Join us to learn about the life and art of artist Alexandra Luke. Guest lecturer Margaret Rodgers (artist, curator, writer) is the author of the book Locating Alexandra. Alexandra Luke (i.e. Margaret McLaughlin, 1901-1967) was an important artist linked to the beginnings of abstract painting in Canada and a founding member of Painters Eleven, Ontario’s first abstract painting group (1953-1960). Rodgers will share her knowledge and research about Alexandra Luke to compliment the current exhibition at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Alexandra Luke: Push and Pull, on view until January 14th.
Please join us to celebrate the opening of HEAVY/WATER/MACHINE by RBC Emerging Artist in Residence, Noah Scheinman. Let us know you’re coming with an RSVP.
Gathering with collaborators and researchers, the artist will speak about his relationship to the toxic legacy of Canada’s post-nuclear landscape. The conversation will bring together different perspectives on the interconnected networks of ecosystems and industry that constitute our environment and invite the panelists to respond to some of the questions posed by Noah’s exhibition.
Refreshments will be served following the panel.
Please stay tuned for more information about the panelists!
Seating will be available. If there is anything else we can do to support your participation, please reach out to Hannah at hkeating@rmg.on.ca.
CANCELLED Please note that this event has been cancelled. If you require further information, please reach out to info@rmg.on.ca.
Celebrate the first day of fall with us! The RMG invites you to attend the opening reception of Couzyn van Heuvelen’s solo exhibition, CAMP, with an artist talk, and fall feast in our newly re-opened Backyard.
Registration for the feast is now full, but everyone is welcome to join us for the opening reception from 3-5pm. We hope to see you there!
Remarks and an artist talk + tour with Couzyn will take place in the exhibition around 3:30pm. Dinner will be served around 5pm.
While you’re here, we’re also happy to open and celebrate two new permanent collection exhibitions: About Time and Alexandra Luke: Push and Pull. Check them out!
We are pleased to offer this event during Oshawa’s CONVERGENCE festival, an exciting music and art experience in downtown Oshawa.
For information on our facilities, please click here. If you have questions about the event or other requests, please email Hannah at hkeating@rmg.on.ca.
Join artist and designer Jair Kale in conversation with RMG exhibiting artist Aaron Jones. Talking as friends and creatives, Jair and Aaron will discuss Aaron’s exhibition, “Fountain of Dreams” and the ideas and influences layered within this new body of work.
Fountain of Dreams is an immersive installation of video, audio, and photo murals that considers the spatial and multi-sensory qualities of haunting and remembrance. Playing with physical and conceptual layers, the exhibition is interested in the interplay between permeable borders – geographical and generational – and between dream states and wakefulness.
This event is free and open to everyone. Please register here.
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 hkeating@rmg.on.ca.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Aaron Jones describes himself as an image-builder who reconfigures materials from books, magazines, newspapers and personal photos into new characters and realities. His collages and photo-based installations are a form of self-and world-exploration; he uses paper as a medium, where rips and tears become painterly brush strokes. Through a cathartic practice of constructing and deconstructing, Jones joins opposing visuals and colours in search of ‘peace’; a spiritual satisfaction. Recently, Jones has been exploring his birthplace of southern Ontario. The circumstances of the last two years have sparked a consideration of how he might survive off his own basic skills and natural resources. Jones has been exploring the natural landscape, as well as researching plants, wildlife, and the natural conditions near his mother’s home in Pickering, to understand their offerings and inner workings. His new intimately scaled, figurative collages are set against large-format pictures of rural landscapes and a video performance, contrasting scale and the ethereal with the real.
Born 1993 in Toronto, Jones graduated with a BA from OCADU in 2018. His work has been included recently in a special project for Nuit Blanche and the Art Gallery of Ontario’s We Are Story: The Canada Now Photography Acquisition exhibtion. He’s also been included in the exhibitions Three Thirty at Doris McCarthy Gallery, From the Ground Up at NIA Centre for the Arts, Ragga NYC at Mercer Union, all in Toronto, and Propped at Oakville Galleries, Oakville, ON. Jones was awarded The Gattuso Prize for his exhibition Closed Fist, Open Palm for the 2020 CONTACT Photography Festival.
Aaron Jones is represented by Zalucky Contemporary, Toronto.
Jair Kale, born and raised in Claxton Bay, Trinidad, grew up in a nurturing nuclear family. Throughout his childhood, he often accompanied his mother to her classes while she pursued her Master of Social Work. During this time, any literature with creative writings captivated his imagination, laying the foundation for his artistic journey and that which would become a cherished pastime, the quest for knowledge.
Embracing multiple artistic facets, Kale emerged as a talented poet, photographer, and designer. His work reflects a keen eye for colour and negative space, a defining aspect evident in his photography and design projects.
Driven by a vision that juxtaposes geographic societies to highlight their parallels and distinctions, Kale delved into exploring the coexistence of diverse cultures in ways outside of the status quo. Holding significant depth, his work encourages viewers to contemplate the nuance and metaphors in the intricate beauty of human relationships.
Kale writes lyrics for Toronto artists, designs clothing for Brands featured in Adrift Skateshop, and recently he has exhibited an installation, Blue Crabs from Claxton Bay at Project1616, an artist run gallery/project space in Toronto. He received his AdvDip as a Fashion Management graduate from George Brown Casa Loma in 2021. Currently living and working in Toronto, he aspires to provoke perception and challenge stereotypical ideologies.
We’d like to thank TD Bank Group through the TD Ready Commitment for their sponsorship of Fountain of Dreams.
Please join us to celebrate the opening of pitch, slip, a new exhibition by RBC Emerging Artist in Residence, Alex Close.
Through her work, Close explores how our experiences in public spaces are shaped by our fragmented, layered, and ever-changing memories. From public performance venues to virtual reality, she is drawn to question engineered experiences and the role that trust plays in our day-to-day lives. This body of work is reflective of Close’s evolving approach to abstract painting and her bold embrace of experimentation in the RMG’s artist residency studio, which is supported by the RBC Foundation’s RBC Emerging Artist Project.
Refreshments will be served. Join us in the exhibition space at 7pm for a conversation between the artist and RMG Associate Curator, Hannah Keating.
Seating will be available. If there is anything else we can do to support your participation, please reach out to Hannah at hkeating@rmg.on.ca.
Let us know you’re coming with an RSVP (not required, but encouraged).
Join us on June 10, 2023 to celebrate two solo exhibitions at the RMG with brand new work by Aaron Jones and Anna Binta Diallo. Fountain of Dreams is an installation of audio, video, and photos by Aaron Jones that considers the spatial and multi-sensory qualities of haunting and remembrance. In Topographies, Anna Binta Diallo brings an assortment of image fragments into strata-like installations. Playing with physical and conceptual layers, these exhibitions share an interest in the interplay between permeable borders, whether geographical, geological, or generational.
Refreshments will be provided. Please join us for remarks at 2pm, followed by a tour of Topographies with artist Anna Binta Diallo.
Anna Binta Diallo, Those mountains of shadows and valleys of light, from the Topographies series, 2023. Digital collage. Courtesy of the artist.
Aaron Jones, Wandering, 2023. Film still. Courtesy of the artist.
This weekend is also the 19th Annual Peony Festival and The RMG Spring Artisan Market! Check out the Oshawa Valley Botanical Gardens at 155 Arena St. (just a 12 minute walk from the RMG) between 10 am to 4 pm on June 10th and 11th for family friendly activities and displays.Come back to the gallery on Sunday, June 11th from 11am to 4pm to shop for unique gifts and products by local artisans.
We’d like to thank TD Bank Group for their support of these exhibitions through the TD Ready Commitment.
Gathering to discuss family histories, migration, and home in the context of their expansive textile-based practices, the RMG invites you to join us for an online conversation with HangamaAmiri,Preston Pavlis, and Jagdeep Raina. The artists will share how they created their works of portraiture currently on view in Piecework and reflect on what it means to weave fragments into visual stories as textile artists.
Piecework is on view at the RMG until September 3, 2023.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Hangama Amiri holds an MFA from Yale University where she graduated in 2020 from the Painting and Printmaking Department. She received her BFA from NSCAD University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and is a Canadian Fulbright and Post-Graduate Fellow at Yale University School of Art and Sciences (2015-2016). Her recent exhibitions include A Homage to Home (2023) at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present (2023), Sharjah, UAE; Reminiscences (2022) at Union Pacific in London; Henna Night/ Shabe Kheena (2022) at David B. Smith Gallery, Denver, CO; Mirrors and Faces (2021) at Cooper Cole Gallery, Toronto; Wandering Amidst the Colors (2021) at Albertz Benda, New York, NY; Spectators of a New Dawn (2021), Towards Gallery, Toronto; and Bazaar: A Recollection of Home (2020) at T293 Gallery, Rome, Italy.
Amiri works predominantly in textiles to examine notions of home, as well as how gender, social norms, and larger geopolitical conflict impact the daily lives of women, both in Afghanistan and in the diaspora. Continuing to use textiles as the medium, Amiri searches to define, explore, and question these spaces. The figurative tendency in her work is due to her interest in the power of representation, especially of those objects that are ordinary to our everyday life, such as a passport, a vase, or celebrity postcards.
Preston Pavlis’ work on canvas and fabric represents his interest in the fusion of painting and textiles as a means to explore narrative, form, and colour. Focused on poetic association and metaphor, the resulting works in oil, embroidery, and collage are personal charts for time and memory. The works situate solitary figures on often non-descript grounds, their gazes shifting between the viewer and somewhere beyond their space. Whether their expressions are pensive, ebullient, or intentional– they possess a palpable interiority. Pavlis’ figures convey a subtle energy and a deep sense of presence that is enhanced by their imposing scale.
Preston Pavlis currently lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he is completing his studies at the Nova Scotia College of Arts and Design. Pavlis has presented his work in exhibitions at Half Gallery (New York), Guts Gallery (London), and at Spurs Gallery (Beijing). His work was also included in recent art fair presentations, notably Frieze New York and NADA Miami. Pavlis has recently been featured in publications including Esse and C Magazine, and is the most recent recipient of the 2021 Eldon + Anne Foote Edmonton Visual Arts Prize.Jagdeep Raina(b. 1991, Guelph, Ontario, Canada) received his MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. He has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Grice Bench, Los Angeles; Cooper Cole Gallery, Toronto; Midway Contemporary, Minneapolis; and the Art Gallery of Guelph. Raina’s work has been included in exhibitions at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; RISD Museum of Art, Providence; and the Rubin Museum of Art, New York. In 2016, he was included in the 11th Shanghai Biennale. Raina is a 2019 recipient of the Textile Museum of Canada’s Melissa Levin Emerging Artist Award, and a 2020 recipient of the prestigious Sobey Art Award in Canada.
Calling all senior artists! We invite you to take part in this two-part event at the RMG, which begins with a tour of Piecework, a new group exhibition inspired by quilts and quilt-making practices, and concludes with an overview of the Seniors Art Competition and Exhibition, including competition categories and judging criteria. Come get your questions answered!
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 nourish.
Local seniors 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 19 – September 27, 2023 and artwork drop off and registration takes place on Tuesday, August 15 from 10 am-4 pm.
Join us at 1pm on May 10th 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 hkeating@rmg.on.ca.
This exhibition is generously supported by the RBC Foundation’s Emerging Artist Project.
Join Associate Curator Erin Szikora for a guided tour of the exhibitions Fountain of Dreams, with work by Aaron Jones, and Topographies, with work by Anna Binta Diallo.
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 rmg.on.ca/visit/ or contact Hannah Keating at hkeating@rmg.on.ca with any specific requests.
