Upcoming Exhibition

Heliophile | Anna Binta Diallo

6 June – 22 August 2025

Launch 6 – 9pm, Friday 6 June. All are welcome.

Glass is a material uniquely placed to marry the qualities of colour and light, amplifying the properties of both. The motif of light in Anna Binta Diallo’s exhibition Heliophile, which means “lover of light”, acts as a personal evocation of Ètienne Gaboury, her grandfather and a renowned Canadian architect. In Heliophile, Diallo’s glass works and video nurture a looseness around beginnings and endings, allowing for the moving expression of reverence and joyfulness, common experience and private grief, and a love of light, in all of its forms.

Few architects in the province have captured the hearts and minds of its people as profoundly as Étienne Gaboury, whose creations are rooted in the nuances of regional character, shaping the way Manitobans perceive themselves and their landscape. Gaboury is also the grandfather of the artist Anna Binta Diallo (a professor at the University of Manitoba) and was a profound source of inspiration to her, guiding, encouraging, and influencing her journey as a visual artist since she was very young. GBG is proud to have a fused glass artwork by Gaboury in the entrance wall of the gallery. Étienne Gaboury passed away in St. Boniface Hospital on 14th October 2022, surrounded by his family.

The artist gratefully acknowledges support from the Canada Council for the Arts.

From Anna Binta Diallo: Special thanks to Matthew McMillan from Prairie Studio Glass, and his entire team, whose collaboration has been instrumental in bringing this work to fruition. Additionally, a special thank you to Michael-Hart Webster for his collaboration on the video. I am grateful to my family, especially my late grandfather, who introduced me to the concept heliophilia and showed me that art can be a source of light in our life.