ALBUM: Ron Moppett @ 80
TrépanierBaer is pleased to present ALBUM: Ron Moppett @ 80, opening this Saturday, March 22, 2025 from 1:30 – 5:00 p.m. Ron Moppett will be joined by Damian Moppett for a conversation about the work at 2:00 p.m. This will be an excellent opportunity to view the work, meet the artists, and explore Ron Moppett’s career, that spans over 55 years. The exhibition will feature Ron’s new and recent works including several from his collaborative series FrAmEd with John Hall.
We can’t wait to share this special occasion with you and recognize the artist and his work. We look forward to seeing you at the gallery.
Ron Moppett was born in England in 1945; immigrated to Calgary in 1957 and graduated with honours from the Alberta College of Art in 1967 with a scholarship to the Instituto de Allende, San Miguel, Mexico. He has an extensive exhibition history across Canada and internationally. He first showed with Mira Godard in Montreal and Toronto and subsequently with Paul Kuhn in Calgary and Baldacci Daverio Gallery, New York. Since 1992 he has been represented by TrépanierBaer Gallery in Calgary.
Drawing inspiration from a variety of historical and cultural styles, the artist offers a diverse view of pop culture and a glimpse into the “dailiness” of life. A brilliant colourist, Moppett stencils and distills shapes with oil and acrylic paint, creating complex picture puzzles that hold multiple layers of meaning.
He has exhibited extensively throughout Canada, the United States, and Europe. Most recently, his work was included in a group exhibition titled project prõjekt with Glenbow Museum (2021); and Painting Nature with a Mirror (2020) at the Musée d’art contemporain in Montréal. The title of the exhibition was gleaned from the title of Moppett’s painting in the show. In August of 2017 his work was included in Open Horizons: Allyson Glenn, Colleen Heslin and Ronald Moppett at the Cultural Foundation of Tinos, Tinos, Greece. In 2013 – as a testament to Moppett’s presence, participation and contribution to the visual arts community in Calgary throughout the years – Moppett was invited by Glenbow Museum to curate Made in Calgary: The 1970s, the second instalment of the museum’s Made in Calgary series which showcased works of the visual arts community in Calgary throughout the last five decades. His work was also included in the subsequent iterations of this series: Made in Calgary: The 1980s (curated by Jeffrey Spalding), Made in Calgary: The 1990s (curated by Nancy Tousley), and Made in Calgary: The 2000s (curated by Katherine Ylitalo).
Several major surveys of his work have been organized: beginning with a show at the Walter Phillips Gallery at the Banff Centre in 1982, and another, a travelling exhibition, organized by Glenbow Museum in Calgary in 1990. Ron Moppett’s sculptural and installation work was the subject of a major survey exhibition titled SCULPTUR(AL) curated by Christine Sowiak for the Nickle Galleries that opened in the fall of 2015. Primarily known as a painter, this major survey presented three-dimensional works from the 1970s through to the present. In the fall of 2016, the Art Gallery of Alberta presented a two-person exhibition with Ron Moppet and his son Damian Moppett, a prominent contemporary artist in his own right, titled Damian Moppett + Ron Moppett (Every Story Has Two Sides). A variation of this exhibition was shown at the National Gallery of Canada in 2017 titled Masterpiece in Focus: Ron and Damian Moppett. Glenbow Museum presented Ron Moppett: Do You Remember/ Snow & Stars in 2020 as part of its One New Work series curated by Nancy Tousely. This exhibition presented a monumental 22-metre-long wrap-around painting.
In the spring of 2015 Ron Moppett was awarded a commission to create a large-scale work for Cadillac Fairview’s Deloitte Tower in Montréal. Titled VASEHAT/WINDOWMOON, the painting measures 3.5 meters high by 2.5 meters wide and was installed in September of 2015. In 2012, Ron Moppett unveiled THESAMEWAYBETTER/READER, a large-scale public work commissioned by the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation for the city’s East Village. For his piece Moppett worked with German stained glass experts Mayer of Munich to translate a collage/painting into a 5-paneled mosaic tiled wall featuring more than 956,321 unique hand cut Venetian and Mexican glass and stone tiles. Overall, the mural measures approximately 4 meters high and 33 meters wide. In the summer of 2021, Moppett presented LAMPLIGHTER, a painting commissioned by Cadillac Fairview for a site in Toronto. In 2024 Moppett was commissioned by Hines to create BIRDHAT/STARTREE, the sculpture is in the public laneway at Two Park Central in Calgary’s Beltline District.
Moppett’s work can be found in many prominent private and public collections including the National Gallery of Canada, the Musée d’art contemporain, The Art Gallery of Alberta, Glenbow Museum, the Mackenzie Art Gallery, and the U.S. Embassy, to name a few. Ron Moppett has been recognized with numerous awards and honors that include the Gershon Iskowitz Prize (1997), the Alberta Centennial Medal (2005), and ACAD Board of Governors’ Alumni Award of Excellence. In addition to his artistic practice, Ron Moppett had an important career as a curator in Alberta from the 1970s until 2004. He was the curator at the Alberta College of Art in 1969, from 1975 to 1978, and from 1988 to 2004 was Director/Curator of the Illingworth Kerr Gallery of the Alberta College of Art and Design now Alberta University of the Arts (AUArts).
—-
Damian Moppett (b. 1969, Calgary, Alberta; lives and works in Vancouver) has long been engaged with the processes, materials, and history of painting and sculpture, which he uses for the construction of his own vernacular. Drawing equally from modernist formalism, classical figuration, and advertorial photography, Moppett’s practice is an accumulation of strategies that refract and reconsider the story of art history.
Recent solo exhibitions include Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver (2023, 2021, 2016), Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton (2016); Simon Fraser University Gallery, Burnaby (2014); Vancouver Art Gallery Off-site (2012); Rennie Collection at Wing Sang, Vancouver (2011); Satellite Gallery, Vancouver (2011); Yvon Lambert, Paris (2007); Temple Gallery, Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia (2007); Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa (2006); and Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2005). Moppett has also been included in numerous group exhibitions at Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton (2022); Griffin Art Projects, North Vancouver (2018); the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (2017, 2014, 2012, 2008); Vancouver Art Gallery (2010); Witte de With, Rotterdam (2006); Yvon Lambert, New York (2006); Museum Van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen, Antwerp (2005); White Columns, New York; Galerie Kunstbuero, Vienna (2004); Power Plant, Toronto (2002); and Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2002). Moppett holds an MFA from Concordia University, and a BFA from the Emily Carr University of Art and Design, where he has taught for over a decade.