Opening Reception – Saturday, May 11, 2PM – 4PM 

Home Made Home: Patch Work is a new project by Vancouver-based artist Germaine Koh, which explores complex housing issues relevant the Durham Region, and opens a conversation about civic responsibility, housing standards and the potential of alternative building models. For the exhibition, Koh has designed two provisional structures which provide practical solutions for emergency shelter. The first, a modular structure made from recycled materials, and the second, a small-scale building system in the form of a set of reusable panels that can be quickly assembled. Working together with members of the community, each of the panels will be created by various groups offsite and then brought together within the gallery. This framework, much like a patchwork quilt or old-fashioned barn-raising, draws on the skills within the community and provides a structure for individuals to contribute to communal needs. Starting from a DIY ethos, the works in the exhibition seeks to re-imagine housing conditions through models that address specific needs. Other projects by Koh in the Home Made Home series offer more speculative or utopian propositions that envision other possibilities for dwelling and sharing space.

Germaine Koh is a Canadian artist based in Vancouver, in the unceded ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. Her work is concerned with the significance of everyday actions and common spaces, often adapting familiar objects to encourage connections between people and with the human and natural systems around us. Her current projects include Home Made Home, a project to build and advocate for alternative forms of housing, and League, a community project using play as a form of creative practice. Her exhibition history includes the BALTIC Centre, De Appel, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Para/Site Art Space, Frankfurter Kunstverein, The Power Plant, The British Museum, the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver, Plug In ICA, Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Liverpool, Sydney and Montreal biennials. In 2018-20 she is the City of Vancouver’s first Engineering Artist in Residence.

Download the Patch Work Manual for building the small-scale home as seen in the exhibition space here. 

Take a Look Inside

As Oshawa began to expand and industrialize in the early 20^th century, in 1928, the first Business and Professional Buyer’s Guide was published by Alger Press Limited to highlight “manufacturing, business and professional interests” of the city and to generate continual growth.

In 1921, Oshawa had a population of approximately 13 000 people. Of that 13 000 people, 18 are listed in the census as being Chinese. There are no people of Asian descent, including Chinese, listed in any of the previous census record. This photo installation mimics a storefront window façade decorated three red endless knots that allude to the Boston Café, Ontario Laundry and the Globe Diner; three early Chinese establishments within a 5-minute walk of Core21. These three businesses were not included in the Business and Professional Buyer’s Guide.

In the foreword of the Buyer’s Guide, the publishers ask readers to bear with them as it is their first time undertaking a document of this nature and that errors of omission may be present. They cite the following lines from Puck’s epilogue in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

“Gentles, do not reprehend,
If you pardon, we will mend.”

The impetus for the piece is to pay tribute and commemorate local histories have not been chronicled within the downtown core. What was the experience of owning a business in Oshawa for a Chinese family? What was it like to live as a Chinese-Canadian during Oshawa’s industrial boom? What (if any) forms of community were present for these Chinese-Canadians since they were so few in number? Chinese knots are an old form of decor with connotations of luck associated. One of the many symbolisms behind endless knots is that they link ancestors with omnipresence. This installation pays tribute to the legacies created from these first communities to make this largely unseen history visible.

Boston Café (4 King Street E), 1921

Detail from photo of King Street, Oshawa (Ax995.194.1)

The Boston Cafe sign can be seen in the centre, just to the left of the man holding the ‘Go’ traffic sign.

The earliest records show that in the 1921 Canadian Federal Census for Oshawa and the 1921 City Directory

for Oshawa, there were two “nuclear” families living in Oshawa in the 20s and 30s, the Lem family and the Soo family. This Soo family comprised five of the eighteen Chinese people living in Oshawa during that year. They lived on Simcoe Street and Min Soo ran a restaurant called the Boston Café. Directory records show that Soo Min owned the Boston Cafe on 57 King St E until 1930 and then he reappears in 1938 as the proprietor of the Eden Inn on 8-10 Ontario Street. During this time, this part of King street was a ethnically diverse area, with people listed as being Ukrainian, Polish, Jewish, and Russian.

Ontario Laundry (29 Celina St), 1928

Hockey and Ontario Laundry, Thomas Bouckley Collection.

The photo on the left was taken at the back of Ontario Laundry, which was on Celina at Athol. Pictured here are 3 uncles of Brenda Joy Lem (photo source): George (the oldest), Uncle Edward (middle), and Uncle Norm (the youngest). Depicted on the right is a woman in a floral patterned dress, in front of Ontario Laundry, Celina St. at Athol. The woman is described by Brenda Joy Lem as her Grandmother, the photo possibly taken by Brenda’s Aunt. Brenda’s family owned the first hand laundry business in the City.

The Globe Diner (13 King Street E), 1921

The Globe Diner, 2503, Thomas Bouckley Collection.

The Globe Diner was located on 13 King Street. In the 1921 Census it shows that this address was a single home rented by  a number of Chinese who were all listed as cooks or waiters, and that the Manager of the Globe Cafe, Lee Chow King (often abbreviated to L.C. King) was the head of household. In the 1928 directory, however, the Globe Cafe is listed as being owned by the Seto Bros. The Seto’s also operated the Waldorf Cafe at 11 Simcoe and later in 1937, the Seto Cafe at 11 Bond Street. In 1985 directory the Globe cafe became the The New Globe Restaurant and is shown as having moved to it’s current location on Athol Street. This photo with the staff members of the restaurant was taken around 1940. Back row, second from left is George Lem, uncle of Brenda Joy Lem. Man in bottom left is the grandfather of Brenda Joy Lem.

Special thanks for Brenda Joy Lem, and Jennifer Weymark and Alex Petrie from the Oshawa Museum for sharing their research and stories. To learn more about the history of early Chinese settlers in Oshawa, consult Brenda Joy Lem’s exhibition Homage to the Heart, and the Oshawa Museum’s ongoing research.

References

Lem, B. and Jansma, L. (2009). Brenda Joy Lem. Oshawa, ON: Robert McLaughlin Gallery.

Weymark, J. (2018). Asian History Month. [online] Oshawa Museum Blog. Available at: https://oshawamuseum.wordpress.com/2018/05/04/asian-history-month/ [Accessed 1 Oct. 2018].

Detail from photo of King Street, Oshawa (Ax995.194.1), Oshawa Museum

Ontario Laundry (2501), Thomas Bouckley Collection, Robert McLaughlin Gallery

Hockey (2502), Thomas Bouckley Collection, Robert McLaughlin Gallery

The Globe Diner (2503), Thomas Bouckley Collection, Robert McLaughlin Gallery

Opening reception: January 19, 2-4pm

Free Rein is an installation by Feminist Land Art Retreat (FLAR), which reimagines hierarchical frameworks and proposes a vision of a possible future shaped by personal agency and autonomy. Centered around the three-channel video No Man’s Land, the work repurposes tropes of the Western film genre to subvert its typical narrative of a ruthless lone ranger out on the plain. Instead the video follows a number of horses through various landscapes and the women that take care of them, capturing their collaboration and shared pleasure in the labour at hand. The tenderness of their daily rituals reveal an interdependence, one where survival is not synonymous with conquest and expansion, but relies on mutuality and trust. Here, the concept of “Free Rein” is multiple, suggesting at once, the reins of a horse being freed from its rider, freedom from authority and land relationships that are beyond ownership.

Free Rein was first exhibited at the Audian Gallery (part of SFU Galleries) in Vancouver, May 31 – August 4, 2018, curated by Amy Kazymerchyk. The exhibition premiered No Man’s Land: The Trilogy, which was supported by SFU Galleries, the Western Front Media Arts Residency, Canada Council for the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council, and ACUD Gallery. The first chapter of No Man’s Land was presented at ACUD Gallery in Berlin, April 29 – May 28, 2017, curated by Elodie Evers.

Feminist Land Art Retreat (FLAR) was initiated in 2010 with an advertisement. In subsequent years, FLAR has produced promotional material for public circulation such as posters, t-shirts, postcards, temporary tattoos, and more recently performances and exhibitions. Using conceptual strategies and humour to subvert familiar visual forms and methods of information circulation, their work addresses social and cultural paradigms that construct notions of femininity and nature. Recent solo exhibitions include Free Rein, Audain Gallery, Vancouver; No Man’s Land, ACUD Gallery, Berlin; Heavy Flow: The Re-Release, Ginerva Gambino, Cologne; and Duty Free, Studio for Propositional Cinema, Düsseldorf.

Opening + Exhibition Tour

March 1st, 2019 as part of our RMG Fridays: To the Unseen Future event. James Kirkpatrick will be in attendance and will give an exhibition tour at 8:15pm. 

To The Unseen Future creates a space of spontaneity and discovery where social activity is unstructured yet unavoidable. Collapsing the boundary between artist, gallery and viewer, the exhibition will lead the visitor on a journey of discovery as one medium shifts and morphs into another. James Kirkpatrick’s work produces a space for social empathy to emerge, ignited by the intertwining of technological and human flaws, secrets and communication. He has gleaned his unique visual language through years of participation in the underground worlds of graffiti, hip-hop, noise music and surfing the Great Lakes.Kirkpatrick mixes vintage pop-culture imagery found in underground comics, retro video games, and outsider science fiction with symbolic references hidden in secret societies. He seamlessly integrates figuration and abstraction; painting and sculpture; drawing and sound; textiles and zines; performance and glitch. Weaving formal, alternate pop and historical elements into a very personal, visual narrative, Kirkpatrick delves into contemporary experiences while exploring archetypal questions.

Well known for his participation in the early Canadian graffiti movement and as avant-garde hip-hop artist Thesis Sahib, Kirkpatrick works in a variety of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, textiles, zines, mask-making and experimental sound improvisation. Most recently, he has incorporated kinetic and auditory elements into his work.

Curated by Lisa Daniels; organized and circulated by the Judith and Norman Alix Gallery in collaboration with The Robert McLaughlin Gallery

Reception: Sunday, October 14, 1pm

Oshawa born artist John Lander (1951-1992) created a body of work in prints, paintings, and wood cuts, that speaks to an intense encounter with life. From his earliest screen prints to his final paintings, Lander’s aesthetic combines high style, humour, saturated colour, and a kind of yearning.

Luminous John Lander includes work exhibited during Lander’s solo exhibition at the RMG in 1988, as well as prints and paintings never previously exhibited, from several private collections.
Curated by Terry Sefton.

A printmaking workshop led artist Angela Hennessey has been developed based on this exhibition and Lander’s work. Click here to learn more!

A hundred years ago, when World War I was winding down and peace was right around the corner, a new strain of influenza swept the world, killing more people than the Great War. The 1918 Spanish Influenza is considered the deadliest outbreak of infectious disease in recorded history. It killed between 50-100 million people worldwide, 30,000-50,000 in Canada. The discrepancy and mystery with the numbers is due to the fact that medical systems were overwhelmed and in short supply during the war, so many deaths were unreported. It’s often referred to as the “forgotten” epidemic due to its limited coverage in the war censored media at the time. Incorrectly thought to have started in Spain, the epidemic got its name because neutral Spanish newspapers frequently covered the devastating impact of the disease.

In Oshawa, young men who survived fighting overseas returned home only to succumb to the flu. The Spanish Influenza was unique in that the victims were predominantly young adults, aged 20-40, the same age group most impacted by the war. In response, the government set public gathering restrictions across Ontario, however, that did not stop the celebrations that took place in the streets when the war was over.

In Canada, a country still recovering from the effect of the Great War, the Spanish Influenza had a profound social and economic effect. It reduced the workforce, lowered life expectancy, and left many children without parents. This exhibition features historical images from various sources that shed light on the epidemic’s national impact.

Artist talk: October 21, 2pm

Randomly Connected, a group of eight female artists, was formed about 8 years ago. All of the group are members of the Oshawa Art Association and most of them met each other through the association. The idea to form the group came from a desire to stimulate their personal creativity and build connections of support and friendship with other artists. The group meets monthly for encouragement and inspiration. They usually choose a word randomly from the dictionary as a theme for the works of art which they will bring to the next meeting. Using topics such as “joss,” “sort” and “intercrop” challenges them to stretch beyond usual themes. The name of their group, “Randomly Connected,” sprang from their method of choosing themes.

The group uses a range of materials, methods and motivations in order to create. They employ acrylics, oils, ink, watercolours, drawing materials, printmaking, pastels and some three-dimensional and experimental media such as textiles and glass. Several of them try to capture the beauties of nature in landscapes, florals and still lifes, inspiring the viewer to value and conserve the earth. Another member enjoys creating humorous “nonsense” from everyday events, bringing a smile to the observer. Some use human subject matter to capture interactions, relationships and passages of life. Others sometimes work in abstracts.
The members of “Randomly Connected” are pleased to mount their first group show. For their theme they have chosen “Reflections,” and have created art based on ideas such as of the play of light on water and other surfaces, and the concept of introspection and memories of the past.

Sandra Collins
Art, crafts and biology were Sandra’s main interests throughout a grammar school education in Britain. While employed she participated in evening classes given by local artists. Since immigrating to Canada she continues to learn from the many talented artists in this community. Her theme for the show is “Reflection of Light and Life.” Daily reflections of everything she sees are stored in her memory, and may be captured in art and photography. When she reflects upon stored images they may fade as time passes while others remain clear and bright. These images inspire her to work in acrylic and mixed media.

Ruth Greenlaw
Ruth was born and grew up in Ontario and has returned after spending several years in other parts of Canada, most recently, Nova Scotia. She earned an Honours BA in Visual Arts from Western University. Since then, she has taken art courses and taught art to adults. A member of the Oshawa Art Association, Visual Arts Clarington, Whitby Station Gallery and Robert McLaughlin Gallery, she has won awards in juried shows. Favourite subject matter includes botanical studies of plants and trees, still lifes, landscapes and studies of people. Her love of color is expressed in watercolors and pastels while her enjoyment of line and graphic qualities can be found in her etchings and drawings. As she continues to explore various combinations of media and subject matter, she finds that creating art is full of new possibilities.

Anne Labelle Johnson
Anne was born in Toronto, but grew up on a farm in Green River and moved to Oshawa in 1968. A long time member of the Oshawa Art Association, she has studied watercolour with artists in Durham region, at Haliburton School of Fine Arts and in Palm Beach County, Florida.
Anne is a member of the Oshawa Art Association, the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Whitby Station Gallery, and PineRidge Arts Council. In 1994 Anne and her husband Tony Johnson, also an artist, opened Blue Willow Studio in Oshawa, a combination gallery and studio which they call home.
In her watercolour paintings, Anne emulates the delicacy and gracefulness of the flowers she paints and her brush strokes give vitality to lush gardens and fresh plants and the strength of landscapes. Her paintings of flowers are colourful and alive, and represent all the joy, hope and promise in life.

Janet Blyth Powers
“There is a beauty often found in brokenness that takes your breath away.” In her work, Janet explores brokenness, trying to capture the human struggle. Woven into her work are the experiences of friends, sadness, joy, and shared journeys: an attempt to honour those she loves. Born in Montreal, Janet grew up in a culturally rich urban environment. It seemed everything she experienced needed to be expressed visually. It still does. She is not held to any one medium or style, but continually is in search of something that will convey emotion and the heart of a thing. Currently a member of the Oshawa Art Association, she studied at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art and Design, taught various courses throughout her career, and shared her work at grief seminars in recognition of the healing power of artistic expression. And so the journey continues.

Sharon Recalla
Sharon Recalla was born in Orillia, grew up in Fort Erie and finally made Oshawa her home in 1968. She is currently a member of the Oshawa Art Association, the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington and Station Gallery of Whitby. Primarily a self taught artist, she took the opportunity to refine her skills through juried art shows and recreational courses at Robert McLaughlin Gallery and Durham College. Her peers have described her offerings as naive with a contemporary flair that will leave you with a smile. Her quirky sense of humour is always reflected in each painting.

Marissa Sweet
Marissa is a landscape and cityscape painter who, in merging her creative background with her practise of feng shui metaphysics, creates work about conservation. She has won various awards in regional and local juried art shows. Through her work, Marissa aims to express the importance of our interconnectivity with our environment and that nature should be treated with kindness and respect. Marissa teaches in various private and public galleries, community centres and at her home studio. With a BA Economics degree from St. Louis University, Philippines, Marissa has studied with various art instructors at Ayala Museum Philippines and at the Toronto School of Art. Currently, Marissa is the Director/Newsletter Editor and Elected Member of the Society of Canadian Artists. She is also the Public Relations & Social Media administrator for the Oshawa Art Association.

Barbara Kueres
Barbara grew up in England where, as a child, she was always interested in art, and often, during grammar school years, could be found sketching when she should have been studying. Barbara soon realized that art was a subject that she wanted to focus on for life. She attended art school from 17 to 18 years of age and, though she eventually chose a career in nursing, art was never far from her thoughts.
Soon after immigrating to Canada in 1981, Barbara became involved in visual arts programs and workshops, where she was able to connect with other artists, and she spent time painting at home while her son was in elementary school. Following a move to Oshawa, Barbara joined the Oshawa Art Association, became Programs Chair for several years, and gradually grew more serious about her own aspirations in art. Barbara began to enter juried shows in the Durham region and OAA’s Spring and Fall Festivals, working in various media: watercolour, acrylic, pastel and charcoal.
Barbara states that being creative definitely feels like an essential connection with the visual and emotional world around her, and evokes in her the desire to recreate whatever has moved her profoundly. It also helps her to appreciate and comprehend things more clearly.

Sylvia Valentine
Watercolour is Sylvia’s preferred medium. Although she enjoys painting landscapes and old buildings, the miracle of flowers is her favourite subject. She has participated in shows in Cobourg, Port Hope, Oshawa, Whitby, Uxbridge, Markham, Stouffville, Port Perry and other areas, some of which were solo shows. She has conducted many workshops and weekly classes, helping novice painters learn to handle the amazing properties of watercolour pigments on wet and dry papers. Her paintings have travelled to collections across Canada, U.S.A., and Europe. Sylvia resides in Courtice.

“Sadly, although Sylvia was looking forward to participating in our show, she passed away at the end of March.  Her family has generously loaned us some of her paintings to hang with ours.  We miss her humour, enthusiasm and friendship very much.”
– Randomly Connected Artist Group

Water is often thought of as an accessible commodity in most Western cities. With global climate change, this expectation is becoming less certain. Draughts, contamination, and flooding in places like Cape Town, Los Angeles, Flint, and Manitoba have made obvious that a limitless supply of water does not exist.
Dark Waters is a series of images of water, clouds and deserts looking at our culpability in commodifying and altering nature. Using a laser cutter, Van Der Hout burns holes into the photograph, allowing certain portions of the image to remain and others to fall away. He is interested in how far he can destroy the physical structure of the photograph before it falls apart.

Reception: July 12, 7-10pm
Artist talk: July 26, 7-8pm

During his residency in the Art Lab, John Di Leonardo will be researching the nude theme within Canada’s artistic history, he’ll also be drawing to create a body of work that explores questions of the nude image as a contentious landscape whose tradition of object of desire and shame informs our social constructs, values and identity.

Drop-in Exhibition Insight tours are available every Thursday. Ask at the front desk.

This installation of the RMG’s permanent collection asks the question: Whose Home and Native Land? This takes into account not only the physical landscape, but those who have occupied it for thousands of years and those settlers whose traces can be measured in hundreds of years.

This has been a collaborative venture: along with RMG staff, we have met with three Indigenous community members whose responses to the collection have framed the exhibition’s content and its direction. The RMG’s collection is very Eurocentric, but also includes amazing examples of work by First Nations and Inuit artists and we continue to expand its base of work by racially diverse artists.

Produced in partnership with Reagan Kennedy, Dawn Lavell-Harvard, and Alex Ranger

The RMG is incredibly grateful to Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation for their support of this exhibition.