RMG Holiday Night Market

The Robert McLaughlin Gallery is very excited to host our first artisan market of the year in partnership with the City of Oshawa!

Our market will be conducted indoors, alongside the Oshawa Bright & Merry Festival, and will provide a spectacular view of the Tree Lighting ceremony.

Featuring high-quality artisans from across the GTA, we strive to provide a unique and local shopping experience this holiday season.

Meet our Vendors!

Damaged Goods – @damagedgoodsshoppe

Damaged Goods Shoppe creates unique and one of a kind mixed media art incorporating a variety of images, quotes and poetry and decoupage. As well as repurposing vintage items into one of a kind jewellery and housewares.

The Spring Moon – @thespringmoon
The Spring Moon celebrates the uniqueness and individuality of women by creating one-of-a-kind pieces of wearable art inspired by historical paintings and museum artifacts. Meticulously crafted by the Toronto based multi-disciplinary artist, Farheen Ali, each handmade piece features a striking mix of iridescent shells, pearls, recycled metals and found objects. These elements are all woven together with copper and stainless steel to create stunning pieces of wearable art, each with its own unique story.

Candles and Palms – @candlesandpalms

We specialize in hand pouring pure soy products, long lasting candles and wax melts. We carry a variety of scents and colours to add ambiance to your homes! Our candles are built to snuff using our lids to extinguish the flame and keep the smoke in the jar for your healthier living!

Equanimity Ceramics – @equanimityceramics

Ida is the ceramic artist behind Equanimity Ceramics creating functional pottery for your home. Ida focuses on functional kitchen ware and home decor in a modern style and neutral colors.

Catherine & Co. – @catherineandcompany

Catherine & Co. is a Toronto-based candle company known for making candles that are bound to start a conversation. Starting with a mission to get ahead of the next pandemic hobby, Catherine & Co. has become known for its funny candle names, fresh scents, and reusable glass jars. You can find our candles in-store across the GTA.

Kyla Vitek Jewellery – @kylavitekjewellery

Inspired by the perfection of nature, Kyla uses natural elements with ethically sourced precious metals & gemstones to create handmade silver & gold jewellery. Often examining the undesirable, odd or mundane aspects of plant life, Kyla utilizes the technique of organic casting to immortalize cedar sprigs, maple keys, twigs & seed pods to create pieces of wearable art.

Jothi Creative Wellness – @jothi_creative

Jothi is the Founder of Jothi Creative Wellness and the Visionary behind HERSpace a self-identified space for women and femmes collective wellness and connection. Jothi is an award-winning certified Transformational Wellness Coach facilitating groups and individual Wellness for over 10 years. Jothi is also an interdisciplinary artist and will have her beautiful art card sets along with prints, original art, and some HERSpace totes, mugs, bookmarks, stickers and journals for sale.

Artastic Sarah – @artastic_sarah

“Artastic Sarah” represents many mediums I enjoy working with, specifically resin and photography. As a beginner artist, I am always experimenting with these mediums. For my resin, the brand I always use is “ArtResin”. I make keychains from various molds, my finished pieces always include glitter, beads, stickers, leaves and little branches. My photography prints are 4×6 inches with a matte finish. My prints showcase my best photography work within nature.

AliStyles Paper Co. – @alistylespaperco

AliStyles Paper Co. is an emerging paper goods company specializing in greeting cards with bright colourful designs and punny, playful messages. Alice, the artist behind these designs has carefully crafted a variety of cards for life’s most meaningful moments. Inspired by her love of creating personalized cards for friends and family, she strives to renew the care and thoughtfulness of card giving.

TTAS Painting Gallery – @ttaspaintinggallery

Taslima is a self taught artist and passionate about creating nature landscapes, floral, still life and wildlife paintings on canvases using Acrylic. Her inspiration comes from the never-ending beauty she finds in nature.

Robin L. Potter – @robinlpotter

As an artist, my paintings emerge from intuitive and expressionistic beginnings, and evolve when incorporating objects, text, mark making, writing, papers, fabric, ribbon, glass and other domestic, natural, and academic materials into the artworks to create vibrant and multidimensional intention and layers. I work on wood panels, paper, and on stretched and raw canvases. My work has been shown in local juried shows. Extending my art to wearables lends a new vibe to the art.

QB Jewelry – @qbjewelryca

QB Jewelry makes one-of-a-kind pieces with purpose, to help you vibe high and feel beautiful. Each stone is carefully selected to ensure you’re wearing the highest quality items.

Russell Styles Art – @paper_bowl_bloke

The Paper Bowl Bloke creates ornamental paper bowls perfect for adding a pop of colour to your home décor. While rekindling his affection for the art of Paper Mache during the pandemic lockdowns, Russell Styles, the ‘Paper Bowl Bloke’ began crafting bowls from recycled newspapers in a variety of quirky shapes and sizes. Each bowl is a one-of-a-kind creation, hand painted in vibrant colors and decorated with sculpted embellishments.

Sorrel & Sage – @sorrelandsage

Sorrel & Sage—a wellness company that provides natural + curated products that promote and enhance the experience of self-care. Self-care is a concept that gets bandied about a lot, and while it means different things to different people, it’s become more apparent than ever that we all need to make time for it.

Sarah Tihane – @sarahtihane

Sarah Tihane makes whimsical, nature-inspired art objects that are playful (brightly painted plastic animal skulls with floral motifs), practical (fun bags to hold your dice and other treasures), and thoughtful (mini eco-art sculptures made from transformed Lake Ontario litter). In addition to these one-of-a-kind pieces, Sarah offers prints of frog photography, and illustrations of animal-headed people. She hopes you’ll enjoy exploring the little details and the feeling of discovery with each piece. And yes, she’s very good at sneaking up on frogs.

Vira Jewellery – @_virajewelry

House of the Painted Rock

The Urban Hick

Peach & Olive

All questions regarding this event should be directed to:

Emeraude Domingos-Mbuku Development & Membership Lead

Phone: (905) 576-3000

Email: embuku@rmg.on.ca

Erin Szikora

Phone: (905) 576-3000

Email: eszikora@rmg.on.ca

Fall Exhibitions Opening

Coming from Toronto? We have organized a bus to bring you to and from the opening! Pick up will be in front of OCADU at 100 McCaul St at 12:30PM. The bus will leave the RMG to return to OCADU at 3:45PM. Please fill out this form toreserve a spot on the bus.

On October 1, we are celebrating two new exhibitions at the RMG:

Annie MacDonell and Maïder Fortuné, still from Communicating Vessels, HD Video, 2020.

The Beyond Within

Annie MacDonell

September 24, 2022 – February 12, 2023

Curated by: Crystal Mowry and Leila Timmins
Organized and produced in partnership with the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery

At 2:15, Annie MacDonell will deliver a tour of her exhibition with Leila Timmins.

The Beyond Within is an exhibition of recent work by Toronto-based artist Annie MacDonell, exploring feminist conceptions of the everyday as a basis for political engagement with the world. In two videos made in collaboration with Paris-based artist Maïder Fortuné, pedagogical roles are underwritten by radical forms of intimacy. OUTHERE (For Lee Lozano) and Communicating Vessels consider the potential for dissolving an isolated sense of self through friendship and art making. MacDonell’s new film installation, Set and Setting, continues this exploration by juxtaposing animated drawings sourced from early psychedelic research trials with architectural sets that recall institutional examination rooms. The piece suggests that the boundary between subject and viewer is not only thin, but porous and continuously shifting. Through these collaborative video projects and new installations, MacDonell asks whether it is possible, within static institutions and other familiar containers, to follow radical detours that create possibilities to build our worlds anew.

The Sire of Sires

Jordan Elliot Prosser

October 1 – November 13, 2022

Curated by: Hannah Keating

Informed by the legacy of landmarks like General Motors, Jordan Elliot Prosser’s recent projects have documented Oshawa’s uncertain identity as a post-industrial suburban community. In The Sire of Sires, he turns to another performance-driven industry that took root in Oshawa: E.P. Taylor’s enterprise at Windfields Farm. As the leading producer of thoroughbreds in Canada, Windfields produced Northern Dancer, who was first Canadian-bred horse to win the Kentucky Derby and the most influential stallion in North America. Upon retirement, Northern Dancer became a sought-after studding horse with many of his descendants achieving success as both racehorses and sires. One of those sons, Nijinsky, was named after a famous 20th-century Russian ballet dancer who prophesized he would be reborn as a horse. This unusual and unlikely tie between Oshawa and Vaslav Nijinsky inspired Prosser’s new video The Sire of Sires, which he shot at Windfields Farm and features a character from Nijinsky’s ballet L’Après-midi d’un faune (1912). The ballet itself was created in response to two other works of art by the same name: a symphony (1894) by Claude Debussy and a poem (1876) by Stéphane Mallarmé. Accordingly, The Sire of Sires reflects on the theme of reproduction, as it relates to artistic inheritance and Prosser’s sprawling record of this place called Oshawa.

Also on view:

True Currency

Artists: Christina Battle, Helen Cho, Alvin Luong, Sofia Mesa, Dana Prieto, Cassie Thornton

June 18 – November 5, 2022

Complete Freedom

Abstract artworks from our permanent collection

December 11th, 2021 – October 9th, 2022

Come Together

Photographs from the Thomas Bouckley Collection

June 18, 2022 – January 8, 2023

RMG Fridays Presents: Back to School

We’re going to squeeze in one more outdoor show! Lets mark back to school by extending the summer just a little bit longer. Bring a lawn chair or a blanket and come experience the soulful song writing and warm melodies of Hunter Sheridan.

This is an all-ages event; pets will not be admitted. Please note that there is no smoking on City property, which includes the RMG’s backyard.

Explore Hunter Sheridan’s music and new single Northern Lights.

Upstairs in Arthurs on the 4th:

Films from DRIFF will be playing throughout the evening at 7:15pm, 8pm, and 9pm.

September’s Films:

BELLA

BY: KAYLEE LEBRETON

A beautifully distressing black and white film about a woman being followed by trauma that comes to a shocking and unexpected conclusion.

MAYMAY

BY: BILL SHAWANDA

A daughter’s impromptu visit with her reclusive mother leads to revelations both past and present.

DIRTY HANDS

BY: GRETA CHEECHOO

Dirty Hands is a story of lost innocence when a young boy experiments with drugs. His older brother Norman, feeling anger and pain, takes matters into his own hands and sets out to get revenge on the one who is responsible for his brother’s overdose.

Hunter Sheridan

Hunter Sheridan is a Canadian musician whose music delivers introspective, soulful song writing with warm melodies that weave a euphoric atmosphere. Hunter’s writing highlights self-discovery, honest lyrics, and dynamic arrangements, connecting with listeners across music genres.

Special thanks to DRIFF in a Jiff and Canada Council and the Arts Reopening Fund for their support with this event. We acknowledge the financial support of Canada’s private radio broadcasters.

Canada council logo

RMG Fridays Presents: An Evening with Desarae Dee

The fourth and final outdoor RMG Fridays in 2022 features warm weather and warm vibes, so bring a lawn chair or a blanket and come experience the soulful musings of instrumental/fusion artist Desarae Dee.

This is an all-ages event, but pets will not be admitted. Please note that there is no smoking on city property, which includes the RMG’s backyard.

Program:

7:00 – Doors open

7:30 – Performance by Desarae Dee

8:00 – Tour of “Journeys”

8:30 – Performance by Desarae Dee

Upstairs in Arthurs on the 4th:

Films from DRIFF will be playing throughout the evening at 7:15pm, 8pm, and 9pm.

About the Films

The Night Shift | dir. Karim Shaaban | 14 mins

Zein, a young man in his mid-20s, seems content with his job as a customer service representative. During one of his late-night shifts, he receives a call from a customer which exposes him to the drudgery of his work, his powerlessness, and the ugliness of his life.

Deux Dollars | dir. Emmanuel Tenenbaum | 10 mins

After a week of leave, Sylvie is back at the Quebec company where she has been an exemplary employee for more than 15 years. She is then requested to attend a bizarre meeting.

Desarae Dee

A resident of Durham for the past thirty years, Desarae Dee is a powerhouse pianist/keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist who has been dubbed “Toronto’s Queen of Vibes”. With an extensive resume of singles as well as major releases, Desarae has developed a passionate and meaningful sound combining a unique mixture of faith, soul, and vulnerability in a divine balance. She continues to blaze a trail in the name of instrumental music all the while breaking barriers for current and future Black Women Musicians in Canada.

Special thanks to DRIFF in a Jiff and Canada Council and the Arts Reopening Fund for their support with this event. We acknowledge the financial support of Canada’s private radio broadcasters.

Canada council logo

RMG Fridays Presents: Chastity and Mary & Adelaide

The third outdoor-edition of RMG Fridays happens on July 8th and features performances by two alt-rock bands with Durham Region roots: headliner Chastity, led by Whitby-born songwriter and frontman Brandon Williams, and Mary & Adelaide, a quartet of Oshawa-based indie-rockers. Don’t miss the loudest RMG Fridays concert yet!

Be sure to bring a lawn chair or blanket to enjoy the outdoor entertainment!

This is an all-ages event, but pets will not be admitted. Please note that there is no smoking on city property, which includes the RMG’s backyard.

Program:

7:00 – Doors open

7:30 – Performance by Mary & Adelaide

8:15 – Tour of “True Currency”

8:45 – Performance by Chastity

Upstairs in Arthurs on the 4th:

Films from DRIFF will be playing throughout the evening at 7:15pm, 8pm, and 9pm.

Chastity

Brandon Williams makes resonant songs that capture isolation and resilience. As the songwriter behind Chastity, the Whitby, Ontario musician has made three unrelentingly perceptive albums culminating in the cathartic “Suffer Summer”, which was released in January 2022. Chastity started as a way for Williams to find community in his suffocating and isolating suburban life, and his songs serve as an outstretched hand for the like-minded people on the fringes.

Mary & Adelaide

Mary & Adelaide formed around an intersection in Oshawa. Unimpressed by the sounds they heard around them, four friends decided to make the music they wanted to hear. The indie rock outfit formed in 2017 in comprised of Aidan McGuirk on guitar and vocals, Luke Mitchell on drums, Sam Szigeti on bass, and Kyle Topolnisky on rhythm. They have released four singles, plus a video for their song ‘Faded’.

Special thanks to DRIFF in a Jiff and Canada Council and the Arts Reopening Fund for their support with this event. We acknowledge the financial support of Canada’s private radio broadcasters.

Canada council logo

Artist Talk with Malik McKoy

Join Malik in Gallery A for an artist-led tour of his solo exhibition Code Switch.

As RBC Emerging Artist in Residence, Malik McKoy has created a new body of work that considers how technologies like virtual reality and artificial intelligence reproduce human biases, and more specifically, how racialized bodies are subject to the harms caused by escapism and the commodification of identity online. In McKoy’s ongoing effort to bridge digital and paint-based practices, the work in this exhibition grapples with the increasingly blurred line between online and offline selves and how carefully constructed avatars actually relate to the people they represent.

The RBC Emerging Artist Residency Program is generously sponsored by the RBC Foundation and the RBC Emerging Artist Project.

Summer Exhibitions Opening

Celebrate the opening of three exciting new exhibitions at the RMG! This summer, we are pleased to present:

True Currency

Artists: Christina Battle, Helen Cho, Alvin Luong, Sofia Mesa, Dana Prieto, Cassie Thornton

June 18 – November 5, 2022

True Currency is an exhibition about indebtedness and exchange. Bringing together works that explore alternative economies, reciprocity, indebtedness, labour, and wellbeing, this show looks at how value is produced through the circulation of goods and ideas. Taking up exchange as both subject matter and form, the artworks here have been produced through various forms of collaboration. In looking at informal seed exchanges, mutual aid networks, gig economies, and solidarity groups, the works offer strategies for cooperation and resilience, seeing reciprocity as a marker or survival, capacity and flourishing.

Mystery Tomato Plant Seedlings – yours to take home!

As an extension of the project seeds are meant to disperse (2015-ongoing), artist Christina Battle has grown a number of mystery tomato plant seedlings to give away at the opening of the True Currency exhibition. In tending to the tomato plants, Christina asks participants to try and guess the variety of each plant and to save a seed and send it back to her as a way for the project to continue.

Share your tomato plant photos with the hashtag, #seedsaremeanttodisperse.

Code Switch

Artist: Malik McKoy

June 17 – July 31, 2022

As RBC Emerging Artist in Residence, Malik McKoy has created a new body of work that considers how technologies like virtual reality and artificial intelligence reproduce human biases, and more specifically, how marginalized bodies are subject to the harms caused by escapism and the commodification of identity online. In McKoy’s ongoing effort to bridge digital and paint-based practices, the work in this exhibition grapples with the increasingly blurred line between online and offline selves and how carefully constructed avatars actually relate to the people they represent.

Come Together

Photographs from the Thomas Bouckley Collection

June 18, 2022 – January 8, 2023

Over the last couple of years, Oshawa’s popular community events, such as live music performances, Fiesta Festival, Pride, and the Peony Festival, shifted to digital formats. With plans for a return to in-person events, this exhibition reflects on ways historical Oshawa gathered in the past, and celebrates the importance of community coming together in celebration.

Also on view:

Elemental: Oceanic

Tim Whiten

April 9th, 2022 – August 28th, 2022

Complete Freedom

Abstract artworks from our permanent collection

December 11th, 2021 – October 9th, 2022

Light refreshments will be served.

Coming from Toronto? We have organized a bus to bring you to and from the opening! Pick up will be in front of OCADU at 100 McCaul St at 1:00PM and will return to OCADU for 4:30. Reserve your spot today!

The Robert McLaughlin Gallery is an accessible venue. To learn more or request accommodations, please visit https://rmg.on.ca/visit/accessibility-and-accommodations/.

Durham College Thesis Exhibition Reception

Celebrate Emerging Visions with the staff and students of Durham College! This closing reception will be hosted during RMG Friday, the RMG’s monthly concert series.

RMG Fridays Presents: NERiMA + Division Street

Join us for the June edition of our monthly free concert series, RMG FRIDAYS! This night features short films courtesy of Durham Region International Film Festival, performances by NERiMA and Division Street, as well as the closing reception of the Durham College Thesis Exhibition: Emerging Visions.

Be sure to bring a lawn chair or blanket to enjoy the outdoor entertainment!

This is an all-ages event, but pets will not be admitted. Please note that there is no smoking on city property, which includes the RMG’s backyard.

Program:

7:00 – Doors Open

In the Backyard:

7:30 Performance by NERiMA

8:15 Closing reception of Durham College Thesis Exhibition: Emerging Visions

8:45 Performance by Division Street

In Arthurs on the 4th:

Films from DRIFF will be playing throughout the evening at 7:15pm, 8pm, and 9pm.

NERiMA
Staying true to both punk-rock roots and a love for the modern alternative scene, young, Oshawa-based NERiMA explores a mix of genres in their sentimental music. This up-and-coming band showcases a variety of sounds ranging from upbeat instrumentation with fun vocals to mellow songs with softly-sung, earnest lyrics.

Division Street
Kyle Hammer, known professionally as Division Street, is a musician, record producer, composer and songwriter from Bowmanville, Ontario. 
Division Street is an ambiguous interpretation of a fork in one’s road.

Special thanks to DRIFF in a Jiff and Canada Council and the Arts Reopening Fund for their support with this event. We acknowledge the financial support of Canada’s private radio broadcasters.

Canada council logo

Story and Song: Intro to Anishinaabemowin with Melody Crowe

This event is free and open to everyone. Registration required.

Join us virtually or in-person at Oshawa Public Libraries – Delpark Homes Centre Branch on Saturday June 18th from 10:30 – 11:30 am for a morning of stories and songs with Anishinaabekwe Melody Crowe. Learn the Anishinaabemowin names for the animals living around us. This event is hybrid with limited in-person capacity. Our in-person capacity is now full. To participate virtually, please register with the link above. Each participant will receive a printable colouring book.

This event is for all ages and is presented in partnership with The Robert McLaughlin Gallery and Oshawa Public Libraries.

This program is presented as part of Mamanaw Pekiskwewina | Mother Tongues: Dish With One Spoon Territory, the second of four locality specific iterations of the Mamanaw Pekiskwewina project, and was developed in tandem with the presentation of Taskoch pipon kona kah nipa muskoseya, nepin pesim eti pimachihew | Like the winter snow kills the grass, the summer sun revives it at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery. Mamanaw Pekiskwewina | Mother Tongues: Dish With One Spoon Territory is co-curated by Missy LeBlanc and Erin Szikora.


Melody Crowe is a Michi-Saagiig Anishinaabe Woman from Alderville First Nation which is located on the South Shore of Rice Lake, Ontario. She has dedicated her life to creating a deeper understanding and appreciation of First Nation culture, knowledge, language, and history, and has more than 25 years of teaching the Ojibway language to children, youth, adults, and Elders. She works from the place of honouring her Ancestors and honouring the importance of Indigenous Peoples and ways of knowing. In 2007, Melody received the Lifetime Achievement Award for her work in the preservation of language and culture from the Union of Ontario Indians, and in 2015, the Honouring Our People Award from the Ogemawahi Tribal Council. Melody is also an eagle feather carrier, a jingle dancer, and a photographer.

Mamanaw Pekiskwewina Mother Tongues: Dish With One Spoon Territory is presented in partnership with TRUCK Contemporary Art.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Trillium Foundation for this project.

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