Join us from 6-9pm for the opening reception of the Oshawa Art Association’s 58th Juried Art Exhibition. Awards to be presented at 7pm.
This event is free and open to everyone. If there are ways we can support your participation, please contact Hannah at [email protected].
Come together to celebrate student art in Durham Region!
The RMG invites you to attend the opening reception our bi-annual Durham District School Board Exhibition: For Art’s Sake. Showcasing artworks from nearly every high school in the region, this event recognizes our local budding young artists.
This event is free and open to everyone. For information on our facilities, please click here. If there are ways we can support your participation, please contact Leila at [email protected].
Presented in partnership with
Back by popular demand! This free event encourages seniors (age 55+) to spend the afternoon curating their own program. We will offer refreshments, tours and drop-in art making sessions. It’s a fun, low-pressure way to try something new, meet fellow seniors, and celebrate creativity.
Schedule of events, details below:
1:30-2:30pm │The Lookout │1st Floor
Soft Pastel Pears
Guest Instructor: Jade Wysotski
Look forward to bringing this colourful pair of pears to life using soft pastels and a variety of blending techniques. We will focus on how to express form through colour and direction.
Enjoy creating a work of art suitable for all drawing abilities. All materials provided!
1 – 3:30pm │Studio │1st Floor
Make an Impression This Spring
Celebrate the season with an engaging and creative afternoon of printmaking. This drop-in session invites you to explore a simple, rewarding printmaking process using printing foam, ink, and paper.
All supplies are provided, and no prior art experience is necessary.
1pm │ Lobby │Main Floor
Meet us in the lobby for an exploratory exhibition tour. View historical Canadian artworks that are protected and selected from our Permanent Collection as well as special exhibitions, featuring diverse artworks by Canadian artists.
1 – 3pm │ Arthurs │4th Floor
Join us in our charismatically renovated event space, featuring fresh spring views from above Oshawa. We are serving free, light refreshments including hot tea, coffee and small bites. Perfect to warm up and socialize with new and familiar friends!
Receive 10% off on regular priced items in our gift shop. Not including books or member pricing, in store only.
Seniors Programming has been made possible thanks to the generous support of Sienna for Seniors Foundation.
Join us for artmaking and community connection in The Neighbour’s Art Hive!
Each session is led by a passionate and talented local artist-educator who will guide creative exploration while fostering a warm, inclusive, and welcoming space for all participants. All experience levels are welcome.
Sessions are hosted from 11am–2pm in Gallery A.
Sessions
🟆 Saturday, January 17, 2026: Collage & Zines with Hayde Esmailzadeh
🟆 Saturday, January 24, 2026: Expressive Arts: Exploring Paper Sculpture Techniques with Carol Knowlton-Dority
🟆 Saturday, January 31, 2026: Storytelling Drawing: Comic/Zine with Anoosh Mubashar
🟆 Saturday, February 7, 2026: Collage & Zines with Ruckus Art Collective
🟆 Saturday, February 14, 2026: Learn How to Bead on Fabric with Leequette Santiago-Hinds
🟆 Sunday, February 15, 2026: Acrylic Pour Painting with Melissa Dipchand
What to expect:
The Neighbour’s Project, installed at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery (February 2024).
The Neighbour’s Project, installed at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery (February 2024).
The RMG is located at 72 Queen Street, Civic Centre in Oshawa, across from the McLaughlin Branch of the Oshawa Public Libraries. The Neighbour’s Art Hive is in Gallery A, which is located on the lower level of the RMG. It is accessible by stairs or elevator. Between the elevator and Gallery A, you’ll pass our public washrooms. We have an accessible single-stall washroom as well as gender-inclusive multi-stall washrooms. Read more about our facilities here.
What is an art hive?
Art Hives are safe, accessible spaces that enable people of all ages to participate in free public relaxation. In an Art Hive, traditional hierarchies, processes, and ways of being can be deconstructed and re-imagined in playful, personal, and compassionate ways.
The Neighbour’s Art Hive is a temporary installation at the RMG that transforms the gallery into an active studio space with help from the LivingRoom Community Art Studio. Outside of these facilitated sessions, we also invite all our neighbours to drop in any time during operating hours to make use of the free art materials on their own time.
The Neighbour’s Project, installed at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery (February 2024).
January 17
Collage & Zines with Hayde Esmailzadeh
Join us for a creative and collaborative day of collage and zine-making. We’ll dive into zine-making and use drawing, writing, and collage to create your own self-published piece to share beyond the workshop. In addition, you will have the option to contribute to a collective group zine that will be kept at the Art Hive. All materials included. No experience necessary.
Hayde Esmailzadeh, also known as Zadeh, is a ceramicist, sculptor, and mixed-media creator. She is the editor-in-chief and co-creator of Zene Magazine, an independent publication focused on self-publishing and platforming emerging and underrepresented voices in contemporary art and culture. With a background rooted in hands-on making and storytelling, Hayde’s work focuses primarily on material exploration and community-driven publishing.
January 24
Expressive Arts: Exploring Paper Sculpture Techniques with Carol Knowlton-Dority
Participants are encouraged to explore their own voice as they experiment with a wide variety of paper sculpture techniques. Through guided discovery and problem solving challenges participants can discover many ways to cut/tear, curl, roll, fringe, fold, pleat and attach paper.
Participants are welcome to explore the techniques and materials as they choose, or they may make a piece of artwork in response to prompts such as: create an expressive face, an alien or a magical garden.
Carol Knowlton-Dority is a Toronto-based visual artist whose work explores the evolving nature of emotional experience. Themes of love, loss, desire, resilience, and hope shape her practice, inviting viewers into a compassionate and reflective encounter with the deep interior life we all share.
In addition to her studio practice, Carol creates Expressive Art experiences for children, adults, multi-generational and special interest groups. She has led workshops for Government of Canada: New Horizons for Seniors, INNoVA: Inclusive Solutions for an Enhanced Workforce, City of Toronto: (Clark Centre for the Arts, Public Health, Shelter, Housing and Support Division, Special Events, Cedar Ridge Creative Centre), Scarborough Arts, Friends of Guild Park and Gardens, University of Toronto, St. John the Divine Convent, Jaya Yoga and throughout the Toronto District School Board.
January 31
Storytelling Drawing: Comic/Zine with Anoosh Mubashar
Learn how to create a mini zine or regular zine for a creative storytelling outlet with a wide variety of materials to fit your artistic expression!
Anoosh is a Toronto-based artist and a recent graduate from OCAD University. She enjoys working in many media, especially painting, printmaking and storytelling. The human mind inspires her and expresses her art through familial stories of nostalgia and growing pains. Her large-scale paintings often draw inspiration from her Pakistani background, particularly through the intricate scarf patterns found in traditional Pakistani scarves, which expose areas of culture that impact identity, relationships, power dynamics, and self-expression. She enjoys incorporating bold, vivid colours into large-scale, multi-panel paintings, featuring delicate images that explore the contradictions found in everyday life.
February 7
Collage & Zines with Ruckus Art Collective
Artists will have the opportunity to explore an array of materials, techniques and themes through the resources of the Art Hive and the skill sharing of their peers. Participants are welcome to work on their solo practice, but are encouraged to contribute their creative vision to a community collage destined to join the artworks living within the Art Hive. Whether you’re a collage fanatic looking for inspiration, a creative curious to explore a new medium, or simply searching for a lively studio to be enveloped in, come buzz with Ruckus at the Art Hive!
Ruckus Art Collective is an Oshawa-based group dedicated to supporting and uplifting the local arts community in Durham Region. Through the hosting of events, exhibitions, and collaborative projects, Ruckus provides a platform for artists to share their work, connect with peers, and engage with the broader public. The collective’s mission is to foster creativity, inclusivity, and dialogue while helping to amplify the voices and talents that define the region’s artistic landscape.
February 14
Learn How to Bead on Fabric with Leequette Santiago-Hinds
Using bead on fabric, participants are invited to explore their own patterns and ideas.
Leequette “Lala” Santiago is an American Canadian visual artist and founder of Santiago Studios. Her work explores her southern identity, spirituality and familial dynamics through a mixture of traditional mediums and textiles.
She uses her craft as a means of storytelling and personal reclamation, especially following her postpartum identity loss. Her process consists of meticulously weaving together mediums, playing with compositions and fiddling with light until she finds something that plays on the viewers senses.
She has been awarded the Emerging Artist Award (2021), The Robert McLaughlin Gallery Award (2023), The Robert McLaughlin Award Gallery (2024) and The Visual Artist Creation Project Grant from the Ontario Arts Council (2025).
Her work has been featured by Pampers, QuickBooks Canada, and in public art across Ontario. She is focused on expanding her exhibition and public art practice.
February 15
Acrylic Pour Painting with Melissa Dipchand
This activity will introduce participants to acrylic pour painting, also known as fluid art, an abstract technique where thinned acrylic paints are poured onto a surface to create dynamic patterns, cells, and marbled effects without traditional brushwork. Accessible to beginners, the process encourages playful experimentation with colour, flow, and movement, resulting in striking and unpredictable outcomes.
Melissa is an experienced arts educator and community-focused facilitator based in Durham Region. Over the past two years, she has served as a Lead Instructor for the Robert McLaughlin Gallery’s March Break programming, where she designs and delivers fun, highly engaging creative experiences for children and families. She also brings more than twelve years of teaching experience through Crayola: IMAGINE Art Academy. Deeply committed to building meaningful community connections, Melissa believes art is a powerful vessel for bringing people of all ages, abilities, and lived experiences together. Her practice centres on creating welcoming, inclusive environments where creativity becomes a shared and connective experience.
In partnership with The LivingRoom Community Art Studio, The Neighbour’s Art Hive is generously supported by the Ontario Trillium Foundation.
This family day, explore the portraits in the exhibition Homage, then, join us to create your own! Your self-portrait will be weird and wacky.
Start in the exhibition, Homage. Using a variety of cardboard shapes to assemble your portrait. Gluing the cardboard together to form a truly unique and wacky face.
In the studio, add vibrant acrylic paint and oil pastel colours to bring your portrait to life and show your self-expression through art!
About Homage
Paying homage is more than an act of reverence—it is a gesture rooted in respect and a way to acknowledge influence and inspiration. Artists often engage with the past to make sense of the present: responding to those who shaped them, the histories they’ve inherited, and the cultural forces that continue to shape our world. In this way, tribute becomes not only a recognition of influence, but also a means to challenge, reinterpret, and build upon it. Click here to learn more about Homage.
Suitable for ages 3+
Free admission, no registration required.
The Robert McLaughlin Gallery is a proud participant in Ontario Power Generation’s Power for Change Project, supporting the areas and people where OPG operates.
Inspired by the exhibition Natural curiosities, join us to create botanical artworks. Flora such as flowers, fruits, veggies, and plants will be represented in our artworks.
In the studio create your own abstract patterned papers with acrylic paint. We will then cut our papers into the shapes of plants, gluing together colourful collages that pop against a simple background.
In the lobby we are creating linework drawings in METAL. We will etch the shapes of leaves, flowers, veggies or fruits in the shiny aluminum. Then use sharpie markers to colour them in, leaving them with a reflective shimmer.
E. May Martin (Canadian, 1865 – 1957); Iceland Poppy; 1896; watercolour on paper; Donated by the Ontario Heritage Foundation, 1988, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Lande
About Natural Curiosities
Flowers and plants have long fascinated artists, serving as both subjects of study and sources of inspiration. They provide a way to refine skills in observation, form, colour, and light, while also embodying nature’s beauty and fragility. Drawing from the RMG’s permanent collection, this exhibition highlights a range of floral and botanical art. Some works offer precise studies that capture fine detail, while others take a more expressive approach to the natural world. Together, they encourage us to pause, look closely, and rediscover the quiet wonder found in nature.
Suitable for ages 3+
Free admission, no registration required.
The Robert McLaughlin Gallery is a proud participant in Ontario Power Generation’s Power for Change Project, supporting the areas and people where OPG operates.
Help us celebrate the opening of Haley Uyeda’s solo exhibition featuring new works from the artist’s residency at the gallery!
We’re also celebrating a recently opened exhibition of floral and botanical art from the RMG’s permanent collection. Check out Natural Curiosities on Level 3!
Artists and curators in attendance. Remarks begin at 1:30, followed by an artist talk with Haley Uyeda.
This event is free and open to everyone. If there are ways we can support your participation, please contact Hannah at [email protected].
This month we are exploring the abstract works in the exhibition, Hortense Gordon: Towards the New. Hortense Gordon, a Canadian painter, taught modern design and abstract principles for many years.
In the studio, we are creating geometric abstract works with acrylic paint and oil pastel. Our palettes will be monochromatic, mixing our paint colour with just black and white to make new tints and shades.
In The Lookout, we will create watercolour snowflakes as we admire the view of outside. Working with wet on dry painting techniques, paint an intricate, symmetrical snowflake that is one-of-a-kind!
Hortense Gordon (Canadian, 1887 -1961); Horizontals and Verticals; 1955; oil on canvas; Gift of Charlie Dobbie, 2000
About Hortense Gordon: Towards the New
Hortense Gordon (1886–1961) was a founding member of the influential artist collective, Painters Eleven, who were committed to advancing abstract art in Canada. Gordon valued the group’s shared energy and experimentation with abstraction. Buoyed by their support, Painters Eleven helped validate her move toward abstraction at a time when it was still controversial in Canada. Drawn from the RMG’s Permanent Collection, this exhibition highlights Hortense Gordon’s stylistic transformations and tireless pursuit of the new, celebrating her lasting impact on Canadian art.
Click here to learn more about this exhibition.
Suitable for ages 3+
Free admission, no registration required.
The Robert McLaughlin Gallery is a proud participant in Ontario Power Generation’s Power for Change Project, supporting the areas and people where OPG operates.
For three days, Berry Hill Co. will be in Arthur’s hosting a delightful holiday event.
Reservations and any queries must be made directly through Berry Hill Co.
The Neighbour’s Project, installed at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery (February 2024).
Join us for artmaking and community connection in The Neighbour’s Art Hive!
Passionate and helpful volunteers from the LivingRoom Community Art Studio will be onsite to support your creative explorations and cultivate a warm and welcoming environment for all.
Sessions
🟆 Friday January 9, 2026, 12-3:30pm
🟆 Friday January 16, 2026, 12-3:30pm
🟆 Friday January 23, 2026, 12-3:30pm
🟆 Friday January 30, 2026, 12-3:30pm
🟆 Friday February 6, 2026, 12-3:30pm
🟆 Friday February 13, 2026, 12-3:30pm
What to expect:
The Neighbour’s Project, installed at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery (February 2024).
The Neighbour’s Project, installed at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery (February 2024).
The RMG is located at 72 Queen Street, Civic Centre in Oshawa, across from the McLaughlin Branch of the Oshawa Public Libraries. The Neighbour’s Art Hive is in Gallery A, which is located on the lower level of the RMG. It is accessible by stairs or elevator. Between the elevator and Gallery A, you’ll pass our public washrooms. We have an accessible single-stall washroom as well as gender-inclusive multi-stall washrooms. Read more about our facilities here.
What is an art hive?
Art Hives are safe, accessible spaces that enable people of all ages to participate in free public relaxation. In an Art Hive, traditional hierarchies, processes, and ways of being can be deconstructed and re-imagined in playful, personal, and compassionate ways.
The Neighbour’s Art Hive is a temporary installation at the RMG that transforms the gallery into an active studio space with help from the LivingRoom Community Art Studio. Outside of these facilitated sessions, we also invite all our neighbours to drop in any time during operating hours to make use of the free art materials on their own time.
The Neighbour’s Project, installed at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery (February 2024).
In partnership with The LivingRoom Community Art Studio, The Neighbour’s Art Hive is generously supported by the Ontario Trillium Foundation.