Special Project: Tea with the Queens

June 7, 2023 - June 29, 2023

featuring David Bierk’s
“Portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II”

David Bierk, Christian Chapman, Spencer J. Harrison,
and Charles Pachter

Special Project: Tea with the Queens is a short-run project that has been developed to offer the public an opportunity to see David Bierk’s painting, “Portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II” before it goes into collection storage joining the Permanent Collection.

Made for the Peterborough Memorial Centre, the painting was installed on January 9, 1980, where it presided over countless sports games, concerts, and events until the State Funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on September 19, 2022. The original commissioning documents, which are held at Trent Valley Archives, state that if the painting ever needed to be removed it should be donated to the Art Gallery of Peterborough, or the Peterborough Public Library, whichever was preferred. The Art Gallery of Peterborough acquired the painting for the Permanent Collection earlier this year.

“Growing up, I saw my dad’s massive painting of the Queen at Pete’s games, high in the Memorial Centre. My brother Zac told me how players tried to aim for it with pucks during practice. I find it special how the painting intersects my dad’s love of sports and his life as an artist, and how it hung over my brother Zac’s head in goal as he played for the Petes. The public reacted strongly when it was taken down. I’m so happy that it ended up in the collection of the Art Gallery of Peterborough to be kept safe and continue to live on in our community.” – City Councillor, Alex Bierk

From the evening of June 7 to June 29, it will hang in the gallery alongside works by artists who are Indigenous, queer, and living with disabilities.

David Bierk, Portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 1980, oil on canvas. Dimensions: 12’ x 8’ Collection of the Art Gallery of Peterborough. Acquired, 2023

Charles Pachter, THE CURTSEY TRIPTYCH, 1972, acrylic on canvas boards

Spencer J. Harrison,One of Her Entourage, 2023, graphite, pencil crayon, Masters Thesis proof, and found objects on opaque mylar

Christian Chapman, Past, from Past, Present and Future of the Anishinabe People, 2013, acrylic on canvas, screen print. On loan from the Flegel Collection

Drag Queens Sahira Q and Betty Baker stand in front of a painting of Queen Elizabeth II by artist David Bierk

RELATED EVENT

Opening Reception: June 7, 2023 from 7:00 – 9:00 pm

EVENT
Afternoon Tea with the Queens

Accompanying this exhibition is a series of afternoon tea sittings in the main gallery. Hosted by local drag performers Betty Baker and Sahira Q, and in the presence of portraits of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, these afternoon teas will treat you like royalty.

Image: Drag performers, Sahira Q (left) and Betty Baker (right), pose in front of David Bierk’s “Portrait of Queen Elizabeth II.” Photo by Zach Ward.

David Bierk was born in Appleton, Minnesota, in 1944, and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. He studied at the California College of Arts & Crafts in Oakland, California, and subsequently taught art in the Bahamas for several years. He returned to California to study at Humboldt State University in Arcata, where he received an M.F.A. in painting and photography.

Bierk immigrated to Canada in 1972 and took up a teaching position in Peterborough, Ontario. In 1974, he founded Artspace, an artist-run centre, that he directed until 1987. It was then that he decided to devote himself to the full-time pursuit of his career as an artist. A passionate painter and a prolific exhibitor, Bierk successfully established an international reputation for his work.

He had eight children and lived and painted in Peterborough until his death from leukemia in August 2002. In 1998, he was elected a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, and in 2002 was posthumously awarded the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal.

Christian Chapman is of Anishinabe heritage from Fort William First Nation. Christian uses storytelling as a main theme in his practice to create his images in paint, print and analog film media. The act of storytelling has been an important part of his life: it has informed him of his culture by shaping his identity, personal experiences, and worldview. Recent exhibitions include “Ziibaaska’iganagoodayan-Jingledresses,” Ojibwe Cultural Foundation Gallery, M’Chigeeng First Nation. (2019) and “Anishinaabeg: Art and Power,” Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, ON (2017).

He has received numerous awards, such as the Hnatyshyn Foundation Reveal Art National Award Prize (2017), the Ontario Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Arts as Emerging Artist of the Year (2016), and the K. M. Hunter Artist Award of the Ontario Arts Foundation (2016). His work can be found in the art collections of the Library and Archives Canada, the Government of Ontario Art Collection, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, and the Thunder Bay Art Gallery, as well as in several private collections. Christian is currently creating new work for exhibitions in 2022 at Centre d’art Daphne, (Montreal, QC) and the Mann Art Gallery (Prince Albert, SK).

Spencer J. Harrison is an Artist, Activist, and Educator. Spencer has been painting and creating installation-based art for forty years, and his work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Spencer is the founder of Camp fYrefly, Ontario (a camp for LGBTQ2S&A youth) and has been teaching in the Drawing and Painting department of OCAD University for more than ten years. Spencer also holds the honour of completing the first painted Ph.D. dissertation in Canada, with the body of work titled, Not a Freak Show: Growing Up Gay in Rural Ontario, which was exhibited at the Art Gallery of Peterborough in 2017.

Charles Pachter is a painter, printmaker, sculptor, designer, historian, lecturer, and one of Canada’s leading contemporary artists. His iconic pop images of the queen, moose, and maple leaf flag celebrate Canada’s cultural heritage with wit and whimsy.

Pachter’s contributions to Canadian culture have been recognized with honorary doctorates from Brock University, OCAD University, the University of Toronto, and Lakehead University. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada, a member of the Order of Ontario, a Chevalier of France’s Order of Arts and Letters and a recipient of the Queen’s Golden and Diamond Jubilee medals.

Pachter studied at the University of Toronto, the Sorbonne, and at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in the USA. His work has been exhibited at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Royal Ontario Museum, and the McMichael Gallery. He has held solo exhibitions in France, Germany, Japan, the UK, India, and Bangladesh. He is represented in public and private collections around the world.