On now till Sunday, January 4, 2026 – Emily Carr: Navigating an Impenetrable Landscape, organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery and curated by Richard Hill, the Smith Jarislowsky Senior Curator of Canadian Art. This new exhibition probes the artist’s profound belief in the beauty and spiritual vitality of BC’s forests.

20+ signature forest paintings by one of Canada’s most significant artists

Emily Carr: Navigating an Impenetrable Landscape recognizes the natural world as one of Carr’s lifelong inspirations, taking as its subject the experience of imaginatively entering the space of the forests that she painted. Visitors will encounter a densely hung group of paintings of thick forest scenes faced off on the opposite wall by a single Carr painting of a clear-cut landscape with an open horizon. The exhibition deliberately draws out the physical experience of the opening and closing-off of space in Carr’s forest scenes.

Carr captured the coastal forest landscape in a way previously unseen in British Columbian art. Driven by a Romantic desire for a spiritual union with nature, she was able to combine her knowledge of avant-garde Modernism from her studies in Europe with a deep engagement with the rainforests of BC’s West Coast to create a unique and powerful vision.

“As I came through the mountains, I longed to cast off my earthly body and float away through the great pure spaces between the peaks, up the quiet green ravines into the high, pure, clean air. Mr. Harris has painted those very spaces, and my spirit seems able to leave my body and roam among them.”

– Emily Carr, on travelling to Ontario to meet artist Lawren Harris

Works that create the experience of a dense, impenetrable forest

In many cases, the viewer is tantalized by the opportunity for connection with a carefully observed natural environment, while simultaneously hesitant at the prospect of imaginatively entering its depths. The exhibition is designed to look at space as a metaphor, particularly as experienced in the rainforests of the Pacific Northwest that surround Vancouver and dominate BC’s coastal landscape. Ironically, many of Carr’s spatially open works are open precisely because they depict landscapes that had been recently subject to clear-cut logging.

All landscape paintings are the product of an artist’s encounter with an observable reality that is then processed through the assumptions and choices they make in selecting and depicting what they have seen. In Carr’s case, she was both a careful observer – anyone who has spent time in the rainforests of the Pacific Northwest will have encountered dense walls of trees and undergrowth – and someone primed by a tradition going back to eighteenth-century Romanticism to seek spiritual transcendence in communion with nature.

“From my earliest encounters with Carr’s paintings I was struck by the density of her forests; not only the thickness of the growth, but the way she paints it. In her later works she stylizes trees and bushes into massed, solid volumes, often closing off space—or at least making it challenging to project yourself into the space of the painting. Recently, I wondered what her treatment of space might tell us about her aspiration to connect with nature. It seemed to me that spatially the paintings both promise and resist that impulse.”

– Richard Hill, the Smith Jarislowsky Senior Curator of Canadian Art at the Vancouver Art Gallery

The title of the exhibition suggests the paradox arising from a desire to navigate that which is impenetrable. It reflects the tension in Carr’s paintings – between the passionate wish for union with nature and the challenge posed to an artist hoping to render that experience with paint on canvas; in other words, as a form of visual culture. This exhibition also examines how Carr’s representation of some Indigenous subjects – particularly villages and totem poles set within landscapes – sit in relation to the dense forest and what this might suggest, given the late 19th- and early 20th-century tendency to conflate Indigenous cultures with nature.

About Emily Carr

Emily Carr (1871 – 1945) was a Canadian artist born in Victoria, BC. Carr slowly began to achieve commercial and critical success in the concluding years of her career, yet the renown she enjoyed barely compares to the esteem in which she is held so widely today. Her life is irrevocably connected with the Pacific Northwest Coast, the place where she was born and where she chose to spend the majority of her life. She attended the California School of Design and spent more than three years in San Francisco, where she received a traditional education in the depiction of still lifes and landscapes. Carr travelled to England and studied at the Westminster School of Art and in the private studios of several British watercolourists and during a year of study in France, Carr learned from a number of instructors how to paint in a Post-Impressionist style with a Fauvist palette. She returned to Vancouver in 1911, committed to representing Indigenous cultures of British Columbia. In 1927 her work was included in a National Gallery of Canada exhibition, and she first met the Group of Seven. Lawren Harris, of the Group of Seven, was a friend and mentor, and a great source of influence on the evolution of her work. She returned from this eastern trip to begin the most productive period of her career, creating the powerful canvases for which she is best known. Carr died in Victoria on May 2, 1945.

About the Vancouver Art Gallery

Founded in 1931, the Vancouver Art Gallery is recognized as one of North America’s most innovative visual arts institutions. The Gallery’s celebrated exhibitions, extensive public programs and emphasis on advancing scholarship all focus on historical and contemporary art from British Columbia and around the world.

(Photo credits: Emily Carr, Strangled by Growth, 1931, oil on canvas, Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Emily Carr Trust, VAG 42.3.42.)

 

Event details

Hosted by: Vancouver Art Gallery 

Type of event: art exhibition

Featured artist: Emily Carr 

Dates: On now till Sunday, January 4, 2026

Gallery hours: Unless otherwise noted, the Gallery is generally not open on Tuesdays. Please check the website, as the hours can change seasonally.

• Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays & Sundays: 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM PT
• Fridays: 10:00 AM – 8:00 PM PT
• Summer hours: Please note that, from May 20 to September 2, 2025, the Gallery will be open on Tuesdays from 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM PT.

Cost:

• Unlimited 12-months Access Pass: $58.00
• General admission (non-BC residents): C$35.00
• General admission (BC residents): C$29.00
• Youth (age 13-18), Child (age 12 and under), Indigenous Peoples, Gallery Members & Caregivers: Free
• Groups of 10 or more: C$25.00 each
• Admission is free on the first Friday of every month from 4:00 to 8:00 PM PT during Free First Friday Nights presented by BMO. Tickets will be released one month in advance of the event. Reserve a spot in advance to guarantee entry into the Gallery. (Walk-in tickets are also available based on capacity.)

Coupons and discounts cannot be claimed online. Please visit the Admissions Desk upon arrival to redeem and book your timed-entry tickets. Subject to availability.

Location: Vancouver Art Gallery, 750 Hornby Street, Vancouver, BC, V6Z 2H7

Booking link: Book your advance tickets here. You can also pay at the gallery on the day of your visit.

Contact Details: Vancouver Art Gallery, 750 Hornby Street, Vancouver, BC, V6Z 2H7, Canada; (604) 662-4700 (press 0), customerservice@vanartgallery.bc.ca, vanartgallery.bc.ca

 

Accessibility: The Vancouver Art Gallery is wheelchair accessible. Street-level access is available through the Hornby and Robson Street entrances, open during all public hours. Wheelchairs are available to visitors on a first-come, first-served basis or can be reserved before your visit by calling 604-662-4700. A Service Animal may accompany visitors to all public areas of the Gallery. For select exhibitions, the Vancouver Art Gallery offers visual description to enhance your exhibition experience and to make the artworks on display more accessible. To book a Described Tour, please contact Stephanie Bokenfohr, Adult Programs Coordinator, by email at sbokenfohr@vanartgallery.bc.ca or by phone at 604-662-4700.

Refund policy: All ticket sales are final and non-refundable.