Rebecca Anweiler

Rebecca Anweiler (born September 11, 1959) is a contemporary Canadian visual artist based in Kingston, Ontario. She has been exhibiting works in oil painting, new media and video since 2000. She has taught at Queen’s University at Kingston for 15 years. Most notably her works are in the collections of the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, the City of Toronto, and the University of Lethbridge.

Early life and education Rebecca Anweiler was born in Hamilton, Ontario on September 11, 1959.

Anweiler attended the University of Guelph for a Bachelor’s of Science. Studying biology, she did not originally study painting, but topics of biology, gender and sexuality that stem from this degree are common themes in her artistic practice.

She then moved to Toronto to attend the University of Toronto. She received a Master of Education from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) in 1994. Anweiler then attended the Ontario College of Art and Design (now OCAD University), where she received an Associates Degree in drawing and painting in 1997.

Specializing in painting, she later attended Concordia University in 2000 for her Masters of Fine Art. While attending Anweiler was awarded J. W. McConnell Memorial Fellowship.

Artistic Practice and Influences Much of Anweiler’s work is done in a photo-realistic style, or “soft photo-realism” as termed by the contemporary artist Jon Davies because Anweiler’s style “evokes not simulates her source photos,” which she derives from encyclopedias and textbooks produced through the 1950s. Many of her earlier works are grisailles, which David Jager compares to the artist Mark Tansey’s style. Anweiler’s style emphasizes the inherent symbolism in everyday imagery through the reproduction of these images. Through reproduction Anweiler calls attention to how social norms of the past continue to be recreated in the present.

Anweiler’s background in science and education are key influences in her artistic practice. Anweiler uses her artistic practice as a form of critique for Western science and colonialism, calling into question how inflexible mainstream scientific institutions are in terms of inexplicable phenomena often attributed to the supernatural. Anweiler holds these themes in relation to her concerns around the climate crisis. As seen in Anweiler’s exhibition I Wish You Were Here, wherein Anweiler painted a series of picturesque Canadian landscapes, she critically omits the infrastructure of the resource extraction industry which characterize many of those scenes today.

Anweiler’s work also seeks to investigate how understandings of human sexuality and sexual orientation emerge in scientific discourses around biological determinism and the natural world. Anweiler calls to attention how sexism, racism, and heteronormativity simultaneously structure the production of scientific knowledge around human biology and social mores around sex. Seen in the exhibition Sexual/Nature, Anweiler interrogates how the “normal” is constructed for sexuality. Specifically selecting images from educational sources, Anweiler’s work observes that images of the “natural” or “normal” are highly constructed to convey specific meanings around what is acceptable, such as the nuclear family, and what is made to be taboo, such as homosexuality.

Key works Passing Through Passing Through is a collection of small oil on linen paintings, grouped in series. This exhibit was at the David Kaye Gallery in April of 2017.

The show explored animal intelligence, telepathic communication and spirituality through a photo installation, a video work and an interactive computer program in Modern Fuel’s State of Flux gallery, which is a space designed for locally-based emerging or mid-career artists to show their work.

This show contained an “experiment,” about the potential psychic connection between the dead pets chosen for the show and gallery goers. This experiment led participants to spiritually connect with one of the animals, which were deceased pets from the Kingston area, and then measure their connection objectively through the program’s database of information about each pet. The goal of the experiment was to observe whether participants truly did communicate with the spirits of the deceased animals by how much information they knew about the animal.

I Wish You Were Here I Wish You Were Here, shown in 2012, is Anweiler’s second exhibition at the David Kaye Gallery.

Manifestations of a Different Nature Manifestations of a Different Nature is one of three exhibitions Anweiler has had displayed in the David Kaye Gallery in Toronto.

Described as “a paddling arts residency,” over the course of two weeks a group of community members—ranging from artists to activists—canoed, camped, and created along the Rideau Canal from Kingston to Ottawa. Throughout this process, participants created art that explored their relationality between space, community, and information.

The project was broken down into five parts: “Act One: Toward an Eventual Energetics (Kingston)”, “Act Two, Scene One: Beginning in the Middle (Rideau Canal, Kingston)”, “Act Two, Scene Two: To Exhaust and Endure (Rideau Canal, en route)”, “Act Two, Scene Three: Fragility and Arrival (Rideau Canal, Ottawa)”, and “Act Three: Performing the Anarchive (Gallery 101, Ottawa).”

Dubbed “an experimental field school,” residencies held by MLS focus on creating educational and creative spaces beyond the classroom in order for participants to engage with how they are situated in the environment around them. Part of this process is the act of camping and community building that develops care between participants and care for the land. As each residency is different, Anweiler’s residency looks at the ontology of escapism and mythos as a form of knowledge production.

Other exhibitions One of Anweiler’s first exhibitions after completing her MFA at Concordia was Longing for Paradise at the Toronto based BUSgallery in 2000. This two-person show was alongside Guelph-based painter Pearl Van Geest. Their work both focused on topics of what is considered public and private as well as the subject of traditional femininity.

Anweiler participated in Art Shift at the Union Gallery in Kingston, Ontario. Located on the Queen’s University campus, the Union Gallery is student-centred and aims to support the education of young artists. Art Shift was a 2009 project that brought together artists from different generations, both emerging and established artists, who would work together in a creative exchange while providing professional development to participants. The exhibition “Conflux” happened at the end of the Art Shift project and was in the Union Gallery’s main space. The show featured one of Anweiler’s paintings entitled “Storm Bird II,” from Anweiler’s earlier exhibition Manifestations of a Different Nature.