Jul 2 2025

Spilling onto the Street

The next time you’re downtown in Winnipeg, look up to find our new billboard display on Portage Avenue and Sherbrook Street, featuring work by Annie Pootoogook and Tim Gardner!

This billboard is generously donated to the Gallery by Sussex Realty as an outdoor installation sharing art with the public.

On the east side, Tim Gardner’s L.A. Morning and L.A. Evening watercolour works frame the rhythm of a day, a perfect companion for your summer commute.

Tim Gardner. L.A Morning (left) and L.A. Evening (right), 2018. Watercolour. Private collection.

Heading west, we have Tea Drinkers by Annie Pootoogook, an incredible coloured pencil on paper artwork in the WAG-Qaumajuq collection – your collection – that will be on view later this month in the exhibition, Crying Over Spilt Tea.

Curated by Grace Braniff, this new show features permanent collection artworks to focus on the “tea” and “T(ruths)”—the stories, untold truths, and hidden narratives—while asking us to ruminate on what has taken place, what has been spilt.

Annie Pootoogook. Tea Drinkers, 2001–2002. Coloured pencil on paper. 51 x 66 cm. Collection of the Winnipeg Art Gallery; Acquired with funds from the Mr. and Mrs. G.B. Wiswell Fund, 2007-110. Photo: Ernest Mayer

Grace notes that there is significant overlap between “tea” the drink and “T” the truths and gossip – take Pootoogook’s work for example. It depicts an everyday occurrence, people gathering while drinking tea, but we can only imagine the conversations they are having.

Within the Crying Over Spilt Tea show, there will be many artworks that speak to the comfort, ritual, or aesthetics of tea; artworks that make us confront the colonial histories or untold truths and traumas; and artworks that touch on all both of these ideas.

Grace hopes that the exhibition will have a little bit of something for everyone, bringing a fresh mix of works from our permanent collection to the space. You will see exquisite porcelain teawares we associate with UK teatime, plus contemporary prints, drawings, and sculptures from Inuit and Indigenous artists. All the works in the show aim to spark important conversations around tea and “T”, delving into the stories we don’t often hear about. The show will be thought-provoking and also show off the variety and depth of our collections.

Join us for the free opening celebration of Crying Over Spilt Tea, as well as a second exhibition highlighting the permanent collection, a matter of time curated by TD Curatorial Fellow Nawang Tsomo Kinkar, on Thursday, July 17.

Learn more