Wallace Brannen 1952-2014

A retrospective of the late NSCAD master printer’s work offers closure to the community

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COURTESY THE ARTIST

You can see Wallace Brannen 1952-2014 until July 25.

A baseball caught in a glove, a bat in mid-swing, a mustard-drizzled hot dog, cheeks smeared with black greasepaint: for artist Wallie Brannen, there was a time when his sons' little league baseball diamond became his studio.

The resulting photographic banners are some of the works currently on display at the Anna Leonowens gallery in Wallace Brannen 1952-2014, a retrospective and tribute—organized by his wife, Arianne Pollet-Brannen—that also features works from his time as NSCAD's lithography workshop's master printer and his years instructing art in Baffin Island, Nunavut.

The show has given community members the opportunity to gather nearly a year after Brannen's sudden disappearance and passing to celebrate his life and the work produced in over 40 years of making. The carefully selected works show him to have been a skilled printmaker, a gifted arts student, dedicated father, valued mentor and an expert in his field—all qualities that show what a tremendous resource he truly was and what a terrible loss his passing is for the arts community.

"He would always work for the object," says Pollet-Brannen of her late husband, remarking on his meticulous eye and fierce attention to detail in whatever field he found himself working. It seems altogether fitting that her tribute to him should be an exhibition of such objects—whether a child's mobile, an artist's chop or a print of an elephant in an arctic landscape.

Wallace Brannen 1952-2014
To July 25
Anna Leonowens Gallery, 1891 Granville Street