JoEllen Brydon in her home studio in Mount Pleasant where she creates colourful, whimsical paintings depicting scenes telling stories that are sometimes personal but always insightful, using bright colours, wavy lines and often text to underline her point. A new, very personal exhibit opens at Peterborough Art Gallery this month, called Elizabeth Thompson Advises. It is an extensive, multi-media exhibit that pays tribute to her late mother who wrote an advice column for the Globe and Mail for twelve years. The project features paintings depicting scenes from the letters the column addressed, along with artifacts and audio recordings providing a glimpse of a reader’s personal struggles.
JoEllen is a professional visual artist who has lived in the hamlet of Mount Pleasant for most of her life. Her Irish background has her leaning into storytelling, but not the grand epic kind.
Her work reflects everyday events that form the foundation of a culture- a Canadian, largely rural one. Her paintings tell simple stories that explore relationships with family, community and the natural environment. Many of her pieces incorporate brief descriptions of the story depicted in the painting, to reinforce the nuances the work is illustrating, just to make sure we get the point.
She recently completed a very personal new work called Elizabeth Thompson Advises. It arrives at the Art Gallery of Peterborough on April 18th after an exhibition at the Grimsby Public Art Gallery. This large scale, mixed media project is based on the career of another story-teller: JoEllen’s late mother. Under the pen name Elizabeth Thompson, Jean Armstrong Brydon, a journalist trained at the University of Western Ontario, wrote an advice column from 1966 to 1978 for the Toronto Globe and Mail national newspaper. JoEllen’s project celebrates her mother’s career incorporating actual clips from the column accompanied by original paintings depicting the underlying situation, original letters and photographs as well as an audio component.
The project is a tribute to JoEllen’s mother, who used her column to tackle current, sometimes controversial social issues of the times. As Elizabeth Thompson, she addressed important social issues such as homosexuality, women’s rights, gender roles and discrimination of minorities at a time when society was only beginning to show a willingness to explore these topics. She also answered letters about the mundane challenges of life: straying husbands, annoying neighbours, messy moms, spanking and the act of “going braless”. In her columns she often challenged the letter writer, encouraging them to look inward rather than pointing fingers. This approach often sparked lively debate as other readers weighed in, which ultimately fostered an exploration of all sides and complexities of the issue. Her column revealed a society grappling with modern social issues and offers intimate details about domestic life at that time.
While the project is a celebration of her mother’s insight and wisdom, it was not without challenges for JoEllen. Sorting through the trunk of newspapers, column clips, original letters and her mother’s responses she inherited on her mother’s passing, JoEllen discovered ones that hit a bit too close to home. It seemed that when the flow of actual letters did not address topics of interest to Jean, she took the liberty of creating some herself, often based on her own family’s experiences. JoEllen found it a bit disconcerting to read columns based on her own experiences, finding aspects of her own early life revealed through a national newspaper in columns about a young daughter named “Jenny”.
This project delves into specific moments within these letters, illustrating them through a series of playful, colourful oil and acrylic paintings exhibited alongside living history set pieces, photos and audio recordings, working together to create an intimate and immersive experience. Accompanying QR codes provide access to audio recordings of the letters and their replies. There are also small installations with vintage typewriters and telephones which deliver an audio recording of a letter being read. Short films depict letter-writers in their own environment, providing the illusion that visitors are peering into someone’s personal story.
The exhibition is an exploration of the stories people tell to others and themselves. The col-lection of colourful, whimsical paintings and multi-media installations portray a woman who as progressive, witty and direct, seeking not to coddle or placate her audience but to challenge them to do the work required to understand the complexity of modern life.
JoEllen’s work is represented in the Art Bank of Canada, the Canadian Museum of History, as well as in private collections in North American and the UK.
The Art Gallery of Peterborough (AGP) is a public gallery that exhibits and programs ,keeping pace with the art scene in Peterborough and beyond. Presenting contemporary visual art by artists from the region& across the nation, they offer new exhibitions, events and programs, and a stunning Gallery Shop year-round. For more information about current exhibitions and gallery hours, visit their website at: https://agp.on.ca/
The exhibition opens at 2pm on April 18th and runs to June28th. There is no admission to the Art Gallery of Peterborough, which is located at 250 Crescent Street in Peterborough and is open from 11 am to 5pm Wednesday through Sunday.
A bra-burning party circa 1970.
