With many of the biggest art fairs coming to a close, November brings with it art events at independent spaces and smaller galleries that are just as praise-worthy as the large-scale presentations of early autumn. For November’s roundup, I've selected exhibitions featuring Canadian artists or with a distinct Canadian dimension taking place throughout the United Kingdom. Also included are significant exhibitions happening in Canada and online. Read on and find out what you should be adding to your cultural dairy this month.

2021 Sobey Art Award Exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada

8 October, 2021 – 22 February, 2022
November will bring with it the announcement of the winner of the Sobey Art Award, the most prestigious art award for emerging artists in Canada. This makes the current exhibition of the shortlisted artists at the National Gallery of Canada incredibly relevant to your November cultural itinerary. The group exhibition features five artists from across Canada in the early stages of their career who stood out as the most promising artists residing in Canada today. The artists are Gabi Dao, Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, Rajni Perera, Lorna Bauer and Rémi Belliveau, each bringing their own distinct voice to the fold of internationally lauded Canadian art. Regardless of who wins first prize, all shortlisted artists are awarded prestigious recognition along with a substantial monetary prize of $25,000, a sum that will make a huge impact for each recipient at the early stages of their careers. Find out about each artist on the National Gallery of Canada's website, and sign up for our newsletter to hear about updates on the Sobey Art Award.

The Theatre Centre: Sea Sick by Alanna Mitchell at Tramway

2nd November, 7:00 pm

Although not strictly contemporary art, this touring show is a witty and urgent must-see theatre performance in which award-winning Canadian journalist and author Alanna Mitchell speaks about our dying oceans. Science and storytelling come together to present this production about the “switch of life” that is the ocean, one that threatens to be switched off if we continue on our trajectory with climate change.

*Wünder Womxn* at Beers London installation image, October 2021. Photography by Damian Griffiths.

WÜNDER WOMXN: The Female Figurative at Beers London

24 October 2021 – 27 November 2021

You would think that subverting the portraiture of the female figure would no longer be a necessary exercise in 2021. Alas, the prevailing number of female nudes in contrast to the shockingly low number of female artists in art museums speaks volumes on who has the authority to perceive and who must relinquish agency in order to be perceived. With this in mind, this exhibition at Beers London is a much-welcomed reconsideration of how the female figure is represented, from the situated perspective of women artists. The international group show offers a wealth of interpretations of this artistic archetype, all depicted through the medium of painting. Included in the roster is emerging Canadian artist Erin Armstrong, whose colourful figurative paintings reveal aspects of her graphic design background and insightful consideration of composition.

Sutapa Biswas, *Housewives with Steak-knives*, 1984-85, Oil, acrylic, pastel, pencil, white tape, collage on paper mounted onto stretched canvas, 2450 x 2220mm. © Sutapa Biswas. All rights reserved, DACS/Artimage 2020. Photo: Andy Keate

Sutapa Biswas: Lumen at Kettle’s Yard

16 October 2021 – 30 January 2022

British Indian artist Sutapa Biswas is an important figure in British contemporary art history, having made major contributions to the British Black Arts Movement and beyond. This solo exhibition at Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge, showcases many of the artist’s most seminal works across film, painting, photography and drawing, in addition to a newly commissioned film which presents a semi-fictional narrative of migration, a continuation of the visually and conceptually disruptive lineage in her works. Hailed as an artist who helped shift our perception of eurocentrism in her long-term project of decolonising art, Sutapa has spent considerable time in Canada in the early 90s, making her mark on the cultural milieu of both sides of the Atlantic.

Christiane Baumgartner, Stairway to Heaven, 2019. A set of five woodcuts on Kozo paper.

Christiane Baumgartner: Wish you were here at Cristea Roberts

29 October - 4 October

German artist Christiane Baumgartner uses digital and new media technologies to create monumental woodcuts for print creation. In this solo exhibition, the artist reveals some of her most ambitious work to date, including a series of monochrome woodcuts from 2019 titled Stairway to Heaven of a waterfall outside of Quebec City. The series took several months to complete, and the result is a dynamic portrayal of nature’s majesty through the mediation of balance and perspective, whereby the horizons of each image meet to obscure their frames.

Lucy Stein, Wet Room, 2021. Installation view, Spike Island, Bristol. Photograph by Max Mcclure.

Lucy Stein: Wet Room at Spike Island

25 September 2021 – 16 January 2022

Another British artist whose time spent in Canada has helped inform their practice, Lucy Stein’s solo show at Spike Island in Bristol continues with her exploration of Western esotericism. Inspired by the fogou, which are neolithic underground passages of West Cornwall, Wet Room recalls the birthing rituals said to have taken place in these narrow corridors and consist of a tiled wall with hand-painted sceneries relating to mythology along with a bath and sink with running taps. Surrounding this central installation are paintings that again reflect a deep study of myth and spirituality, evoking biblical characters, medieval symbolism and more.

Karen Tam, 金山夢 Gold Mountain Dreams (Flag), 2021. Embroidery, sequins, satin, denim, 81.28 x 88.9 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Hugues Charbonneau, Montreal. Photo credit: Jean-Michael Seminaro.

Autumn Tigers: Karen Tam, Online Exhibition hosted by Art Canada Institute

If you're unable to make it across the pond to experience culture in Canada, I find that the Art Canada Institute often provides a fresh and invigorating take on Canadian contemporary art. Currently on show on their platform is Autumn Tigers, an online exhibition by Montreal-based Chinese Canadian artist Karen Tam which was originally shown at Campbell River Art Gallery in British Columbia. With research evidencing an increase of racially motivated attacks on East Asians across the diaspora since the beginning of COVID-19, this timely exhibition addresses both systemic violence and the resilience of Chinese Canadians living in Canada, paying tribute to Canada's many Chinatowns that are culturally significant to several metropolises.

FRAUD, Critical Raw Materials, a EURO⁠—VISION, 2019. Image by Francisca Roseiro. Courtesy of the artists.

EURO⁠—VISION: Critical Raw Materials Unsung: online

A phenomenal example of web-based art that serves to do more than just look nice, EURO—VISION is an artist-led inquiry into decolonising geopolitics commissioned by RADAR of Loughborough University. Supported by both Canada Council for the Arts and Arts Council England, this project rethinks extraction beyond the European gaze of displacement and instead through the lens of the materials themselves. The result is something that sits comfortably between academia, research and archives, the kind of interdisciplinary achievement that would be hard-pressed to thrive in any space other than the contemporary arts.

Have some Canadian talent you'd like us to showcase? Get in touch at admin@canadaukfoundation.org today.

What's On: Canadian Influences in Contemporary Art this November