On one of the coldest nights of the year, and the day after the most snow Toronto’s seen in a decade, I spent some time warming up by walking through The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), reacquainting myself with the collections.

I wasn’t familiar with the Indigenous galleries (I think they were under renovation for some time?) so it was a treat to come across a captivating work by one of my favourite Canadian artists, Norval Morrisseau.

The close-up above comes from the last panel of Morrisseau’s Man Changing into Thunderbird (1977). The full set of six panels is below (Room 234, on the AGO’s second level).

As an undergraduate art history major, I spent years looking at, analyzing, and writing about art and architecture, in a historical context. I loved it. The subject was all-encompassing, including archaeology, geography, religion, language, etc. etc., from prehistoric times onward, from cultures all over the world. With pictures. And maps.

This week, my analytical brain is frozen enough that all I can offer is that I find Morrisseau’s work fascinating, in form and content, and the way he uses colour compelling. Here are some gratuitous close-ups from the work above, to make your eyeballs vibrate.

The Art Gallery of Ontario is museum no. 8 in my #100museums challenge (see 100 Museums Challenge).