Beyond The Group of Seven: What is 'Canadian Art' anyway?
In the context of decolonization, there is no such thing as 'Canadian art.'
As a native British Columbian, born in the north of the province and raised in the southern Fraser Valley/Lower Mainland, this CBC piece on decolonizing Canadian art got me thinking a bit differently, even now as a 20-year resident of Ontario, than it might have if I’d been born and raised in Ontario. Despite all attempts from central Canada, Ontario's love affair with the Group of Seven simply cannot be extrapolated across the country as representative of 'Canadian Art;’ indeed it wasn't until I moved to Ontario at 20 years old that I first heard about the Group of Seven painters. In the above piece, Matteo Cimellaro correctly suggests, about the Group of Seven, that