Andil Gosine moved to Oshawa, from Trinidad, at the age of 14. His formative teen years in the city are revisited in these works, in which he both shares his personal desires and vulnerabilities, and exposes the enduring impact of struggles he and his family experienced. Told as an “autobiography in flora,” the exhibition is organized chronologically, with works about the prelude to and enduring aftermath of his teenagehood in Oshawa bookending re-imagined archival materials from his experience here.

Gosine uses the Ixora flower as a key icon throughout. Indigenous to India and other parts of Asia, the flower was brought by his indentured labour ancestors to Trinidad, where it is now ubiquitous. Through this show, Gosine brings them to Canada as an offering to the place and people of Oshawa, who impacted his life path in complicated ways.

Tours: Thursdays 5-9pm, Saturday & Sunday 12-4pm. Free, drop-in.

Opening reception: Friday, February 2, 7-10pm

Imagine, if you will, that two artists while exploring a second-hand bookstore in downtown Toronto, come upon an old battered copy of James Joyce’s A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. While idly flipping though it they discover a hand drawn map of what looks like Algonquin Park. On the map there is a mysterious symbol with the initials “TT” drawn within it. Their curiosity is sparked and they purchase the book.

They decide to track down whatever the symbol indicates. Five years later, and after several trips to Algonquin Park, they discover a small cairn and within it find a tin box containing a leather journal with the initials G.N. embossed on its cover. The artists look through the journal and discover that it chronicles a never before known friendship between the journal’s author and Tom Thomson. This journal – if authenticated – would change forever what we know about Tom Thomson and his life.

Imagine.

And that is what is being done with Betwixt & Between: An Untold Tom Thomson Story. Lead artists Joel Richardson, Germinio Pio Politi, and Nyle Johnston, build upon what we know about Thomson, investigating the contradictions and mysteries, in order to produce this project. There are some facts about the artist which are incontrovertible. Yet many aspects of his life remain within the realm of conjecture and (sometimes contrarian) supposition. It is said that if Tom Thomson had not existed, Canada would have had to invent him.
The heart of the project lies in the (85% authentic) story of an imagined friendship between Tom Thomson and George Nadjiwon, a young man from Cape Croker reserve. The time period that is covered in the exhibition includes key dates in Canadian history and looks at issues including the treatment of Indigenous peoples, women’s rights, independence and ideas around nationhood while addressing constructed historical narratives that ignore or obscure different voices.

The historical events being explored in this exhibition are still relevant, especially the injustices perpetuated against Indigenous people. The development of this exhibition has been guided by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s recommendations and with ongoing dialogue and guidance from the participating Indigenous artists and advisors.

Betwixt & Between is a multilevel platform project that incorporates new technologies such as Augmented Reality and virtual experience through an interactive app that fully integrates with and is reflective of the exhibition.

Virginia Eichhorn, Curator

Click here to submit your images.

What does home mean to you? A new, community-led and informed exhibition looks to explore this. Home can be many things – a feeling, place, person – whatever the case, there’s no place like home.

Members of the community are invited to participate in this exhibition by hashtagging photos that reflect what home means to then with #feelslikehome. Submitted images will be printed and included in a crowd-sourced exhibition project that illustrates how home and a sense of community can be one and the same. Tag us using @rmgoshawa on Instagram and @theRMG on Twitter

The hope is to fill the exhibition space from floor to ceiling with printed 4 x 6 pictures.

While typically, community driven exhibitions ask the community to respond to its collections, this time, the RMG will respond to the community. The RMG’s Curator of Collections will select photographs from the Thomas Bouckley Collection that highlight reoccurring themes around the feeling of home.

The Thomas Bouckley Collection was started when local historian Thomas Bouckley put his photo documentation of Oshawa together with collected images. This collection is continually growing as Oshawa grows and develops.

#FeelsLikeHome is proudly sponsored by Royal Service Real Estate Inc.

Opening reception: March 2, 7-10pm

The first musical remixes are often thought of to have come from Jamaican Reggae in the 1960’s. On the B side of these 45 rpm records, another artist created an alternate “version” of the song on side A. This became standard practice in most pop/dance music by 1980, and is now a fundamental part of how we experience popular music. Perhaps the most important component to remix is the spirit of artistic permissiveness. One artist surrenders their work to another, so they might re-invent and re-imagine it into some new, unforeseen configuration.

This exhibition will explore the idea of remix in visual art. Although artists often collaborate with other artists, or appropriate the work of someone else, the permissive surrendering of their work to another for creative re-invention seems unusual, and kind of fun. For this project, I have invited seven artists who I deeply admire: Lyla Rye, Anda Kubis, John Kissick, Jessica Thompson, James Olley, Chief Ladybird and Paulette Phillips to choose an artist to partner with. They’ve chosen Christina La Sala, Jennie Suddick, Stu Oxley, Duncan Macdonald, Jennifer Wigmore, Mike Pszczonak, Aura and Jean-Paul Kelly. These artists will trade works with each other, and aesthetically reconfigure them.

The title for this proposed show is taken from a song by A Tribe Called Quest from 1991. It has a playfully nostalgic character to it’s vernacular, suggesting the permissive surrendering involved in this project. It points to an expression from the 80’s and 90’s (the golden era of Hip Hop sampling, before lawyers figured out new copyright laws) To “kick it” implied starting the song (and the party), dropping the beat, but also ‘kicking it’, implied a sort of hanging out/chilled out camaraderie. All of these implications are touched on with this project.

Curator Biography
Pete Smith is an artist and writer who lives in Bowmanville. His recent work explores the collective anxiety around environmental change. Smith has exhibited his work extensively since completing his BFA from York University in 1998 and his MFA from the University of Guelph in 2007. Recent solo exhibitions include: Open Letter at Bowmanville Town Hall (2017), Southern Pastoral at No Foundation, Toronto (2017), Postscript at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa (2015), New Frontier at Kelowna Art Gallery (2015), Initial Public Offering at Station Gallery in Whitby (2013), New Drawings at Colorida Exposicoes in Lisbon, Portugal (2012) and Proverbs for Paranoids at Elissa Cristall Gallery, Vancouver (2010). His work is included in numerous private and public collections in Canada and abroad including TD Bank, The Colart Collection, Imago Mundi (Italy) and The Art Gallery or Guelph. His writings on art have frequently appeared in Canadian Art and Border Crossings magazines. Smith has held teaching positions at Western University, the University of Guelph, and the University of Toronto. He is currently a lecturer in the Department of Drawing and Painting at OCAD University, and in the School of Media, Art and Design at Durham College in Oshawa.

Artist Biographies
Lyla Rye is a Toronto based installation artist who began her studies in architecture. She studied at the University of Waterloo, York University (BFA 1989), and the San Francisco Art Institute (MFA 1994). She works in installation, video and photography to explore our experience of architectural space. Her work has been exhibited across Canada and internationally including exhibitions in San Francisco, New York, Adelaide (Australia), Paris and Berlin. She has work in the public collections of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, York University, Cadillac Fairview Corporation, The Tom Thomson Art Gallery, Harbourfront Centre and the Robert McLaughlin Gallery. She has received numerous grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Arts Council. Lyla Rye is partial load faculty member at Sheridan College in the Art and Art History joint program between Sheridan College and the University of Toronto Mississauga.

Anda Kubis is a recognized Canadian abstract painter working in expanded digital, material, and traditional oil painting processes. Due to the prominence of colour in her artwork, Kubis conciously considers how the engagement with aesthetics and creativity positively impacts human flourishing and quality of life. With degrees from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and York University, she is invested in crossing her artistic practice with design and architecture, material exploration, and her significant career in teaching. Anda Kubis is the Associate Dean of Outreach and Innovation in the Faculty of Art at OCAD University. Kubis is represented in Canada by Bau-Xi Gallery in Toronto, Newzones Gallery of Contemporary Art in Calgary, Elissa Cristall Gallery in Vancouver, in Sweden by Galleri Tapper-Popermajer, and online at Artsy.net. Numerous public and private collections have acquired her work, including RBC, TD Bank, BMO, Cenovus Energy, Aimia, The Westaim Corporation, and the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development.

Trained as a painter and writer, John Kissick has held numerous academic posts, including Chair of Critical Studies at Penn State University’s School of Visual Arts, Dean of the Faculty of Art at the Ontario College of Art & Design from 2000 to 2003, and for the last nine years, Director of the School of Fine Art and Music at the University of Guelph. Kissick’s exhibition record includes numerous solo exhibitions in Canada, the USA and Germany, and his work has been included in a number of important survey exhibitions and public collections. A mid-career survey entitled John Kissick: A Nervous Decade, curated by Crystal Mowry, toured Canada from 2010 to 2012 and was accompanied by a major publication. Kissick is also the author of Art: Context and Criticism (1992,) was editor of the Penn State Journal of Contemporary Criticism from 1990 to 1995 and has written numerous catalogue essays and articles for periodicals. Two recent essays: “Elephants in the Room” for Canadian Art Magazine and “Disco and the Death Switch: Tales from Contemporary Abstraction” for Border Crossings were nominated for National Magazine Awards in 2009 and 2010. John Kissick was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy for the Arts in 2005.

Born and raised in Oshawa, Ontario, Jessica Thompson is an Assistant Professor in Hybrid Practice at the University of Waterloo in both the Department of Fine Art and the Stratford Campus. Her practice investigates spatial and social conditions within urban environments through interactive art-works situated at the intersection of sound, performance and mobile technologies. She holds a BFA in Visual Art from York University and MFA in Media Study from SUNY at Buffalo. Before coming to Waterloo, Thompson was Part-time Faculty in the Department of Visual Art at Brock University and an Adjunct Instructor in the Department of Media Study at SUNY at Buffalo. Her work has shown in exhibitions, festivals and symposia such as ISEA (San Jose, Dubai, Vancouver), the Conflux Festival (New York), Thinking Metropolis (Copenhagen), (in)visible Cities (Winnipeg), Beyond/In Western New York (Buffalo), the Deep Wireless Festival (Toronto), NIME (Oslo), Audible Edifices (Hong Kong), the Trans-X Transmission Art Symposium (Toronto), Locus Sonus (Aix-en-Provence), and the The Persistence of Peripateticism: Artists’ Walks (New York). Her projects have appeared in publications such as Canadian Art, c Magazine, Acoustic Territories (Continuum Books) the Leonardo Music Journal, and in art, design and technology blogs such as engadget, Cool Hunting, swissmiss, we-make-money-not-art, Gear Live and Make Magazine.

James Olley received his MFA from the University of Waterloo in 2008 after completing his BFA at NSCAD University in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2004. Since graduating Olley has had a number of solo shows locally and internationally; Angell Gallery (Toronto), Galerie Trois Points (Montreal), Peter Robertson Gallery (Edmonton), Kasia Kay Art Projects (Chicago), Incident Report (New York) and Dundee Contemporary Arts (Scotland), Galerie Weissraum, (Kyoto, Japan); and Groenhazengracht 1, (Leiden, Netherlands). Olley’s work belongs to private collections such as Colart Collection (Montreal) and Cenovus Energy (Edmonton). Olley has been awarded Emerging & Assistance Artist Grants (Toronto Arts Council & Ontario Arts Council), in addition, received full scholarship to the Vermont Studio Center Residency (2009). Olley’s work has been profiled at contemporary art fairs, including Pulse New York, Pulse Miami, Papier 13 and Next Chicago. He is a lecturer in the department of Drawing and Painting at OCAD University.

Stu Oxley is an outstanding Canadian artist with a 30 year history of exhibitions in national and international, public and private galleries. Primarily working as a printmaker and painter, his practice is defined by a distinctive form of poetic abstraction involving evocative colour and exquisitely responsive mark making.
As a Master Printer, Oxley has also made a very significant contribution editioning prints for numerous distinguished contemporary artists at Riverside Studio, the printshop he runs in Elora, Ontario. Oxley earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Waterloo and has for the last fifteen years been an extremely supportive and effective instructor of art, teaching at notable post secondary art programs such as Georgian College and the University of Guelph.

Stu Oxley has realized twenty-six solo exhibitions of his artwork, including regular exhibitions at prominent art galleries such as Mira Godard Gallery in Toronto, Jennifer Kostuik Gallery in Vancouver, Jill George Gallery in London, England, and Paul Kuhn Gallery in Calgary. Included in numerous private and public art collections such as the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Museum London, the Maclaren Art Centre, the Nickle Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Stu Oxley has also been awarded recognition with a Purchase Award by the Ernst and Young’Great Canadian Print Prize’. A significant high point in Stu Oxley’s exhibition history is s a catalogued, international solo exhibition at the Naughton Gallery at Queens University in Belfast, Ireland.

Paulette Phillips’ work deals with the relationship between viewer and subject, focusing on witnessing, looking and reflection. Consistent in her work is an interest in the way psychological content is embedded in the physical world. Over the past thirty years she has worked in visual art, film and theatre and for the past 15 years has primarily focused on sculpture and film installation showing her work primarily in the UK, France and Germany. Her work is in a number of public collections including the National Gallery Canada, Oakville Galleries, the Museum of Modern of Modern Art and Frac, Haute-Normandie and in corporate and private collections including Gluskin Sheff + Associates and BMO Bank of Montreal. Her work is represented by Danielle Arnaud Contemporary Art, London.. Paulette teaches time-based and contemporary art
practices at OCAD University.

Monique Bedard (Aura) is a Haudenosaunee (Oneida Nation of the Thames) woman from a small town in Southern Ontario. She has been deeply and passionately involved in visual arts for 11 years. In 2006, she began a formal study of visual arts at Fanshawe College in London, ON. After three years of studies in London, she moved to Lethbridge, AB to complete an undergraduate degree at the University of Lethbridge. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts (Studio Art) degree in 2010 and returned to Ontario where she began instructing group art lessons with children, adolescents and adults. Monique currently resides in Tkaronto, where she is working as an artist, art facilitator and muralist.
She is inspired by the healing journey: “I have the passion for community engagement, collaboration and social change where stories are shared through the art making process. Through a holistic approach, it is my aim to empower people by honing in on individuals’ strengths. My goal is to build art projects that lead to a deep sense of understanding while connecting through unity, collaboration and transformation. It is through the freedom of the creative process that imagination and creativity are ignited, connections are restored, meaning is built, passions are discovered, visions are manifested, ideas are born, inspiration becomes contagious, strength is called upon, and all voices and stories are heard.”

Mike Pszczonak is becoming increasingly intuitive with a strong concern for process, play, and a material ontology. At the moment, a key motivation in his work is the search for relationships between observation and touch, pictorial and sculptural space, design and architecture, and the way objects form perception and vice versa. He received his Bachelor of Arts within the studio art program at the University of Guelph and his MFA at the University of Western Ontario. Mike Pszczonak lives in London, Ontario.
San Francisco artist Christina La Sala is a scavenger, a collector, a researcher and a fabricator. Her installation based work is driven by a love of history and craft. She received her BFA from the Tyler School of Art and her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. La Sala has exhibited her work extensively in the United States and internationally and has been an artist in residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, California, the Hermit Foundation in the Czech Republic, Elsewhere in Berlin, Germany and most recently at the Center for Art and Urbanistics in Berlin, Germany.

Jennifer Wigmore completed her MFA at OCAD University in the Interdisciplinary Masters of Art and Design program. Jennifer’s emergent practice engages reflexive embodiment through painting, research and teaching. Her current paintings are created in an experiential maximalist approach, rooted in painting, that enables a reflexive topology with material. A trans-disciplinary artist Jennifer has curated multiple exhibitions and regularly shows her work. She is also a founding member of Blunt Collective which exhibits her work internationally.
Nancy King is a First Nations (Potawatomi and Chippewa) artist from Rama First Nation. Her Anishinaabe name is Ogimaakwebnes, which means Chief Lady Bird. She has completed her BFA in Drawing and Painting with a minor in Indigenous Visual Culture at OCAD University and has been exhibiting her work since she was 14 years old. Through her art practice, she strives to look to the past to help her navigate her Anishinaabe identity whilst living in an urban space as well as advocate for Indigenous representation as an integral aspect of Canada’s national identity. She addresses the complexity of identity through the use of contemporary painting techniques; woodlands style imagery, photography, digital manipulation and traditional Indigenous craft materials and often works with at-risk youth to ensure knowledge and skill sharing/development.

Duncan MacDonald is a contemporary artist from Canada. His artworks take form in diverse modes such as audio art, performance, video, music, installation and drawing – often exploring the corporeal sensorium and its commodification.
Duncan’s works have been exhibited, performed and recorded throughout Canada, the US, Europe and South America. He has presented work at: Friche La Belle de Mai (Marseille), Museu D’Arte Joinville (Brazil), Cram International, Rodman Hall Art Centre, p|m Gallery, A Mano Libera Contemporary Art Gallery, Nuit Blanche (Paris) at Bibliotheque Forney, Nuit Blanche (Paris) at Musee Cluny, Oakville Galleries, The Grimsby Public Art Gallery, WKP Kennedy Art Gallery and the Andrew and Laura McCain Gallery, Mercer Union Centre for Contemporary Art, Centro Dragao do Mar de Arte é Cultura (Fortaleza), Jewel Box, Pekao Gallery, the Anna Leonowens Gallery, Gale Gates Gallery, the Tranz Tech Media Festival, amongst other venues.
He has received numerous awards and grants including the Established Artist of the Year Award from the City of St. Catharines, an ARC Fedev Pre-Commercialization grant, five grants from the Humanities Research Institute of Brock University, the Paris Studio residency supported by the Canada Council for the Arts (twice), a research and production grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, several grants from the Ontario Arts Council, a co-production grant from the Centre Nationale de la Cinematographie (Paris, France), a nomination for a Sobey Art Award, and a residency at the Royal College of Art in London, England.

Jennie Suddick is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Toronto, Canada who has exhibited in Canada, the U.S., Europe and Asia. Influenced by the ethos of her printmaking background, her work explores the of seeking a personal bond to places, images or objects that are shared, repeated, and accessible, despite often being artificially manufactured or reproduced.Her role as an educator has also branched out into both her personal and collaborative practices, and the line between all these two are constantly blurring, with community engagement and interactivity being prevalent considerations. This includes the collaboration Crazy Dames with urban planner Sara Udow, creating a dialogue that embraces the role of the artist in interdisciplinary projects. Suddick earned her Masters of Fine Arts from York University and holds both a Bachelor of Fine Arts and Advanced Visual Studies Certificate from OCAD University. Her solo projects have recently been featured at The Varley Art Gallery, Harbourfront Centre and as part of Land|Slide: Possible Futures at The Markham Museum and The Shenzhen &Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture. She is currently an Assistant Professor at OCAD University where she received the 2017 Non-Tenured Teaching Award.

Jean-Paul Kelly’s work explores the relationship between materiality and perception. The videos, drawings, and photographs that he makes pose questions about the limits of representation by examining complex associations between found photographs, videos, and sounds from documentaries, photojournalism, and online media streams. By working through these documents, Kelly seeks to illuminate the gap between physical matter and the subjective experience of it in the world.
His work has been exhibited at the Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus), The Power Plant (Toronto), Vox Populi (Philadelphia), Scrap Metal Gallery (Toronto), Mercer Union (Toronto), Gallery TPW (Toronto) and Tokyo Wonder Site. Recent screenings include New York Film Festival: Projections, Toronto International Film Festival: Wavelengths, SBC Gallery (Montreal), Nightingale Cinema (Chicago), New York Film Festival: Views from the Avant-Garde, Off & Free International Expanded Cinema and Art Festival at the Seoul Museum of Art, International Film Festival Rotterdam, and Pleasure Dome (Toronto). Jean-Paul was a guest artist at the 2013 Robert Flaherty Film Seminar. He received the 2014 Kazuko Trust Award from the Kazuko Trust and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. From 2009 to 2012, Kelly was Programming Director and Curator of Trinity Square Video (Toronto).
Jean-Paul holds a Master of Visual Studies from the University of Toronto (2005) and lives and works in Toronto.

Art Lab: November 23, 2017 – January 7, 2018
Gallery A: December 7, 2017 – January 7, 2018
Closing reception & artist talk: December 30, 1-3pm

Art Lab: Joanie believes that her identity and the way she sees herself versus the way that the world sees her, has had a strong impact on her life experiences. What does it mean to be Canadian? What does it mean to be an immigrant? Joanie moved to Canada at the age of 2 and spent most of her youth in Fort McMurray, Alberta and the rest of her teens and now adult life planting roots in GTA. During her residency at RMG, Joanie will be exploring how she connects with her South Asian roots while sharing what being “Canadian” means to her. She hopes to use this time to reflect on her Ancestry, visually show the story of her migration to the great white north as well as how growing up in Canada has had an impact on who she is now and what this looks like through her art!

Gallery A: Joanie’s intention for this exhibition is to artistically display the story of Canada through three lenses:

First People’s Story – Art exhibited by local Indigenous Artists Chief Lady Bird and Aura to show how important it is for all of us to honour the People that were here before us.

Canadian Immigrant – Art exhibited by Joan Saldanha, who migrated to Canada in 1973 and is now raising a family here in Ontario.

Newcomer Canadian – Art exhibited by folks who have just arrived showing how deeply connected they are to their roots while embracing their new Canadian identity.

Bio: Joanie’s journey as an artist began at an early age. She found that art helped her to sort out her emotions during a painful childhood. Visual art, music and writing all served as an outlet and also a platform to tell her story. Today, Joanie continues to tell her story through art from an empowered place. She uses acrylics, India ink, colour and movement to organically express her emotional state of being.
Joanie shares her mindful, meditative and intentional arts practice with children and youth through her Grassroots Community Organization, Eternal Springtime. She teaches them how to use visual arts as a platform to connect, create, share and manage emotions through improved self- awareness. She is honoured to be developing and delivering Mask Making workshops with Community Development Council of Durham to Newcomer Canadians this year.

Gallery A: September 14 – October 8, 2017
Artist Talk: Sunday October 1, 1-3pm
Reception: RMG Fridays, October 6, 7-9pm

Have you ever looked down on a cityscape from an airplane and thought it resembled a circuit board, and the city, a giant computer?

People say we live in the information age, and that digital technology defines the cultural paradigm of our time. I tend to agree with Marshall McLuhan’s sentiment, “the medium is the message”.

While development for human purposes alters the land, and non-human, living organisms are neglected, I see a resulting landscape that reflects technological design. Topographical images of cities begin to look like circuit boards or computer components.
These paintings explore manufactured spaces in the tradition of abstract painting. Some capture the chaos of urban design and the layering of development that exists in time and space. Others show the tranquility of open spaces and offer a balance between organic and manufactured forms. My intention is to express how design can influence feelings.

Artist Bio
Mark Williamson is a naturalist and outdoor enthusiast. He completed a Visual Arts Foundation year at Ontario College of Arts and Design, and an Honours Bachelor of Arts at the University of Toronto, majoring in Visual Arts and Philosophy. Williamson taught art at Cedar Ridge Summer Art Camp to youth while completing his Bachelors in Education as an art teacher. He is currently a secondary school teacher in the Durham District School Board.
Williamson has been painting abstract images with oil on canvas for the last sixteen years. He has participated in RMG and Station Gallery members’ exhibitions, and has shown in a coffee house exhibit and in the Ottawa Fringe Festival. He enjoys creating works that are visually appealing and represent themes related to modern society.

Gallery A and Art Lab programming is made possible through generous support of the

The RMG’s collection of paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints by Painters Eleven has grown to over 1000 works. The collection includes works from different points in their career, including pre and post Painters Eleven. We know the story of how Painters Eleven was formed, but what were the artists doing before? This exhibition includes earlier work by each member juxtaposed with work at the height of the Painters Eleven period—what they are best known for. The group brought a wide range of backgrounds, training, styles and ages that influenced their journey to becoming the first Ontario abstract collective. For example, William Ronald, the youngest of the group, had training with fellow member Jock Macdonald at the Ontario College of Art that included a contemporary outlook, while Hortense Gordon, the oldest of the group, had traditional training in landscape painting and turned to abstraction later in life. Their artistic paths prior to Painters Eleven are part of their individual stories, giving insight into who they were and how they came to be.

Who were Painters Eleven?
The first public appearance of what would become Painters Eleven occurred when seven of the artists showed their work at the Simpson’s department store in Toronto in October, 1953. The concept of an exhibition of abstract art and home furnishing was the idea of William Ronald, a commercial artist working at Simpson’s and his colleague, Carry Cardell. It was during a publicity shoot for this exhibition that the seven suggested that they add more to their number and become a formal group of abstract painters. Their first meeting as a group would be held at the Thickson’s Point cottage (on the Oshawa/Whitby border) of Alexandra Luke. Painters Eleven would be in existence from 1953-60 as a vehicle to promote the members’ individual work and the role of abstraction in Canadian art.

Dana Claxton is a Hunkpapa Lakota filmmaker, photographer, and performance artist. Her work looks at stereotypes, historical context, and gender studies of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, specifically those of the First Nations.

In this new body of work, the artist combines Lakota/Sioux bead work and images of Canadian holiday/road trips particularily campers set in nature, considering what it means to be in the natural world.

Claxton examines what it means to be called to the land. She is seeking for herself, spiritually as a sun dancer, for others recreationally and for those living “off” the land such as hunters or those involved in the back-to-the-land movement.

The Camper considers the Group of Seven, leisure camping, Indigenous land and found archival images—revealing that land is very generous, has spirit and at times an Indigenous spirit.
CORE21 is located at 21 Simcoe St S. Oshawa

Alexandra Luke, Isabel McLaughlin, and Aleen Aked are a significant part of the history of The Robert McLaughlin Gallery. We acknowledge the lasting impact these women had on the RMG every time a piece of artwork they donated is exhibited or an event is held in one of the gallery spaces named after them. But who were these women?

Alexandra Luke was a nurse, a mother, a wife, and, most importantly to the RMG, an artist and member of Painters 11. She exhibited her work in the exhibition Abstracts at Home, which led to the first official meeting of Painters 11 at Luke’s cottage in 1953. Her husband Ewart McLaughlin provided the funds for the first RMG building, but it was the gift of Alexandra Luke’s personal art collection that created a starting point for the gallery and ultimately its P11 focus.

Isabel McLaughlin, daughter of the industrialist R.S. McLaughlin, was an artist and one of the important early modernists in Canada. She was an invited contributor to Group of Seven exhibitions and the first female President of the Canadian Group of Painters. Isabel studied and became friends with many significant artists, collecting their work over the years. Though she didn’t see herself as an art collector, her extensive collection, which she donated to the RMG, bridges the gap between the Group of Seven and Painters 11 further enhancing the gallery’s holdings.

Aleen Aked was an accomplished artist and an expert golfer from Toronto and Tyrone, Ontario who won an Arthur Lismer scholarship to study at the Ontario College of Art. Aked drew and painted places she visited or lived, her family and friends, documenting her own life. Her last important art exhibition was at the RMG in 1989, and when she died in 2003 she left the gallery a legacy which has allowed new initiatives in education, outreach, and artist development.