Emma Beyond Myth: A Conversation With Nancy Lowry

“Colour in Place” was a large exhibition of Nancy Lowry’s work held at Remai Modern from October 2024 to April 2025. Curated by Bevin Bradley, the retrospective took us through 25 years of Lowry’s evolution as a painter. Walking through the exhibition, one could see evidence of Lowry’s relentless curiosity in every panel. The early work starts with a more predictable landscape palette, while later works boast saturated, arbitrary hues. Her experimentation with mark-making is impressive: no lick becomes a stale habit, and her vocabulary is impressive. It’s obvious that Lowry possesses a profound understanding of the history of landscape and abstract painting in Saskatchewan, but she never mimics. She has long been admired in the community as a wickedly smart painter. 

That said, one aspect of the exhibition did surprise me, and that was the emphasis placed on Lowry’s connection to the Emma Lake Artist Workshops. Interspersed among Lowry’s works were over a dozen works by other artists, many of whom attended the workshops. Didactic panels explaining their connection to Emma Lake and Lowry accompanied each painting. I paused halfway through the exhibition to reflect on my own Emma Lake memories. Although I attended two workshops with Lowry (one in 2001 and another in 2003), they were not experiences I would foreground in a big exhibition of my own. The Emma Lake Workshops have a loaded history, and many prairie artists are ready to lay that chapter to rest. What was going on here? My curiosity was piqued, so I invited Nancy to sit down to demystify the enduring legacy of Emma Lake and how it continues to creep into her art practice.

Laura St. Pierre (LS): Since I saw your show at Remai Modern, I’ve been thinking a lot about the differences in our relationship to the Emma Lake Workshops. You went to Emma Lake long before you even went to an official Emma Lake Artists Workshop, right?

Nancy Lowry (NL): Yeah. I went as a teen artist to the camp run by the University of Saskatchewan Extension Division. So, that made me feel comfortable on campus. I had my own personal relationship with the land, and I think I connected it to young freedom, being away from home, and just being able to make art. So, getting away from your parents, hanging out with other people your own age, and being able to do something that you love. It was interesting because it gathered people from all over Saskatchewan. Deegan Lindner was the teacher, and she actually had quite a formal teaching approach and really wanted us to draw quite seriously, to really look. So, in between doing rebellious teenage things, there were spans of time that were quite studious.

LS: Had you heard about the actual Emma Lake Artist Workshops?

NL: I had heard a lot about them, the ones where workshop leaders would come from New York. And it’s interesting how that kind of mythology can overtake things and create barriers, because I didn’t think I was even eligible to apply. When I did, I was shocked to get in but also intimidated. ‘Cause to me, I was this insecure little kid and I was going to be with real artists who knew what they were doing. I was quite scared, to be honest.

But the moments that I do remember embracing the most were hanging with you and Tammi Campbell. And there were other young people who were interested in art and had new ideas or just had a different kind of energy.

LS: But, if I recall correctly, I think everybody was a bit mystified by us. At least when Karen Wilkin and Clay Ellis were the workshop leaders in 2003. There was a vibe that Karen Wilkin was somehow Clement Greenberg’s direct descendant. And she could bestow upon an artist a seal of approval, because she was from New York and would judge if our work was important or good.

NL: If we were authentic, even. That she could be the barometer for that.

LS: And when we didn’t acknowledge her power to do that, I felt like we were seen as brats. But those expectations were very limiting. I was making these weird plaster casts with paint oozing out. And I remember one of the older artists looking at my work, initially trying to be encouraging. But as soon as she could recognize the object that I had made a cast of, and it wasn’t pure abstraction anymore, she lost interest and walked away. And I don’t recall Karen being interested at all.

And I remember Karen Wilkin did the same thing with Tammi, because Tammi was painting bruises at that time. And Karen was really into those paintings, but when she realized they were paintings of bruises, she got really grossed out and disliked the work.

NL: Like a real, extreme flip. Totally. I found that very fascinating.

LS: For me, that was kind of where I lost interest in the workshops, full stop. I was still at a very early stage in my career, and I wasn’t interested in being told what to do. 

NL: You’re just trying to experiment and try things and goof around. Well, I think that’s kind of what I was trying to talk about earlier, how mythology becomes a limiting factor. Because the workshop itself became such a larger-than-life thing.

LS: Exactly. Okay, so before I move on, there’s one question I have to ask. I became interested in the history of the workshops and the impact of gender. I don’t know if that’s something that ever interested you, though. I was always really fascinated by the idea that all of these male prairie painters came out of the workshops with abstract practices, making huge abstract paintings. I read about Greenberg, and how he would talk about “big attack” painting and use very masculine language to describe work that he felt was important.

And he did not use that language to describe the work of women artists. But when I dug into that a little bit, 25 years ago, I talked with someone who had interviewed Dorothy Knowles. And she never wanted to discuss gender. She maintained that it was her predilection to paint landscapes, but in fact, she had painted abstractly before meeting Greenberg. And Greenberg encouraged her to paint landscapes. So, I just wondered if you ever felt that we were treated differently, as women, or if by the time we got there, maybe it didn’t matter so much.

NL: No, I definitely felt it mattered, and I was aware of it. But Dorothy kind of flipped that on everybody by doing the big attack with landscape! Which other men later followed suit.

LS: I’ve never looked at it that way but you’re totally right! That’s great. Dorothy was brilliant, absolutely. I was also fascinated by the idea that many Saskatchewan artists attended the workshops in order to gain a seal of approval from someone beyond the prairies, like Greenberg. 

NL: Well, yeah, you’re right, because that whole thing, that whole mythology, was built on the reverence artists had for certain people. But in the first workshop we attended together, Chris Cran was the workshop leader, and the work he was making was basically giving them all the finger. 

LS: Yeah! That’s right!

NL: Yeah, I found it really hilarious!! You know, I felt like I was granted permission to be cheeky as fuck because we had a leader like Chris Cran taking the piss out of art stardom. And his whole thing kind of fascinated me too. I felt like I had permission to actually try different things and to fuck up in different ways, and then just get up again and learn things.

[Laughter]

But every person who led the workshop had a different approach. I remember when I started working as the workshop coordinator (around 2007), I wanted to see a much broader group of artists coming. Some people hadn’t been coming because of that old narrative of stardom and elitism.

Monica Tap was the first artist that I brought in, and I was thrilled when she said yes. And I had known her from NSCAD as a student but also as someone who had curated big shows of abstract painting, like “Hungry Eyes” [at the Dalhousie Art Gallery in 2002].

LS: “Hungry Eyes!” That was a good show! 

NL: Yeah. I was hyper-aware of the fact that most of the leaders who had come to Emma were men. I really wanted to break that cycle as much as possible. And I wanted to open up the conversation to become more national. 

LS: So, “Hungry Eyes,” that would have been more new abstraction, rather than a formalist New York Greenberg type of abstraction. That work was coming from a more conceptual angle.

NL: Yeah! For the next workshop, I asked a whole bunch of women artists, like Tomma Abts, but none of them were available. I ultimately asked Kim Dorland, and he instantly said yes and was very excited about it and took it as a huge compliment.

LS: It was that mythology of the Emma Lake Workshops again.

NL: Yeah. And then the last one was Elizabeth McIntosh. She was excellent. She was very authentic and offered great advice. 

LS: So, if it was no longer a situation where a famous critic rolled into town to offer a benediction, what did people get out of it? 

NL: I think mostly it was two weeks of dedicated time to make work. When you’re around a bunch of other artists, there’s a chemical reaction that can happen where people buzz off each other, and I think it’s so rare in our world now to have time like that. Regardless of anything, working in a studio with other people, you learn. Just by rubbing shoulders, you’re making connections.

It’s the conversations that I love the most. How people would talk about whatever interested them at the time, and bring up new ideas—comment on things, invited or uninvited. 

And the landscape, being able to be outside and feel the air, being able to go in the water, and going to the island and exploring. I think there’s something at Emma Lake that feeds souls. Being out there is a really big gift.

It was fascinating to me too, the way that different leaders would land. Like Kim Dorland, when he came to Emma, he had a game plan: he was going to complete a body of work for an exhibition. He even had shipping arranged, it was going to be picked up in Saskatchewan and go straight to the show.

So, he was producing like a machine. And that was fascinating to me. Not appealing, but fascinating. He was a young father at the time, trying to make ends meet. He had his schtick, and he was not shy about sharing his tricks. 

Whereas, Monica and Elizabeth took their responsibility as teachers very seriously. And their approaches to teaching were very different from each other. Elizabeth just painted and engaged with people in a natural way. And Monica brought her laptop and a few digital presentations she’d planned to show in the evenings.

LS: Those workshops sound great! I regret not coming back now. But after that workshop in 2003 with Karen Wilkin, I said, no thanks, no more workshops for me. But you were smarter. You saw the potential, and you made it into what you wanted. 

But also, you like working around other people, right? When we talk about one of your paintings, you are always quick to point out that you got a specific idea from this person at this workshop, or when you were sharing studios. And you’re always very excited to do collaborations with people. The sharing of ideas with other artists is, for you, a very exciting part of the work. So, for you, there’s a social aspect to making art. What’s magical about it is that, for you, making art is a way of connecting. Your approach is, I don’t know if feminist is the right word, but it’s very much against that ego-driven, male-genius-alone-in-a-tower kind of idea that we’ve had about art for so long. When you give people credit for an idea, you don’t see it as diminishing your own work.

And then you brought this approach to the workshops when you organized them. You tried to make it a good experience for participants, to build community. It makes sense to me now that you’re so dedicated to the idea of bringing the workshops back, and that you and Bevin Bradley made the connection in such a meaningful way in your exhibition at Remai Modern. 

So, if someone came to you and said that they wanted to bring back the workshops, what advice would you give them?

NL: I would probably ask them questions like, are they using any of the research already done? Are they talking to the community? Are they asking what artists in the community feel would be an asset to collaborative making here? 

Are they being respectful of the land? Are they talking to elders? Are they engaging in a healthy way? 

LS: Those are such great questions. You’ve obviously thought it through. 

Emma Lake is also very important to you on a personal level. It’s a big part of your history. First, a teenager running wild, and then a cheeky young artist with Chris Cran, and then trying to build community. It sounds like Emma is a place where you grew up and really found yourself.

NL: I felt comfortable on that site painting from the landscape and being playful with paint. It came from the nurture of the place itself. And I’m a big dreamer, and I saw a lot of things that could possibly be. I think I buried part of my heart there when I was a little kid. I don’t know. I just love it. And even when I was back there this past summer, even though some of the buildings are gone and some are shuttered, I still felt a deep connection. I think I always will.

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Laura St. Pierre lives and works on Treaty 6 Territory/ Saskatoon. She works primarily in photo, video and installation, and her current research explores sustainable approaches to image making.

Nancy Lowry has been based in Saskatoon for much of her life. After completing her BFA at NSCAD in 2003, she returned to Saskatoon and began working in the late Mina Forsyth’s studio. Lowry has attended numerous residencies and workshops, and coordinated the Emma Lake Artist’s Workshops from 2007-2012. She is also the recipient of numerous Canada Council and SKarts grants.

This article is published in issue 42.1 of BlackFlash magazine. Get this issue