We are pleased to present five new exhibitions this summer!

We are ten thousand hands that plant seeds
June 7 – October 5, 2025
Artists: Megan Feheley, Maureen Gruben, Sharmistha Kar, Gloria Martinez-Granados, Soledad Fátima Muñoz, and Nazzal Studio
Curator: Abedar Kamgari

Co-presented with SAVAC (South Asian Visual Arts Centre)

Borrowing its title from the last poem written by Chilean singer and activist Victor Jara, this exhibition brings together artists who respond to their lived or inherited experiences of colonialism, displacement, and genocide. The artists draw on an embodied “language of textiles” to communicate—through the body—what cannot be expressed in words. Their artworks are alive and an integral part of cultural, social, and political movements reclaiming and remembering buried histories; refusing displacement and disappearance; and building towards liberation.

Related programming:
Noticing and Sensing: An Experimental Exhibition Tour with Abedar Kamgari
June 12, 2025, 6:30 – 8pm

Summer Exhibitions Opening + Launch of the Star Glyph Garden
June 21, 2025, 1 – 4pm

Northern Shadows, Northern Spirits
June 14 – August 10, 2025
Curator: Hannah Keating
Artist: Pixel Heller

Drawing inspiration from the masquerade (mas) tradition of Caribbean Carnival, Pixel Heller explores Black identity and resistance through costume design, performance, and photography. In this exhibition, she presents new garments and accessories for three traditional mas characters – Moko Jumbie, the Midnight Robber, and Jumbies – alongside photographs of informal performances throughout Oshawa featuring the artist and her friends in costume. This work exemplifies Heller’s interest in interpreting the deep cultural history of Carnival from her perspective as a contemporary artist. Participating in the legacy of traditional mas as a tool of social critique, she embraces the art form as a tool for building community and infusing the everyday with ancestral presence.

Related programming:
Summer Exhibitions Opening + Launch of the Star Glyph Garden
June 21, 2025, 1 – 4pm

Georgia Fullerton: Being In and Moving Through
August 16, 2025 – January 11, 2026
Curator: Sonya Jones
Artist: Georgia Fullerton

Georgia Fullerton’s art tells her story of healing and self-discovery. Art has helped Fullerton navigate trauma, change and personal growth, and now, as a practitioner of expressive arts therapy, she helps others discover the transformative potential of art. This exhibition showcases Fullerton’s well-known abstract expressionist watercolours and collages as well as invites viewers into her creative process. For Fullerton, the act of artmaking is just as significant as the final piece, with both working together to illustrate how art serves as a vital tool for processing and moving through emotions.

Related programming:
Georgia Fullerton: Opening Reception
Sep 28, 2025, 1 – 3pm

Being in the Dream, Moving Through the Awakening: An Expressive Arts Workshop Inspired by Georgia Fullerton
Oct 25, 2025, 2 – 3pm

Wish You Were Here!
June 21, 2025 – January 11, 2026
Curator: Sonya Jones

In the early 20^th century, sending a postcard was an affordable and quick way to connect with loved ones. Often costing just a halfpenny— half the price of a letter —postcards offered a simple yet effective way to share news, greetings, and sentiments. This exhibition features historical postcards from Oshawa, drawn from the Thomas Bouckley Collection. Thomas Bouckley was a passionate collector of all things Oshawa, including postcards, photographs, and ephemera. The postcards on display are more than just snapshots of time—they are windows into the daily lives, humor, and culture of a community.

Related programming:
Summer Exhibitions Opening + Launch of the Star Glyph Garden
June 21, 2025, 1 – 4pm

Adventure: Seniors Art Competition and Exhibition 2025
August 15 – September 25, 2025
Community Partnership

The Seniors Art Competition and Exhibition is a showcase of creativity and technical skill among members of the Oshawa Senior Community Centres, Oshawa Public Libraries, and The Robert McLaughlin Gallery. Featuring paintings, drawings, sculpture, and more, this annual community exhibition is structured around a competition theme. This year, the theme is adventure.

Related programming:
Seniors Art Competition and Exhibition 2025: Opening and Awards Reception
Aug 19, 2025, 2:30 – 3:30pm

The Robert McLaughlin Gallery is an accessible venue. To learn more or request accommodations, please visit our website

The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, a cornerstone of Oshawa’s vibrant arts community, is pleased to welcome Alix Voz as our new Chief Executive Officer. Voz will officially join the gallery on June 2, 2025. We are also pleased to announce that Rose Rockbrune has joined the team as our new Director, Finance and Operations.

With over ten years of experience in the arts and non-profit sectors, Voz brings a deep commitment to cultural leadership, education, and community building. Most recently, she served as the Gallery Director + Curator at Cambridge Art Galleries, where she expanded public access to the arts and significantly grew organizational support.

“On behalf of the RMG, it’s staff and the Board of Directors, I am thrilled to announce and welcome Alix Voz as our new CEO” says Kegan Winters, Chair of the Board of Directors. “Alix brings to the role a wealth of experience and a vision for the future that is perfectly aligned with the RMG’s strategic plan, our values and our culture of care. I would also like to welcome Rose Rockbrune as our new DFO. As a CPA and an active member of the Oshawa community, Rose brings extensive experience from the public and private sectors, and we are glad to have her join the team.

As we look forward to Alix joining us, I would like to extend gratitude and thanks to our Senior Curator and Interim CEO, Leila Timmins. During this time of transition, Leila has been providing strong leadership and stability to the organization, and we are deeply appreciative of this.”

“I’m very excited to be joining the incredible team at the RMG” say Alix Voz. “I’ve long admired the gallery’s commitment to artists, community, and care, and I’m truly honoured to become part of its next chapter. I look forward to listening, learning, and collaborating as we continue building a vibrant and inclusive space for creativity and connection.”

There will be a reception to welcome Alix Voz to the RMG at the AGM on Wednesday, June 18. Need to sign up or renew your membership? Click here.

About Alix Voz
Alix Voz is a cultural leader, curator, and educator dedicated to fostering care, equity, and innovation within cultural institutions. With several years of leadership experience, she has guided curatorial initiatives, expanded community engagement, and championed inclusive arts education. Most recently serving as Director of Cambridge Art Galleries, Alix brings a visionary, community-centred approach to public gallery leadership. She is passionate about advancing cultural spaces as inclusive hubs for connection, creativity, care, and community resilience.

About Rose Rockbrune
Rose Rockbrune is a seasoned finance professional with experience in not-for-profit as well as for profit organizations. She has worked across a number of businesses including automotive, medical, aerospace and public boards.  She is a hands-on individual and enjoys the day-to-day work as well as projects.  She has a CPA designation as well as a degree in business administration.  In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, the theatre and live concerts. She looks forward to working with her new colleagues at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery.

We are pleased to present four new exhibitions this spring!

Tom Dean: GOOD-BYE
April 5 – September 7, 2025
Curator: Leila Timmins + Yan Wu

Driven by two essential inquiries—why “GOOD-BYE” then, and why Tom Dean now—the exhibition GOOD-BYE revisits the artist’s life in early 1970s Montreal. It brings together a rarely seen body of work—early conceptual artworks on canvas and in sculptural forms—and archival materials from that period, documenting the artist’s extensive and active engagement with the local alternative art scene and broader cultural milieu.

Related Programming:
Tom Dean: GOOD-BYE Opening Reception
April 5, 2025, 1:00 – 3:30pm

Tom Dean: Roundtable Discussions
Saturday, June 7, 2025
2:00 – 5:00pm, followed by a reception, 5:00 – 7:00pm
Top Top Projects, 165 Geary Ave, Toronto, ON M6H 2B8
RSVP

Roundtable A: Press and Publications | 2:00pm
Co-presented with Art Metropole
Featuring: Vincent Bonin, Robert Fones, Peggy Gale, and Louis Jacob

Roundtable B: Artist-Run Spaces and Culture | 3:30pm
Co-presented with the plumb
Featuring: Anthony Cooper, Suzy Lake, and Adam Welch

Artists by Artists
March 8 – August 10, 2025
Curated by Sonya Jones

Artists by Artists, drawn from the Permanent Collection, presents portraits of artists created by their peers. Bringing together various mediums, styles and approaches, the artworks featured in this exhibition are as varied as the subjects and artists themselves. Ranging from intimate sketches to formal representations, these works go beyond mere likeness to reflect the deep admiration and special connections between artists.

Painters Eleven: Abstract Bonds
March 8 – August 24, 2025
Curated by Sonya Jones

This exhibition features work by Painters Eleven, the first abstract artist collective in Ontario. They were founded in 1953 at the cottage of artist Alexandra Luke on the Oshawa/Whitby border. The group did not have a common philosophy or style, instead Painters Eleven banded together around their shared desire to support abstraction and exhibit together. As Jock Macdonald noted: “The meaning of our group is the fact that we think alike about creativeness in art and the unity established is our power.” Rather than a manifesto, the group settled on a statement: “There is no manifesto here for the times. There is no jury but time. By now there is little harmony in the noticeable disagreement. But there is a profound regard for the consequences of our complete freedom.”

The Oshawa Art Association’s 57th Juried Art Exhibition
May 1 – May 18, 2025
Community Partnership

This exhibition showcases artworks created by artists from across Durham Region.

Related Programming:
Opening Reception: May 1, 2025, 6:00 – 9:00pm

Presented in partnership with the Oshawa Art Association.

EMERGING VISIONS: Durham College Thesis Exhibition 2025
May 2 – June 8, 2025
Community Partnership

We are pleased to present the annual Durham College Thesis Exhibition! Like all visionary explorers, the students in Durham College’s Fine Arts Advanced program are involved in a continual process of identifying and studying meaningful subjects that pertain to their own evolving bodies of work. They first research then develop strategies unique to their practice through experimentation, all the while learning to define and focus their personal interests. This exhibition includes a wide range of subjects, interests, and mediums.

Related Programming:
Opening Reception: May 2, 2025, 7:00-9:00pm
Artist Talks: May 14, 2025, 1:00 – 2:30pm

Click here to plan your visit.

In November 2024, the gallery was honoured to receive funding from Partners in Art (PIA) to support Pickering-based artist Christina Leslie’s first major museum solo exhibition Likkle Acts and its related programming. Featuring four series of photographs, the exhibition delves into themes of memory and migration, as well as looking at the history of the transatlantic slave trade and its ties to the sugar industry. Set in Jamaica, each body of work explores the artist’s familial relationships and the complex history of the Caribbean. The RMG is proud to present this powerful exhibition by a local artist, and grateful for the support of PIA to allow us to share this work with our community.

The financial support from PIA was also instrumental in allowing us to activate the exhibition with a range of public and private events. The exhibition’s programs have created opportunities for visitors to celebrate Caribbean and diasporic identities, confront the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade, and to engage with the materiality of Leslie’s innovative and experimental practice. As a springboard for important conversations, these talks, tours and workshops enable children, adults, and artists to explore important questions and insights, from the artist and one another.

Christina Leslie is an artist based in Pickering, Ontario. She earned her BFA in 2006 at OCADU in Toronto and her MFA at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia, USA in 2022. Her photographs have been featured in numerous publications and exhibited both nationally and internationally. Her latest series “Sugar Coat” has been exhibited virtually on Ain’t Bad Magazine (2021), Featureshoot.com (2022), PetaPixel.com (2022), and in-person at BAND Gallery (2023). She has exhibited nationally and internationally at GAMU (2009), Royal Ontario Museum (2010), Pier 21 (201, Art Gallery of Windsor (2017), Peel Art Gallery Museum and Archives (2020), Prefix ICA (2021), and McMaster Museum of Art (2022). Much of her photographic practice revolves around the themes of de-colonialism, identity, immigration, issues of marginalization, history, memory, race, and her West Indian heritage. She often utilizes text and alternative and historical photographic processes to produce her photographs. She is a member of an all-female photography collective, Silver Water Collective and is represented by Stephen Bulger Gallery in Toronto.

About Partners in Art
Partners in Art is a Canadian charitable organization that funds and champions contemporary visual art through philanthropy, volunteerism and education. Since 2002, PIA’s model of collective philanthropy has funded bold, innovative, contemporary arts projects to champion thoughtful perspectives on our world and drive social change. PIA actively collaborates with Canadian curators, educators, art organizations and museums. Having raised over $6.1 million and supported over 146 different projects, PIA focuses on funding projects featuring contemporary artists with challenging works. Annual member donations, fundraising events and public donations make PIA’s work possible. Learn more here.

We are pleased to present four new exhibitions this winter!

Karen Kar Yen Law: RBC Emerging Artist in Residence Exhibition

February 25, 2025 – April 19, 2025

Curated by Hannah Keating

During her residency, Karen Kar Yen Law will develop a new body of work within her ongoing artistic exploration of the five essential flavours of Chinese cuisine (salty, spicy, sour, sweet, and bitter). Focusing her research at the RMG on bitterness, Karen will create new paintings inspired by the unique flavour profile of the bitter melon. Drawing on a variety of painting and printmaking techniques, she will consider how bitterness relates to Chinese culinary traditions, experiences of diaspora and diasporic identities, and intergenerational relationships.

Related programming:
Exhibition Opening + Artist Talk: March 1, 2025, 1-3PM

This program is supported by the RBC Foundation’s RBC Emerging Artist Project.

Oshawa Camera Club: Celebrating 100 Years of Oshawa with Pictures

December 12, 2024 – June 15, 2025
Curated by Sonya Jones

The Robert McLaughlin Gallery and the Oshawa Camera Club are pleased to present an exhibition in honour of the City of Oshawa’s 100th anniversary that celebrates the vibrancy and diversity of Oshawa through photos. This exhibition will feature photographs from the City of Oshawa’s 100 Centennial Photography Contest.

The Neighbours Art Hive

December 21, 2024 – February 17, 2025

As a place to make, rest, and connect, the installation supports creative community development, social connection, and personal wellbeing through art-making experiences. We invite all our neighbours to drop in any time during operating hours to make use of the free art materials! Participants are welcome to take their projects with them or hang them up for everyone to enjoy during the run of the exhibition.

The Neighbours Art Hive is a temporary installation that transforms the gallery into an active studio space with help from the LivingRoom Community Art Studio.

Presented by The Catherine and Maxwell Meighen Foundation.

Related programming:

Every Friday from January 10 to February 14, 2025, volunteers from the LivingRoom Community Art Studio will be onsite to lead facilitated sessions from 12pm-3:30pm.

Into the Horizon: Durham Catholic District School Board Art Exhibition

February 27 – March 16, 2025

Community Partnership

This exhibition celebrates artworks by students in Kindergarten – Grade 12 from across the Durham Catholic District School Board.

Related programming:
Opening reception: February 27, 6-8PM

Presented in partnership with the Durham Catholic District School Board.

After five years at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery (RMG), Lauren Gould will be stepping down as CEO in February 2025. Lauren joined the RMG on March 16, 2020, the first day of lockdown, at the beginning of the pandemic. While this made for an unexpected beginning, Lauren was able to navigate this time with proficiency and grace, establishing a deep culture of care for the gallery staff, Board, artists, and community. 

During her time as the RMG’s leader, Lauren completed many important initiatives including the renewal of organizational policies, the realization of The Backyard Community Arts Greenspace, and the strengthening of the financial health of the gallery through growing revenue, eliminating the deficit, and developing an internally restricted reserve. 

“Lauren‘s abilities as a caring, strategic, impactful and inspiring leader, and her passion for the arts have been deeply felt by the staff, Board, and the entire community that the RMG serves.  She has accomplished many great things during her tenure with the gallery.  Her stewardship and completion of many key initiatives leaves the organization better positioned to thrive in the future. While Lauren will most certainly be missed, we wish her well and look forward to seeing what new challenges she takes on next!” says Kegan Winters, Chair of the RMG’s Board of Directors.

“I know I speak for the entire staff team when I say that Lauren will be deeply missed. Her kindness, accountability and care for the staff have made a lasting impact on the gallery. I am grateful to have worked with a leader that embodies the values of the RMG and so thankful for all that she has done to strengthen the gallery, actively support artists, and build relationships within the community,” shares Leila Timmins, Senior Curator.

“I am fortunate to have worked with such a dedicated, joyous, creative group of people.  Serving as the leader of the RMG has been my honour and given me great joy.  The feeling of this place and space, its grounding in care, and belief in the power of the arts is truly remarkable.   I have deep gratitude for each and every person I’ve connected with during my time at the gallery,” said Lauren Gould, “The RMG has a bright and brilliant future!”

Lauren, the Board of Directors, and senior staff will be working to ensure a smooth transition in leadership in the months ahead.  The Board of Directors has struck an ad-hoc Transition Committee that will lead the search for a new CEO alongside Searchlight Partners.  The posting can be found on the Searchlight Partners’ website.

The RMG is a place where we want everyone to feel like they belong.  It is also a space for many to reflect, learn, engage in dialogue, and connect.  During these complex global times, we believe art can play an important role in understanding our world and in healing.  We have cultivated a culture of care that considers how we care for each other, artists, and our communities.

Recently, there have been a number of high-profile incidents of censorship of artists and arts workers in our sector worldwide with regards to Israel-Palestine, particularly Pro-Palestine perspectives.  This has prompted us to make a statement so that past, current, and future partners and artists understand our stance.  The RMG also wanted to share how we’re taking action internally to support our team who have been affected by the ongoing atrocities.

The RMG does not tolerate any form of discrimination, including anti-semitism and Islamophobia.  One of our organizational values is Equity and Justice.  We are dedicated to integrating anti-oppressive and anti-racist processes throughout all facets of our work.  You can read more about our vision, mission, and values here and our Equity Public Statement and annual update here. 

There is a protected freedom of expression in Canada.  We recognize our team members, and others that the RMG works with, may be advocates for equity and social justice or be involved in activism outside of the RMG. We support the fundamental freedom of expression.  Similarly, we do not condone hate speech or discrimination based on the identifiers in the Ontario Human Rights Code. 

We support our team and understand that at times it can feel difficult to carry on business as usual.  As such, we may pause our communications at times, we will continue to provide personal emergency leave days or necessary wellness breaks for staff, and we will align with partners who uphold our values.