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Digital Guide: Ink, Charcoal & Jet

Digital Guide: Ink, Charcoal & Jet

Curated by Talysha Bujold-Abu

July 16  – October 25, 2026 

Of the 1028 artists represented in the Art Windsor-Essex Collection, 7 identify as Black Artists. A total of 0.681% of the collection.

Of the approximately 4214 total works in the Art Windsor-Essex Collection, 10 works are by Black Artists. A total of 0.24% of the collection.

If we use the American auction market as a metric for understanding what artworks are currently being collected by private collectors, the statistics are bleak: art by women, for example, accounts for 3.3% of auction sales between 2008-2022, art by Black American artists only 2%, and art by Black women artists just 0.1%.1

This exhibition, pulled from the Art Windsor-Essex Collection, seeks to locate and foreground Black within the institution; examining absence through presence. By interrogating Blackness as a medium, alike to the title Ink, Charcoal, & Jet – the colour Black is positioned as a central character: an active, contributing voice, speaking from the collection.

Through close looking, Black reveals itself through material and formal considerations; lithographic ink, asphalt, traces of shadow, ghosts, or the gestures of an artist’s hand. Black reveals itself as the foundational bedrock for where we make, and how we make, as artists – the material easily found, the initial sketches, the finished project, the process through to the end. 

By excavating the collection, Ink, Charcoal & Jet asks: where does Blackness speak from within the institution, and how might listening to it reshape our understanding of presence, absence, and power?

^{1 Comparable statistics are not available for the Canadian art market. See: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/perceptions-of-progress-in-the-art-world-are-largely-a-myth-here-are-the-facts-2227941}

Curated by T. Bujold-Abu, TD Curatorial Fellow (2025-2026).

The Quiet Semiotics of Black Shapes designed by Talysha Bujold-Abu and fabricated by Senior Preparator Stephen Nilsson.

Special Thanks to Digital Initiatives and Partnerships Coordinator Nadja Pelkey for her assistance and support in research and auditing the Art Windsor-Essex Collection.

Featured Artists:Jane Ash Poitras, Ron Benner, Graham Coughtry, Rodney Graham, Robert Hedrick, Gerald Humen, James Janick, Don Jean-Louis, Anne Kahane, Ernest Lindner, Elaine Ling, Anne Louch, Jack Nichols, Ed Pien, Ad Reinhardt, Peter Sager, John Scott, Ron Shuebrook, Tim Whiten, Ed Zelenak

“What do you think of when you see the colour Black?
– Kassia St. Clair

A photograph of a train falling off a bridge, overlayed with tar splatter.

Ron Benner, As dark as the grave wherein my friend is laid

1975 – 1976. Photographic murals with black asphalt cement. Gift of Wyn Geleynse, 2001; photograph courtesy of The London Free Press

Transformative and reflective, Benner explores loss and friendship, while critically examining the spectacle of grief.

The photograph used in this work was taken by Sam McLeod for the London Free Press to report a train derailment in Simcoe, Ontario. Two of Benner’s friends and co-workers, Edward Wadley, the engineer, and Ray Merritt, the head-end brakeman, died in the ‘accident’; an avoidable complication of train mechanics that lacked responsive care on behalf of management.

In this photograph, a Great Western Railway passenger train has smashed through the Desjardins Canal bridge into the canal. Materially, black asphalt cement is layered atop the image – as the series progresses, although we are looking at a singular piece withing the series, the organic splatter-like shapes build in opacity and obscure the underlying photograph. Black asphalt cement, in relation to railroad care, is used to preserve railway ties; in this work by Benner, what do you think they are preserving?

Robert Hedrick, Untitled (from the Toronto 20 portfolio)

1965. Lithograph on Paper. Gift of the Director’s Fund, 1965

A circle, as a central geometric form, is filled with organic shapes in black.

The figure of a rider atop a horse is only partially visible, emerging from a dense, swirling visual field of black.

Jack Nichols, Circus Rider

1957, Lithograph on paper. Purchase, 1961

James Janick, Eruptions IV

1967, Intaglio and relief print on paper. Gift of the Director’s Fund, 1967

From the earth, a form emerges: an organ-like stone, spidered in dark veins, in the midst of a volcanic eruption.

From a dense atmospheric murk we (as viewer) come upon a haunting; a winged figure angle or spectre, flying or falling, is suspended in a dark sky

Jack Nichols, Winged Presence

1962, Lithograph on paper. Gift of Peter Dobush, 1969

Gerald Humen, Edge of the Woods

1964, Ink on Paper. Gift from the Douglas M. Duncan Collection, 1970

“He was a man of very few words” – Tanya Mahar (Humen’s niece) & Art Gallery of Bancroft

In black ink, both light and dark are gesturally rendered presenting the threshold of a forest.

In ink, dark roots grow upwards and outwards into thin blades of grass.

Don Jean-Louis, Grass

1960, Ink on paper. Gift from the Douglas M. Duncan Collection, 1970

Susan Gold, The Specimens

1993, 4 stainless steel shelves, 68 plastic bottles, photocopied acetate. Gift of the artist, 1995

“All we can do is look more closely” – Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

Here we see sixty-eight small vessels, a series of specimens arranged at the same distance apart on stainless steel shelves; at first we see clinical precision, in regards to the placement and uniformity of the vessels and their contents, however, if we look more closely, a series of small worlds emerge transforming the vessels into an archive of curiosities.

Gold uses photocopied acetate, a clear plastic sheet printed with black ink, as the subject in each bottle; why black ink? Gold has an answer for that: “…for decades I worked in black ink. I always had a photocopier in my studio. There was no colour setting at that time. Printing was a form of transforming or translating the image, and a way to look more closely. I was able to print on clear acetate that allowed me to layer images.”

What can you see, and what can you imagine?

I’d like to highlight some of the hidden worlds Gold has created through the layers of acetate and linework – maybe you can find the following:

1) The translucent and scaleless body of the Golomyankas fish, also known as the Baikal Oil fish, it is the deepest living freshwater fish.

2) A stone standing in Lake Baikal, where stones seem to ‘float’ due to a scientific phenomenon where rocks balance on narrow shelves of ice. For the artist: “the important concept for me was that the stone was described both scientifically and mythologically in the same space. It is known as the Shaman stone and represents a story about the father, Baikal, and his daughter, Amhara, the connecting River.” When we think of a rock, we know that they sink and when Gold thinks of a rock, she thinks: “a rock is a text too, even if we can’t read it.”

3) Phrases from French philosopher, Michel Foucault’s The Writing of Things, cut into small pieces and reformatted into poems.

4) A small piece of a friend’s handwritten letter referring to « past time ».

5) A leaf skeleton. What is a leaf skeleton? A leaf skeleton is made by removing the soft tissue of a leaf (the green stuff!), leaving behind the vein structure of the leaf.

6) A Flemish rabbit, also known as a rabbit from Finland.

These are the purposeful and accidental findings from everyday life – the treasures that only we know and collect, the small things that make us human. What treasures do you collect?

A series of shelves with 68 plastic bottles filled with specimens, printed on acetate with black ink.

Abstract lines that capture shapes and forms commonly found on a beach.

Peter Sager, On the Beach

Not dated. Linocut print on paper. Gift from the Douglas M. Duncan Collection, 1970

Anne Louch, Funny Money

1970. Soft-ground etching on paper. Gift of C.A. Louch, 1971

Anne Louch evokes the familiar and the supernatural, like a bird’s-eye view of a futuristic baseball diamond, or the inner mechanisms of a pinball machine.

The dark ink overlapping to supplement depth and distinction between multiple abstract forms. Stylistically, Louch traces an untethered trajectory between shapes that hint at the domestic (like books on a shelf), while others remain untamed (like a sleeping serpentine creature waiting in the boughs of a tree).

Anne Louch, To-morrow’s Jungle

1964, Etching and aquatint print on paper. Gift of C.A. Louch, 1971

Question: What shapes, creatures, objects, or ideas can you see in this work?

Anne Louch, Recording

1967, Aquatint on paper. Gift of the family of Anne Louch

Shapes emerge from a black background that mimic sound waves crashing from a cymbal.

Simple gestures and symbols emerge in black ink, moving across the page, left to right.

Graham Coughtry, Calligraphic II

1961, Ink on Paper. Bequest of Pearce L.S. Lettner, 1977

Elaine Ling, Abandoned, Namib Desert IV

1997, Gelatin silver print from Polaroid type-55 negative. Gift of the artist, 2003

“I feel very fortunate that I have a chance to go out to these wilderness places and photograph. I know these places will change, and these cultures will disappear…As ways of life are transient, photography has the role and privilege of capturing something that’s disappearing.”- Elaine Ling²

Ling frames and reframes absence; photographing patient spaces in the Namib Desert that act as a meditation on time, space, and reflection. In the work Namib Desert IV and the accompanying series, Ling photographs a door, held open by a wealth of accumulated sand. The curvature of the sand, as it rounds the doorframe and retreats into a darkroom, speaks of the movements of home. Although the space is abandoned, the sand traces domestic pathways that have been lost, and yet reformed through the elements.

Two-doorways, one filled with light and one filled with shadow, at the end of a sand-filled hallway.

Elaine Ling, Abandoned, Namib Desert XXIII

1997, Gelatin silver print from Polaroid type-55 negative. Gift of the artist, 2003

In the making process, Ling used a 4×5 view camera (Deardorff Special) with a Polaroid back. Ling’s gelatin silver prints, that she made herself, involves a complex chemical reaction; each resulting image demonstrates a relationship between black, gray and silver tones on paper.3

In this work, Ling photographs two-doorways in conflict; a set of portals, the thresholds between comings and goings, one lightened by the sun and the other shrouded in shadow. As viewer, we compete with the invitation of each doorframe and the worlds therein, while the sand, ever-present, envelopes each space without upsetting the balance between the two doors.

Elaine Ling, Abandoned, Namib Desert XVII

1999, Gelatin silver print from Polaroid type-55 negative. Gift of the artist, 2003

As an artist, Elaine Ling explored the shifting balance between nature and the man-made across four continents – seeking the solitude of deserts and abandoned architectures of ancient cultures.4

In the work Namib Desert XVII, Ling traces borders between light and dark, photographing the edge between shadow and light as it traces a path across the sand; both shade and sun fill the bathtub, an empty and dry space filled with sand. It questions, where is the oasis?

A heavy shadow is cast on sand where light and dark highlight a bathtub submerged in the landscape.

The work presents a black square at first glance; however, with further inspection, a pair of intersecting stripes emerge, overlapping in the center of the composition.

Ad Reinhardt, Untitled (from the Graphic USA portfolio)

1968, Three-colour serigraph on paper. Gift of Walter Carsen, 1982

Did you know: despite his renowned reputation as an abstract painter, Reinhardt was also a talented cartoonist and illustrator; he worked as a comic strip artist for a short period of time, including work that combined collage and text to simplify big ideas surrounding abstract art of his era.5

A geometric completely black shape on off-white paper.

Ed Zelenak, Untitled

1991, Conté. Gift of Dr. Charles Wrock, 1997

Zelenak presents a series of familiar yet unidentifiable forms; characters, central to the composition, reminiscent of building blocks, typescript, letters, and limbs.

Materially, conté is both clay and graphite, and the rich layering of the pigment creates a dense central figure – while the cream coloured undertones of the paper instinctually hold the weight of the central unnamed shapes.

Together, we as the viewer, are faced with our own imaginings; Zelenak transforms reduction of the visual field, into an opportunity to explore how we look.

What do you see in this collection of shapes?

Ernest Lindner, Untitled Fantasy (Meteor and Planet)

Not dated, Linocut print on paper. Purchased with funds donated by Miss Elizabeth Gillespie, 1988

A landscape, both familiar and alien, is interrupted by a celestial event.

a series of black geometric shapes rendered in charcoal. The shapes are rigid and architectural, tenuously balancing along a diagonal plane that lifts from the lower left corner, up towards the right.

Ron Shuebrook, Untitled

1984, Charcoal on paper. Purchased with funds from the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation, 1988

In this work, we can see the artists’ hand, the smudges of compressed charcoal that leave traces of the gesture and decision making of the artist – ideas that are made and unmade simultaneously: “I don’t want to hide my tracks at all,” says Shuebrook6, as the material mimics his labor and intention.

The black silhouette of a Buddha head with a flower in place of the mouth and other facial features.

Ed Pien

Invisible Sightings 1 (from Invisible Sightings series)

Invisible Sightings 2 (from Invisible Sightings series)

Invisible Sightings 3 (from Invisible Sightings series)

1997, Relief print. Gift of Randy Nightingale, 2009

Invisible Sightings is a collection of drawings completed by the artist from 1997 – 2016; the series was made during Pien’s four-month stay in Taiwan researching representations and concepts of ghosts. The collection, of over three hundred (300) drawings, reflects how Pien experienced and responded to his travel – a return to Taiwan since immigrating to Canada – the work traces Pien’s experience of Taiwan as an “outsider” while attempting to capture the “exotic” cultures of that country.

In an interview with Robert Enright from Border Crossings, a tri-annual arts magazine published in Winnipeg, Pien was asked: Did your encounter with a sense of estrangement and with ghosts come culturally when you lived in Taiwan? Pien had this to say: “I think it became apparent after I moved away from Taiwan. When you’re in that culture, you don’t think about it. In 2004 when I went to China for the first time, I asked people whether or not they believed in ghosts. I even went to a fortune teller, and to my surprise, he said there are no ghosts; but then he said Mao [ Mao Zedong was a Chinese revolutionary leader, founder of the People’s Republic of China] believed there were ghosts, as well as gods and demons, but he wanted to be the only thing that people needed to believe in. He needed to dispel all other beliefs and superstitions. I finally encountered someone who said that the question I posed was completely irrelevant; it’s not whether or not people believe in ghosts, but the fact is everyone is afraid of ghosts.”7

What do you think of when you think of ghosts?

John Scott, Animation drawing for Born near the U.S.A

1988, Gouache on paper. Gift of the artist, 1990

The colour black plays a significant role in the work of artist John Scott, his stylized illustrations are rendered in black and white, exploring suffering and oppression from multiple perspectives; drawings and paintings that use black ink or paint “…to be a voice against forces of tyranny and evil.”8

Curator David Liss, in description of Scotts work, shares the following: “John Scott seeks to expose the machinery of its workings, the forces visible and unseen that threaten to destroy us. Ultimately his art is a positive act of expression and hope that aspires to liberate us, perhaps against all odds, from the cycles of our abject behaviours and a seemingly inevitable armageddon.”9

POLICE; an anthropomorphized police squad car or prisoner transportation van, bumping along an indeterminate road.

In a pitch-black room, a figure rests under a blue blanket.

Anne Kahane, Sleeping Woman

Unknown, Two-colour woodcut on paper. Purchase, 1962

Anne Kahane was the first woman sculptor to represent Canada at the Venice Biennale (1958), she lived into her 100^th year and passed away September 29^th, 2023.

Anne Kahane, 21367

1958, Ink on paper. Gift of the Director’s Fund, 1966

Evoking both process and presence there is a layering of material; black ink on paper, in single strokes, as a meditation between the artist and mark making.

An unfinished constellation, bright motes of light that gather and sit apart, suspended in blackness.

Rodney Graham, Coruscating Cinnamon Granules

1996, Photogravure on paper. Purchased with financial support from the Canada Council for the Arts, Acquisitions Assistance program

Alike to etching into the night sky, and tracing unseen constellations, Graham uses photogravure – when an image, produced from a photographic negative, is transferred to a metal plate and etched into the metal plates surface – to capture the intersection of what is profound and mundane.

This work documents sparks that Graham created by sprinkling cinnamon on the surface of an electric cooking element before turning it on in darkness. From the National Gallery of Canada, the artist describes it as “a glittering mini-spectacle that resembles a constellation of stars that appears before one’s eyes after a mild blow to the head.”

Jane Ash Poitras, Ancestral Village

1984, Etching print on paper. Gift of Dr. Catharine Mastin and Family in Memory of Dr. Eugene and Mrs. Margaret McNamara, 2018

In an interview with the National Gallery of Cananda, internationally acclaimed Canadian artist Jane Ash Poitras says her works “are all about serendipity. Being in the right place at the wrong time. Or the wrong place at the right time, making those connections and creating a piece of art about it.”10

A settlement in shadow and darkness, highlighted by a line of light from an undefinable source.

A broom end, seen in two parts; the bristles, and the base of the broom.

Tim Whiten, Transcriptions, Translations

2003, Charcoal on paper. Gift of the artist, 2003

In charcoal, Whiten presents a diptych: a bisection, close and almost abstracted, of the anatomy of a broom. Through gestural mark making, alike to the sweep and spatial energy of a broom in movement, core details of the broom are rendered with care; the stitching, wrapping, and plaiting of fibers.

The work embodies a conversation between what we can see and the unseen extension of the broom’s handle; the realities of this world and something beyond understanding. Transcriptions and translations are always approximate and Whiten traces an in-between: “employing drawing as a tool to expand consciousness and to facilitate perception of a world beyond the physical.”11