William Kurelek: The Messenger

Catalogue by Tobi Bruce, Mary Jo Hughes, Andrew Kear, Brian Dedora and Avrom Isaacs.

• Hardcover
• 247 pages
• ISBN-13 : 978-0888853646
•  24.13 x 3.18 x 29.21 cm
• October 2011

Part of the Art Gallery of Hamilton Exhibition 

Few Canadian artists are so readily accessible, compellingly complex, and so worthy of critical reappraisal. Organized into six thematic sections, this profusely illustrated monograph accompanies the first large-scale survey of William Kurelek in thirty years. Essays highlight Kurelek's formative years when the young artist underwent psychiatric treatment and converted to Roman Catholicism. From here they explore his overtly religious sermons, his warnings of an imminent apocalypse, the poetics of landscape, and his qualified reflections of community and belonging. In essence, the publication mirrors Kurelek's own psychic and creative journey through a reconciliation of his formative experiences and beliefs: from isolation, through religion, to a place of hope and acceptance.