Learn about the contest entry guidelines and gain insight into the jurying process with help from RMG staff. We will review the competition’s judging criteria, the competition categories, and answer all of your questions. To register, visit www.oshlib.ca/signup or call 905-579-6111.
About the Seniors Art Competition and Exhibition:
The Seniors Art Competition and Exhibition is co-hosted by The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa Senior Community Centres, and the Oshawa Public Libraries. This year’s theme is victory. If you are 55+ and a member of the RMG, Oshawa Senior Community Centres, or the Oshawa Public Libraries, we invite you to submit one artwork for the exhibition. Show us what victory means to you! All mediums are accepted. Prizes are awarded in three categories: Novice, Hobby, and Open.
This event is free and open to everyone. Registration is required.
Spend the morning at the RMG with environmental conservation coordinator and advocate Patricia Wilson and outdoor educator Milton Hill! Inspired by themes of connectedness and imagination in Tim Whiten’s exhibition Elemental: Oceanic, this interactive outdoor workshop will explore the vital role water plays in environmental cycles and local ecosystems, including its importance to human life. Through hands-on learning by the Oshawa Creek, Patricia and Milton will share their knowledge and invite others to do the same in a reflective, educational experience centered on the immediate surroundings of the RMG.
Participants are asked to bring a notebook and writing or drawing materials of their choice to do some journaling throughout the session.
The gathering will begin in the backyard at the RMG, and will extend into nearby trails and parks. You should come prepared for the weather and some walking.
Patricia Wilson is the Founder of Diverse Nature Collective (DNC) and works as a Community Conservation Coordinator for Kawartha Land Trust. She holds a BSc in Biology with a Specialization in Conservation Biology from Trent University and a diploma in Ecosystem Management from Fleming College.
In her daily work, Patricia engages the community and volunteers in ecological restoration and land stewardship opportunities through events out on the land. She also creates partnerships with local organizations and businesses – helping to educate and connect people with nature and conservation work.
Patricia is also a strong advocate for racialized voices in the outdoors and is passionate about increasing diversity within the environmental movement and land trust sector. Combining both her passions for conservation work and diversifying the outdoors, Patricia started the DNC as a way to empower and mobilize racialized voices within her community and create a space that inspires, uplifts and connects people of all backgrounds.
In her spare time she enjoys spending as much time as she can in nature and loves to explore the outdoors through hiking and backcountry paddle trips!
Milton Hill is an Outdoor Educator who aims to integrate his knowledge of the natural world with spiritual traditions that foster a deeper understanding of nature and ourselves. He graduated from Fleming College’s Outdoor Adventure Education program in 2019 and has since worked for a variety of outdoor outfitters and organizations. He is inspired by his practice of the I Ching, Tibetan Buddhism, Compassionate Communication, and Ubuntu, which have all influenced his perspective of the natural environment. Developing self-awareness in himself and others, Milton has also started doing more work to help folks within BIPOC communities engage with both the challenges and potential for peacefulness in the great outdoors. Milton also enjoys learning through experiential education and crafting his own gear – including canvas and wool winter clothes, moccasins, and canoe paddles.
Notes on Access:
The backyard at the RMG is accessible through the gallery via stairs or elevator. If you need more information about the terrain or what to expect, please get in touch and we can answer any questions you have.
ASL Interpretation can be arranged upon request. Please contact Hannah Keating at hkeating@rmg.on.ca by May 20 to submit an interpretation request. All efforts will be made to fill a request, but if an Interpreter cannot be secured, we will let you know before the event takes place.
If there are other ways we can support your participation, please send an email to hkeating@rmg.on.ca.
Please join the students on May 19th for an artist-led tour of the exhibition. This is your chance to learn more about specific projects and hear about the journey from conception to fabrication to presentation.
Treat them to brunch! The RMG is hosting a Mother’s Day brunch in Arthur’s on the 4th. Catered by local company, Farm and Wild, come out and spend the day celebrating the motherly figure in your life.
The Robert McLaughlin Gallery’s monthly free concert series RMG FRIDAYS finally returns home for the May 2022 edition! In addition to short films courtesy of Durham Region International Film Festival, an appearance by series mainstays WOOLY, and a tour of the new Tim Whiten exhibition ELEMENTAL: OCEANIC, this month’s event features a headline performance by Canadian indie darlings DIZZY.
Be sure to bring a lawn chair or blanket to enjoy the outdoor entertainment!
Drawing from over fifty years of production, this exhibition features sculptures and works on paper from the early 1970s to the present, representing material explorations of ritual, embodiment, ancestral knowledge, and transcendence.
8:45 – Performance by Dizzy
In Arthurs on the 4th:
Films from DRIFF will be playing throughout the evening at 7:15pm, 8pm, and 9pm.
Wooly
Wooly represents a collaboration of unique musical talents brought together through a common vision. Their music and lyrics are innovative, energetic, and insightful presenting a fresh view of the human experience and evoking a range of visceral responses. Emerging from diverse musical experiences and influences, Wooly strives to present a fusion of folk, jazz, rock, and alternative that is truly original.
Dizzy
With a Polaris Prize-nominated album and a Juno Award already under their belt, the Oshawa-based dream-pop outfit Dizzy has gained acclaim from outlets across the continent including NPR, Pitchfork, NME, and CBC Music. Tender, honest, and reflective, Dizzy’s music reveals a rare willingness to expose messy feelings and a preternatural gift for turning those musings into songs primed for singing along.
Special thanks to DRIFF in a Jiff and Canada Council and the Arts Reopening Fund for their support with this event.
Registration required. A link to access the talk will be sent to you via email on the day of the event.
Join us for the premiere of an online programme featuring a conversation between Tim Whiten and Erika DeFreitas at Whiten’s Toronto studio. During this recorded talk, both discuss their creative process, reflect on influences, and share recent work related to their shared interests in metaphysics, art and ritual practices.
Co-presented by the McMaster Museum of Art (M(M)A) and the Robert McLaughlin Gallery (RMG), this special event is hosted in conjunction with the collaborative survey Elemental currently on view at their respective venues.
Elemental is a multi-venue collaborative retrospective bringing together four Ontario presenters, including the Art Gallery of Peterborough (AGP), Art Gallery of York University (AGYU), McMaster Museum of Art and the Robert McLaughlin Gallery. Celebrating Tim Whiten’s broad and prolific career as an image maker and educator, the exhibitions draw on over fifty years of Whiten’s creative production devoted to studying the nature of consciousness and the human condition through material transformations. Curated by Chiedza Pasipanodya (AGP), Liz Ikiriko (AGYU), Pamela Edmonds (M(M)A) and Leila Timmins (RMG), and showing between 2022 and 2023, this series of separately curated exhibitions are thematically united by the classical elements of air, water, earth, and fire – referencing Whiten’s interest in alchemical processes.
Elemental: Ethereal is on view at the McMaster Museum of Art until May 13, 2022 and Elemental: Oceanic is on view at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery until August 28, 2022. The exhibitions at AGP and AGYU are forthcoming.
About Tim Whiten
Tim Whiten was born in Inkster, Michigan in 1941. In 1964, he received a B.S. from Central Michigan University, College of Applied Arts and Science, and in 1966 completed his M.F.A. at the University of Oregon, School of Architecture and Allied Arts. After immigrating to Canada in 1968, he taught in the Department of Visual Arts at York University for 39 years. An award-winning educator, he was also Chair of the University’s Department of Visual Arts where he is currently Professor Emeritus. Since 1962, he has had work presented in exhibitions throughout North America and internationally and it is included in numerous private, public, and corporate collections, such as the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (both the de Young and the Legion of Honor/ Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts). Based in Toronto, Tim Whiten is represented by Olga Korper Gallery.
About Erika DeFreitas
Erika DeFreitas’s multidisciplinary practice includes performance, photography, video, installation, textiles, drawing and writing. Placing emphasis on gesture, process, the body, documentation and paranormal phenomena, DeFreitas mines concepts of loss, post-memory, legacy and objecthood. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including: Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery; Platform Centre for Photographic and Digital Arts, Winnipeg; Gallery TPW, Toronto; Project Row Houses and the Museum of African American Culture, Houston; Fort Worth Contemporary Arts; and Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita. She is a recipient of the 2016 Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts Finalist Artist Prize, the 2016 John Hartman Award, and was longlisted for the 2017 Sobey Art Award. DeFreitas holds a Master of Visual Studies from the University of Toronto.
Attendance at both sessions is not mandatory; however, if you’re new to grant writing and you’re interested in taking part in the guided peer review session, we strongly encourage you to attend Part I: Grant Writing 101. Please note that the deadline to register for the peer review session is April 20.
Closed captioning and live transcription will be available through the built-in Zoom CC and Transcription features. ASL Interpretation can be arranged upon request. Please contact Hannah Keating at hkeating@rmg.on.ca to submit an interpretation request by March 30, 2022. All efforts will be made to fill a request, but if an Interpreter cannot be secured, we will let you know before the event takes place.
Is there anything else we can do to support your participation? Please reach out to Hannah at hkeating@rmg.on.ca.
Part I: Grant Writing 101 with Daniella Sanader
Offering an overview of the funding landscape, this workshop will highlight how grants can support your art practice and projects, how to prepare and manage your time, and where to find key funding opportunities. We’ll also review best practices for budgets and support material and read through a successful grant application to explore useful writing tips you can use in your own applications.
This workshop will be hosted as a Zoom webinar, with a short mid-session break and an opportunity to ask questions at the end.
Part II: Guided Peer Review: Project Proposals
In this facilitated session, you will be paired with another artist to exchange project proposals and provide mutual support through questions and suggestions. We will provide structure and advice for the peer review that will guide your 1:1 breakout rooms and Daniella Sanader will join the call at the end to address any additional questions.
Each participant should come prepared with ONE of the following:
Option A: If you are preparing to apply for a grant and already have a project proposal prepared, bring that draft text for review. The text should be no longer than 500 words.
Option B: If you don’t currently have a grant in mind, you can prepare a hypothetical project proposal using the following prompt: Describe your project. Explain the inspiration for your project or why you wish to undertake it at this time and how this project will contribute to your artistic development. The text should be no longer than 500 words.
Option C: If you recently applied for a grant, but were unsuccessful, you can bring your project proposal from that application. You may have an opportunity to reapply or submit the project for consideration in another grant application. The text should be no longer than 500 words.
Schedule
This workshop will be hosted as a Zoom meeting and will have the following schedule:
6:00-6:10 Welcome and housekeeping
6:10-6:30 Breakout rooms in pairs – participants introduce themselves and exchange texts; read and reflect independently.
6:30-6:45 Partner 1 offers feedback to Partner 2
6:45-7:00 Partner 2 offers feedback to Partner 1
7:00-7:20 Return to the main Zoom room – pairs or individuals can bring questions to the group for more input; Daniella Sanader will join the call to answer questions as well.
About the workshop leader
Daniella Sanader is a writer and reader based in Toronto. Her writing has appeared in Canadian Art, Artforum.com, C Magazine, BlackFlash Magazine, Border Crossings Magazine, Maclean’s, The Brooklyn Rail, esse magazine, and others. Her texts have also been published by a number of galleries and artist-run spaces across Canada and internationally. In January 2018, she was named the annual Emerging Cultural Leader by the Artist-Run Centres and Collectives of Ontario (ARCCO). She was also a participant in the Critical Art Writing Ensemble III at the Banff Centre in 2018. Currently, she works as a freelance editor, supporting artists, curators, and arts organizations to realize a variety of texts.
If you have any questions about this event, please contact Hannah Keating at hkeating@rmg.on.ca.
The RMG would like to acknowledge the RBC Foundation for their generous support of the Artist Professional Development Workshop Series.
This workshop is a celebration of spring facilitated by printmaker and RBC Emerging Artist in Residence Laura Grier. Laura will provide step-by-step instructions for designing, carving, and printing your own botanical relief prints inspired by the flowers that bloom at this hopeful time of year. We look forward to creating hand-printed cards and artworks together.
In this workshop, you will use a linoleum (lino) block to create a relief print. Much like the woodblock prints in Laura’s exhibition, you will use sharp tools to carve a pattern or image into a lino block; what’s left on the block will be inked and printed.
Materials:
We will provide all of the printing materials, including three blank cards for each participant.
Optional:
If you want to bring additional objects to print on, you can. For example, you could print on a plain tote bag to make your own custom design.
You can also bring your own flower samples to work from. For example, if you have fresh blooms in your garden, you can take a picture or pick a sample to use as your relief print inspiration.
Please keep in mind: If you are new to lino printing, we will be using sharp cutting tools. They are easy to use, but require a lot of care. Please be safe and follow Laura’s guidance.
This event is free and open to everyone, but there is a limit of 10 participants. Sign up to save your spot! If you sign up, but cannot attend, please email Hannah at hkeating@rmg.on.ca so we can open your spot for someone else.
Is there anything we can do to support your participation? Please reach out to Hannah at hkeating@rmg.on.ca.
About the Workshop Facilitator:
Laura Grier is a Délı̨nę First Nations artist and printmaker, born in Somba ké (Yellowknife), and raised in Alberta. Through the use of traditional print mediums, they instrumentalize the power of the handmade to reflect political sociology, culture, ecology, and Indigeneity. Responding to lived experiences of urban displacement as a Dene woman through print, Laura’s work is also inspired by the dynamism of Indigenous art practices and uses printmaking as a tool for resistance, refusal, and inherent Bets’ı̨nę́. They hold a BFA from NSCADU (K’jipuktuk) and an MFA from OCAD University (Tkaronto). They have exhibited at Xpace Cultural Centre, Harcourt House, DC3 Art Projects, SNAP Gallery, and ArtsPlace. Laura has received grants and awards for their work, including the Indigenous project grants from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Toronto Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, and was the 2018 RISE Emerging Artist recipient. They currently reside in Tkaronto.
