Visions of British Columbia: A Landscape Manual

Quintessential British Columbia revealed through the eyes of its greatest artists and writers.

Visions of British Columbia took as its starting point a major exhibition at the Vancouver Art Galley, opening to coincide with the 2010 Winter Games. The show focused on the work of more than twenty remarkable artists, including the Haida masters Bill Reid and Robert Davidson; Kwakwaka’wakw carver Willie Seaweed; modernist painters Emily Carr and Group of Seven member Frederick Varley; mentors and pioneers Jack Shadbolt and B.C. Binning; abstract painter Gordon Smith; photoconceptualists Ian Wallace and Jeff Wall; Salish artist Susan Point, Haida-Manga artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas and Korean-Canadian Jin-me Yoon.

Allied to the art is writing about B.C. from acclaimed authors as diverse as Douglas Coupland, Timothy Taylor, Ethel Wilson, Audrey Thomas and Wayson Choy. Malcolm Lowry’s poem Happiness echoes B.C. Binning’s colourful seascapes; Daphne Marlatt’s reflections on overfishing parallel Susan Point’s salmon sculpture. Both text and art speak to the diverse visions of this place, its peoples and its histories.

This book was published in partnership with the Vancouver Art Gallery.