Young professionals, you are itching to take a road trip out of the city for the day? Are you looking for something that will thrill you visually and stimulate you mentally? Join film maker and artist Jill Sharpe at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection on Sunday, April 28, for the first Toronto film screening of BONE WIND FIRE, an intimate and evocative journey into the hearts, minds, and eyes of Georgia O’Keeffe, Emily Carr, and Frida Kahlo – three of the twentieth century’s most remarkable artists. At 1:30 p.m. Jill Sharpe will present an artist’s talk to the public on her painting series inspired by the film and her artistic journey through these creative projects. Public film screenings run at 2:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m., and there will also be a selection of Carr paintings on display, all free with gallery admission.
Jill Sharpe has been making films since the early 1990s. Her interests, and accordingly the subjects of her films, range from social justice issues to media and culture, and more recently to painting. Her documentary work includes In the Company of Fear (1999); CultureJam: Hijacking Commercial Culture (2002); Weird Sex and Snowshoes: A Trek Through the Canadian Cinematic Psyche (2004); Girls Don’t Fight (2005); Corporations in the Classroom (2007); and now BONE WIND FIRE.
BONE WIND FIRE was inspired by both the book and travelling exhibit Carr, O’Keeffe, Kahlo: Places of Their Own, first presented at the McMichael in 2001 and guest-curated by Sharyn Udall, who also worked as consultant on the film. The film is a meditation on the work of the artists, each of whom centered much of their work on the environments in which they painted; Georgia O’Keeffe’s extraordinary desert landscapes of New Mexico, Emily Carr’s lush rain forests of British Columbia, and Frida Kahlo’s heat and dust of Mexico City. Using the women’s own words from more than 6,000 pages of the artists’ letters and diaries, the thirty-minute film is not a traditional documentary, but rather a “creative non-fiction” film using image, sound and tone to engage the viewer on an emotional and aesthetic level rather than merely an intellectual one. Vancouver Sun film critic Katherine Monk describes it as “a rich impressionistic essay on nothing less than the artist’s place in the universe.”
This film has an elegant ambiance to it that pulls from Sharpe’s artistic side and portrays such a lovely piece of three profound artists that have shaped our creative world as we know it.
Don’t forget, YPs partiers: Power Plant’s POWER BALL: 15MINUTES is coming up Thursday, June 6th and tickets are on sale now!
Come out and support the gallery’s largest annual fundraiser. From its inception in 1999, Power Ball has set the standard as the most influential, vibrant and original contemporary art party. Attracting a sophisticated “who’s who” crowd of artists, fashionistas, celebrities, and financiers from the world of film, advertising, music, design, and art, this is one sensational party providing vital funds to the exhibition and public programs at The Power Plant.
See you there – HEART ART!