A.Y. Jackson: Before the Group of Seven

Join us to learn more about A.Y. Jackson’s career prior to the Group of Seven. Guest speaker, Margaret Rodgers, explores A.Y. Jackson within the framework of modern art—how he expressed an awareness of and engagement in what was happening in European art. Discover more about how he became the beloved painter of Canadian landscape and an advocate for Canadian art.

Guest speaker Margaret Rodgers is an artist, writer and curator. She was founder of The IRIS Group, taught at Durham and Centennial Colleges, and was Director/Curator at VAC Clarington. Rodgers is the author of Locating Alexandra (Toronto: ECW, 1995) and is published in various journals. She is an active member of The Women’s Art Association of Canada and the Writers’ Union of Canada.

Reception with refreshments: 6-7pm
Art Historical Lecture: 7-8pm

Free, Open to the Public, Registration encouraged.

Register

Sienna for Seniors Foundation

Seniors Art Competition and Exhibition: Info Session and Exhibition Tour 2025

Calling all senior artists! We invite you to take part in this two-part event at the RMG, which begins with an overview of the Seniors Art Competition and Exhibition, including competition categories and judging criteria, and concludes with an optional tour of some of our current exhibitions.

Come get your questions answered! Please register for this free event by clicking this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdBQj1Q1IQ7I-ozV4xIibUGUcmzOlN3UA1HrD3B2dLWZVPhyg/viewform?usp=header

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.

View Exhibition Brochure

Local residents who are 55+ and a member of the RMG, Oshawa Senior Community Centres, or the Oshawa Public Libraries, are invited to submit one artwork for the exhibition.

The exhibition runs from August 15 – September 25, 2025, and artwork drop off and registration will take place on Tuesday, August 12 from 10 am-4 pm.

Register to Info Session

The Seniors Art Competition and Exhibition is co-hosted by The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa Senior Community Centres, and the Oshawa Public Libraries. Seniors programming has been made possible thanks to the generous support of Sienna for Seniors Foundation.

Sponsor

Partners

Durham College Artist Talks

Artist Talks, EMERGING VISIONS: Durham College Thesis Exhibition 2024, May 15, 2024, at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery.

Join us at 1pm on May 14th for an artist-led tour of EMERGING VISIONS, an exhibition that presents thesis projects by the third-year graduating students of the Fine Arts Advanced program at Durham College.

We welcome staff and students from Durham College and any members of the public who want to learn more about specific projects and hear about the journey from conception to fabrication to presentation.

This event is free and open to everyone. If there are ways we can support your participation, please contact Hannah at [email protected].

Curatorial Tour: Resistance

Join Curator, Sonya Jones, for a tour of the exhibition “Resistance”. This permanent collection exhibition explores how artists throughout history have used art to resist and disrupt social and political structures– including within the art world.

Thursday Curatorial Tours are free and open to everyone. They provide deeper insight into the themes, context, and content of our exhibitions. Seating options are available. For more information about access and our facilities, please visit this page or contact Sonya Jones at [email protected] with any specific requests.

No advance registration required.

In Conversation with Christina Leslie

Come out to hear Christina Leslie share insights and reflections on Likkle Acts with exhibition curator Hannah Keating. The talk will shine a light on Leslie’s practice, research, and the innovative photographic processes that she used to create the works in Likkle Acts.

Join us at 1pm for a reception catered by Starapples. The artist talk will begin at 2pm.

Likkle Acts is an exhibition by Pickering-based artist Christina Leslie featuring three recent projects inspired by Leslie’s relationship to Jamaica and the medium of photography. In this work, Leslie embraces experimentation and seeks to represent Jamaica and its history through the people, places, and experiences that are personally significant to her and her family.

This event is free and open to everyone. Seating will be provided for all guests.

For more information on our facilities, please click here. If you have questions about the event or other requests, please email Hannah at [email protected].

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.

The gallery thanks Ontario Tech University’s Faculty of Social Science and Humanities and Starapples for sponsoring this event.

Christina Leslie: Likkle Acts is presented by Partners in Art with additional support provided by the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Arts Council and Alterna Savings.

Jack Bush: Life and Art

Join us to learn about the life and art of Jack Bush. Guest lecturer Sarah Stanners, art historian and Director of Jack Bush Catalogue Raisonné Project, will share her extensive knowledge and research about Jack Bush to complement the exhibition “Jack Bush: Breakthrough”. Registration encouraged.

Register

Dr. Sarah Stanners is an independent scholar and Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto’s Department of Art History. She has lectured extensively on modern and contemporary art within an international context, and her career as a curator has specialized in celebrating the art of Canada. She began curating exhibitions in 2003, as Assistant Curator of the Hart House Permanent Collection, and by the end of her tenure as Chief Curator of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, in 2018, she had curated forty exhibitions and collaborated in the publication of ten catalogues; notably Passion Over Reason: Tom Thomson & Joyce Wieland (2017), as well as two nationally touring Jack Bush solo exhibitions: the Jack Bush retrospective at the National Gallery of Canada, which she co-curated with Marc Mayer in 2014, and Jack Bush: In Studio, organized by Calgary’s Esker Foundation in 2016. For the past thirteen years, Dr. Stanners has served as the Director of the Jack Bush Catalogue Raisonné Project, culminating in the release of the four-volume publication in summer 2024, which now stands as the definitive record of Jack Bush’s painted oeuvre.

Bead with us! An Online Artist Talk with Raechel Wastesicoot

Join artist Raechel Wastesicoot and exhibition curator Erin Szikora for a chatty and informal online conversation about the making of Kenatentas. Delivered in the format of an online beading circle, we invite audience members to tune in with a beading or crafting project of your own. Join the conversation and learn more about the materials, memories, and spirit woven into each of Wastesicoot’s work.

Click here to register. This event is free, interactive, and open to everyone. If there are ways we can support your participation, please reach out to Hannah Keating at [email protected].

Raechel Wastesicoot: Kenatentas is presented with support from the Government of Ontario through the Tourism Relief Fund.

Curatorial Tour: Contemporary Kids

Join curator, Hannah Keating for a guided tour of Contemporary Kids, which includes work by Shaya Ishaq, Hannah Jickling + Reed H. Reed, Leisure (Meredith Carruthers and Susannah Wesley), and Amy Wong.

Thursday Curatorial Tours are free and open to everyone. They provide deeper insight into the themes, context, and content of our exhibitions. Seating options are available. For more information about access and our facilities, please visit this page or contact Hannah Keating at [email protected] with any specific requests.

No advance registration required.

This exhibition has been financially assisted by the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund, a program of the Government of Ontario through the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport, administered by the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund Corporation.

Durham College Artist Talks 2024

Join us at 1pm on May 15th for an artist-led tour of Emerging Visions, an exhibition that presents thesis projects by the third-year graduating students of the Fine Arts Advanced program at Durham College.

We welcome staff and students from Durham College and any members of the public who want to learn more about specific projects and hear about the journey from conception to fabrication to presentation.

This event is free and open to everyone. If there are ways we can support your participation, please contact Hannah at [email protected].

RMG Friday: The Big Hat

We’re going back to the roaring 20’s! Come out to continue the celebration of Oshawa’s Centennial and travel back in time with us. Show off your hats inspired by a time when glitz, glamour, and the evolution of a new city was about to take place.

This month, we’re also celebrating a brand new exhibition at the RMG! Please join us in the RSM gallery at 7:15pm for opening remarks to recognize the opening of his solo exhibition, The Big Hat.

Order of Events

7:00pm: Doors Open

7:15pm-7:30pm: Opening Remarks

7:15pm: DRIFF screening in the Lookout

7:15pm: Art Activity with Farah in the Studio

7:30pm-8:30pm: Oshawa Music Week performances

8:15pm: DRIFF screening in the Lookout

Image in the artist’s studio, 2024. Courtesy of Tony Romano.

Tony Romano creates sculptures and videos that playfully reimagine found objects and rework raw and recycled materials. Rooted in a family tradition of carpentry and ironwork, he has long been interested in the endless recyclability of metal, the narrative possibilities it offers, and the memories it holds onto. In The Big Hat, Romano has created a new series of sculptures that tell a cautionary tale of an imagined whirligig community reckoning with the arrival of a greedy professor.

Oshawa Music Week, presented by Durham College, will be featuring music from Acoustic performers in the Isabel as part of their series of musical performances throughout the week.

Enjoy performances by Equal, Sam Bedard, J BOOM, Siddhant Shah, Donte, Simmone Mariah, and Brothers Wilde.

One of those Good Lives | 8 minutes

Directed by Joseph Carney

When the young, white and unencumbered Steve (Sean Depner – Riverdale, Deadly Class) is hit by a truck, he awakens in a cavernous and decaying opera house. There he meets The Ticket Taker, a shape shifting bureaucrat of death who explains that Steve must be sent back to perform one influential act before enjoying a life of guaranteed privilege and luxury. Steve must decide whether or not to uphold a status quo that benefits only him.

Join us in the studio to create your very own musical inspired magnet. No art experience required!

This polymer clay project is suitable for visitors 12+