Join us and celebrate the work of these budding young artists at the opening reception on April 21 at 7pm.

Students at nearly every high school in the Durham District School Board (DDSB) will be exhibiting work at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa for the next four weeks as part of the annual ‘For Art’s Sake’ exhibit.

For Art’s Sake, is a bi-annual event recognizing secondary school visual arts student’s abilities. Secondary schools at the DDSB will be represented by their students who submit works in the form of paintings, photography and sculptures. The Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa is generously hosting the event.

The DDSB and The Robert McLaughlin Gallery invite you to join us and take some time over the next month to enjoy a leisurely walk through the gallery to recognize our students’ dedication to their passions.

Opening and Artist’s Talk: Sunday, May 29 from 1-3pm

Artist Talk with Sarindar Dhaliwal and the Colour Research Society of Canada: August 13, 1-2:30pm

Organized and circulated by Rodman Hall Art Centre/Brock University in collaboration with The Robert McLaughlin Gallery and The Reach Museum Abbotsford.

Toronto-based artist Sarindar Dhaliwal was born in the Punjab, India, and raised in London, England before moving to Canada in 1968. Working in a range of media that includes installation, video, photography, and drawing, she weaves compelling narratives that explore issues of culture, migration, and identity. Rooted in memories and dreams, Dhaliwal’s work reflects on the dissonance of the immigrant experience, often addressing her childhood experience and perceptions of Eastern and Western customs. Drawing out the themes of personal identity and familial relationships that appear throughout her practice, this exhibition brings together monumental works from Dhaliwal’s oeuvre of the last twenty years, contextualizing her recent interdisciplinary body of work exploring the history and ongoing consequences of the 1947 partition of India. Addressing difficult personal and collective narratives in lush, visually-stunning works that employ vibrant colours and floral motifs, Dhaliwal’s thought-provoking work responds to colonial histories with a critical approach that maintains reverence for wonder and imagination so that, as the artist describes, she may return beauty to the world.

Sarindar Dhaliwal received her BFA with a concentration in sculpture at University College Falmouth, UK, and her MFA from York University. She is currently enrolled in the Cultural Studies PhD program at Queens University. Dhaliwal was the 2012 recipient of the Canada Council International Residency at Artspace in Sydney, Australia. She has exhibited widely in Canada since the 1980s.

Opening at RMG Fridays: May 6, 7-10pm

“Every dreamer knows that it is entirely possible to be homesick for a place you’ve never been to, perhaps more homesick than for familiar ground.”

― Judith Thurman

This ongoing series has been shaped during the continuing travels of Lindsay Lauckner Gundlock. The photographs were taken during cross-continental road trips in a family-filled car, to explorations of a new “hometown” in a different country. The images represent the quiet moments that she found among the chaos of travel, as well as the pieces of a place that she grasped onto, and that in return, etched themselves onto her.

Gundlock earned a BFA. in Visual Arts from York University and has been a recipient of both Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Arts Council grants. Her previous work centred around the idea of home and tales of the occupants that lived within the walls.

Lindsay Lauckner Gundlock was the CIBC Wood Gundy Emerging Artist winner of RMG Exposed 2015. In conjunction with this exhibition, her photograph Coin Operated Binoculars will be displayed in the Core21 window space in downtown Oshawa until August.

When one thinks of the term Moving Image, early cinema comes to mind. Yet the term “moving” or “move” has various connotations. In exploring The Robert McLaughlin Gallery’s collection of over 4500 works that range from paintings and sculpture to photography, drawing, prints, installation and video, themes begin to emerge.

Today the unprecedented movement of people around the globe has garnered international concern. In 2013 the United Nations estimated that 232 million people are currently migrating from their original home countries. There are various reasons for these moves: regional conflict, persecution and economics are among the most obvious motives for leaving one’s country of origin. Many are dispossessed and that feeling of rootlessness becomes defining. So too, do we see the mass movement of animals and birds—an instinctual response to changing seasons.

We live in the second largest country in the world with a vast landscape. The wind blowing the wheat of a prairie field, the rushing waters of a mountain stream, the scuttling clouds across a seemingly infinite sky evoke a sense of constant movement. Our history is in the land, as indicated in the recently found footprints on Calvert Island that are estimated to be over 13,000 years old. Yet disputes about this land also shape identities: from those who choose to define Canada as a coast-to-coast-to-coast nation whose borders (particularly the northern border) must be protected from other nations, to those who question the land rights within these borders based on ignored treaties brought to light most recently in the Idle No More movement.

The RMG collection, strongly defined by mid-century modernism, holds examples of movement in abstraction—colour and line creating illusions of motion. There are also emotionally moving images, both individual and collective, and, too, the physical movement of animal and humans.

There are many entry points into works from a collection that began with a generous gift of thirty-seven works by Painters Eleven member Alexandra Luke. The collection itself is forever moving—new acquisitions making new entry points and connections possible. As the RMG’s mandate makes clear, the gallery is a place dedicated to sharing, exploring and engaging with our communities through the continuing story of modern and contemporary Canadian art.

This exhibition of work by Ray Mead is taken from The Robert McLaughlin Gallery’s extensive collection of paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture by members of Ontario’s first abstract expressionist collective, Painters Eleven.

As an overview of his career, the exhibition includes early figurative and still life drawings and paintings. It then moves to his abstract works, both geometric and expressionist. Mead’s later works are luminous abstractions of simplified forms that simultaneously encompass complex compositions. Throughout his career, his work was characterized by the use of rich fields of colour. In a 1977 interview he stated: “I felt Canada gave me a sense of colour much more than a sense of horizons.”

Ray Mead, a member of Painters Eleven, was born in England where he studied at the Slade School of Art. There, he was exposed to the work of Ben Nicholson and Paul Nash. He first encountered semi-abstract work in New York during World War II where he was stationed training bomber pilots. He immigrated to Hamilton in 1946 where he met Hortense Gordon. Mead was particularly influenced by Gordon acknowledging: “she educated me more than any art school.” He had a successful career as a commercial artist for the MacLaren Advertising Company, in both Toronto and Montreal, returning to Toronto in 1987 to paint full time. While attracted to the works of American abstract expressionists such as Franz Kline, Mead was deeply influenced by European abstractionists such as Nicolas de Staël.

The title of the exhibition, Living Within, references another quote by Mead from 1979: “…a painter really must paint within the history in which he is living.” In examining work that spans a time frame of three decades we have an opportunity to contemplate where Ray Mead is situated in both a Canadian and international context.

Join us for RMG Fridays: Holiday Magic on December 4 and learn more about Ray Mead with a curatorial tour!

[calendar title=”RMG Fridays: Holiday Magic” description=”” start=”December 4, 7:00pm” end=”December 4, 10:00pm”]

In the age of digital photography and image editing software, the authenticity of photography is often questioned. When photography was invented it was thought to depict objective reality and absolute truth, but almost immediately photographers found ways to alter and manipulate images. Artists sought to establish photography as an art form by finding ways to stylize the results, while others discovered the possibilities of using the medium to deceive the public.

This exhibition focuses on the practice of photo manipulation within local history and the motivations behind it. Generally, reasons to tamper with an image were either aesthetic or deceptive. In the case of the photographs featured in this exhibition, some were altered for aesthetic expression, to add a family member who had either passed or lived far away, novelty items, or to encourage visitors to Oshawa by beautifying street views. There are also various examples of images that were altered using a variety of techniques, including multiple exposure, combination printing, photomontage, overpainting, and retouching on the negative or print.

Photography was one of history’s most impactful inventions; the medium continues to evolve and influence how we see the world. While some photographers today still choose to edit in the darkroom, more and more are embracing the digital age of editing software. Looking back on manipulated photography before the digital age shows that although the technical process has changed the motivations have not. This exhibition includes images from the Thomas Bouckley Collection, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery’s permanent art collection, the Whitby Archives, Oshawa Public Libraries and the Oshawa Community Museum and Archives.

In 1999, the estate of Painters Eleven member Ray Mead gifted the RMG a collection of over 500 drawings. In 2014, the RMG received a grant through the Museums Assistance Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage to properly house and digitize the collection and now it is accessible to the public, in its entirety, through the RMG’s on-line database. 

Ray Mead was born in Watford, England and studied at the Slade School of Art under Augustus John, Paul Nash and Ben Nicholson. During WWII, he moved to New York where he trained bomber pilots and had his first exposure to semi-abstract American painting. In 1946 he moved to Hamilton, where he befriended Hortense Gordon, who would also become a member of Painters Eleven.

With the cross-pollination of ideas within Painters Eleven, Mead’s work was liberated from previous formalism, becoming both more lyrical and painterly. In 1958, Mead moved to Montreal, and became associated, through his gallerist Denyse Delrue, with Quebec abstractionists Guido Molinari and Claude Tousignant. His later work became more simplified, relying on line and flat areas of colour.

The drawings from the estate collection range from portrait and figure sketches to abstract works. The latter include sheets with notations that indicate that they are sketches to eventually become finished paintings, and drawings that are seen as complete in themselves. This exhibition focuses on Mead’s abstract drawings: the quick lines and the simple gestures that reveal both a mastery of the medium, as well as confidence that is shown through both the most minimal and complex of compositions. 

Join us for RMG Fridays: Holiday Magic on December 4 and learn more about Ray Mead with a curatorial tour!

[calendar title=”RMG Fridays: Holiday Magic” description=”” start=”December 4, 7:00pm” end=”December 4, 10:00pm”]

As the artist’s first solo exhibition, Equipoise is the continuation of research from the artist into the theme of precarious balance. The expression of balance is done through simple forms that use hard lines to dictate space and add fragility to some of the most structurally sound of materials. This method of precariousness balance allows for structures that appear sturdy to be delicate and become structures of observation not of function. Every piece within the exhibition uses very little adhesives and instead relies on element of construction, weight distribution, and the properties of materials to maintain a calculated composition.

The title Equipoise is defined as 1: a state of equilibrium, 2: Counterbalance. The term Equipoise for a title is therefore not only applicable to encompass the theme of precarious balance but also the works individually. The works are presented in such a way that they achieve a state of Equipoise.

The idea of balance is a predominant theme in many aspects of life. It was Michael’s hope to draw attention to these processes and show that independent objects can work together to produce a functioning whole; one that could not exist if even one element was missing

Please visit Michael and discuss his project!
Artist’s ArtLab Studio Hours:
Monday to Friday from 12pm to 4pm

Join Michael for an Artist Talk and Reception on December 6 at 1pm and learn more about his work!

[calendar title=”Michael Drolet Artist Talk” description=”” start=”December 6, 1:00pm” end=”December 6, 3:00pm”]

Michael Drolet is an emerging artist from Whitby, Ontario who recently completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Ottawa, where he specialized in sculpture. Mike’s current work maintains influences of geometrical shapes, methods of construction and spatial relationships that all cohesively work to produce comments on abstraction. He explores new avenues of expression, concepts and techniques, sourced from architecture, philosophy, and science.

During the residency as well as an exhibition, he will focus on sculptural abstraction and precarious balance. This method of precariousness balance is informed by Mike’s background in construction, allowing him to create structures that appear sturdy to be delicate. The works themselves do not use adhesives to maintain their upright composure but instead rely on the proper distribution of weight and synergy of elements within the structures themselves. The intention is to draw attention to these processes and show that many independent objects can work together to produce a functioning complete object. The idea of balance is a predominant theme in many aspects of life and a subject Mike continues to investigate.

This residency allows for the public to view the process in creating objects that seem to defy gravity. Mike wishes to expose and bring forth more inspiration to sculptors that may visit the gallery during his residency that live in Durham Region. For more information, please visit www.michaeldrolet.ca