their whispers are wise. In keeping with traditional understandings, Dinho Bento brings us mixed-media portraits of street people located within urbane, storytelling tree-bark settings. “Blooming,” 2025, $600, centres a young face, sadly looking for someone, amid the colours of street murals. “Disposables,” 2025, $800, centres an older, bearded face within a setting of tree bark, embedded with throwaway bottles, village sleds and city street detritus.
Joyce Crago has long photographed flea market bits and pieces of anonymity, lost stories. “Detritus, Annie,” 2019, $500, displays a crystal jug laid on its side, a bit of red liquid still inside. On the outside of the jug are etched three words: “Annie London 1901.” Who was Annie? Is this a souvenir? A small card underneath reads “Hazel.” Who was Hazel? Is this hers?
Christopher Lee Dunning opens another line of thought with his small, framed acrylic painting, “Turning Point 24,” 2025, $750. A black swoop of a line reaches from a green field into dark yellows. Above is a dark red cross. Questions unanswered, to be sure.
Answers may be found in the poetry of flowers, as we see in the sumi-e calligraphic work of Lilith Ohan. The watercolour “Bloom Whisper,” 2017, $475, bends low with its soft orange petals. “Poem in Vase,” 2019, $450, does the same.
Look around, learn to see more of the world – here in the work of artists, there on the walls of your home.
Maureen Korp is a writer, historian, independent scholar. Her most recent book, THERE and HERE, a small collection of poetry, is available in Ottawa bookstores.
Art + Parcel 2025
Continuing until January 18
Galerie Annexe / Level 1 of the Ottawa Art Gallery
50 Mackenzie King Bridge
Gallery hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, Sunday: 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
Thursday, Friday, Saturday: 10 a.m.–9 p.m.
Free. Wheelchair accessible