Illuminating Language: Book Launch & Lecture with artist Dick Averns
December 1
6:00 PM | Heather Edwards Theatre
Join Contemporary Calgary for an evening with Calgary-based artist and writer Dick Averns, celebrating the launch of his new publication, Illuminating Language. The event will feature a lecture by Averns, followed by a discussion and audience Q&A with Mona Filip, Chief Curator at Contemporary Calgary.
The evening will also include a book signing and an opportunity to purchase a copy of the publication. A cash bar will be available.
Free with registration.
About the Book
Illuminating Language brings together twenty-five years of artwork by internationally exhibiting, Calgary-based artist Dick Averns. Through richly illustrated photographs, text-based artworks, sculptural works and public installations, the publication explores how art can help us navigate, question and make sense of the complexities of being human.
From his deployment as an official war artist in the Middle East to guerrilla performances at political rallies involving Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and, most recently, Danielle Smith, Averns' practice consistently reveals the power of visual language to illuminate, challenge and recalibrate our understanding of the world around us.
Originally published as a catalogue accompanying a 25-year solo exhibition at Vernon Public Art Gallery, this expanded and revised second edition features new project overviews spanning sculpture, political performance, mental health, lens-based media, social practice and public art.
Featured bodies of work include War Art Now, neon sculptures created between 1999 and 2025, the performative project Ambivalence Blvd., and the award-winning community mental wellness initiative Recognition… Validation… Reassurance….
Part retrospective and part forward-looking exploration, Illuminating Language offers more than a survey of an expansive artistic practice. It considers the enduring value of sustained creative inquiry and the role of art in engaging with our complex and ever-changing world.
About the Publication
Illuminating Language will be available at Contemporary Calgary art book shop for $44 + GST (10% discount at launch. Members always 10% off).
132 pages, full colour, © 2026
Published by Vernon Public Art Gallery
Curatorial introduction by Lubos Culen
Guest essay by Wayne Baerwaldt
Artist passages by Dick Averns
About the Artist
Between leaving school at the age of 16 and receiving a diagnosis of Tourette Syndrome at 41, Dick Averns navigated numerous jobs and truncated careers before making the instinctive decision in his late twenties to enrol in art school.
Since completing graduate studies in his late thirties, Averns has developed an expansive studio practice alongside university teaching, critical writing and curatorial work. His research interests include conflict, neurodivergence and interdisciplinary arts.
Averns is Canada's first non-fiction writer to be deployed as an official war artist. He is the recipient of a City of Calgary Legacy Award for healing through the arts and a Teaching Excellence Award for his pedagogy at the University of Calgary.
His work is held in numerous public collections, including the Department of National Defence, Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery, City of Calgary and Alberta Foundation for the Arts, as well as private collections.
Averns is a volunteer board member of the Tourette OCD Alberta Network, Managing Curator of UCalgary Founders' Gallery at The Military Museums, and is represented by Herringer Kiss Gallery.
