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 [email protected].
Let us know you’re coming with an RSVP (not required, but encouraged).
We’re excited to celebrate the opening of The Backyard at the RMG with our community! Be one of the first to experience our reimagined greenspace that is community focused and rooted in creativity. There is limited seating so be sure to bring a blanket or lawn chair.
Throughout the evening we’ll have lots of activities on the go:
Meet the designers
Help us plant our raised beds with the Oshawa Garden Club
Paint a rock – yes, that pandemic tradition – with our L&E staff for our garden
Partake in refreshments from Masala Box and Town Brewery
Enjoy brilliant musical performances.
7:00 pm Doors open
7:20 pm Welcome, Introductions + Thank Yous
7:30 pm Performance by Tania Joy
8:30 pm Performance by the Professors of Funk
10:00 pm Doors close
The Professors Of Funk is a powerhouse 9-piece band that plays the classic funk, R&B, soul, and Motown music of the 1960s and 70s – music meant to get people to move. This sizzling high-energy ensemble features elite professional musicians with a wide range of experience in groups large and small and backing up artists across a broad spectrum. The presence of a 3-piece horn section, added percussionist, and both male and female lead vocalists ensure that they deliver the authentic flavours found in that era’s timeless sound.
Folk-roots musician, Tania Joy has been using the last few years hone her songwriting, finally following up her 2013 EP, I’ll Be Around, with the release of her EP I Will Stand, produced by 2022 Juno Award winner Hill Kourkoutis (SATE, Digging Roots, Leela Gilday, Madison Violet), a multi-talented artist who played with Serena Ryder and was in The Weeknd’s original backing band.
This project is funded in part by: the Government of Canada through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario and the Enabling Accessibility Fund; the Ontario Trillium Foundation Community Building Fund; and The City of Oshawa.
pitch, slip is an exhibition of new paintings by Oshawa-raised artist Alex Close concerned with the slippery nature of effort and trust. Employing organic tones beside brash bursts of colour, Close’s chaotic compositions disorient and destabilize the viewer, placing them in a position to question what they see. Like sedimentary rocks, these works are composites, not of fossils and minerals, but of abstract shapes and surface textures. For her, these works allude to distant memories and speculative places, but she is excited by the diversity of interpretations different viewers will find in these elusive planes.
The exhibition’s title might bring a handful of specific actions to mind: a singer strives to reach a certain note; a pitcher throws a ball to a player at bat; an employee pitches a new project to their boss. The title also points to a tent pitched and slippery slopes. These divergent definitions, of effort and uneven ground, all influenced the creation of this new body of work; however, Close is particularly interested in the mutual construction of meaning in public space. Her paintings invite the viewer to exert the same kind of effort they might put towards deciphering truth in an image-saturated world.
Alongside instances of voices wavering or tosses falling short, Close is also interested in the slippages of her own memory. Reflecting on an unrealistic desire to remember places and events with absolute clarity, she leans into the patchy nature of remembrance, allowing fleeting impressions to compose imperfect, but provocative images in her mind. Translating those memory maps into paintings, Close ponders the nature of trust as it relates to the images we encounter, not only in our day-to-day lives, but those preserved in our own minds. Like a fond memory reworked with each reminiscence, her compositions are approximations, ideas pitched and slipping, somehow faithful and deceptive at the same time.
This exhibition is supported by the RBC Foundation’s RBC Emerging Artist Project.
Installation of pitch, slip at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 2023. Images by Toni Hafkenscheid.
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.
Clean and healthy waterways contribute to the social, economic and environmental wellbeing of a community. Oshawa’s main watershed, the Oshawa Creek, has a history of contamination connected to early industrial development. The creek flows 50 kilometres from its headwaters in the Oak Ridges Moraine to its mouth on Lake Ontario, and played a central role in Oshawa’s historical foundation as a settler community. The lake and the creek were an ideal source of power for early industries but had an environmental impact polluting the waterway with metals and other contaminants. Industrialization along the creek also had an impact on the Indigenous populations who used the Creek for transportation and subsidence, with dams and pollution making the pathway less accessible and healthy. Recreational use of the creek was also effected with quality of water being connected to quality of life for early residents.
GTR Bridge Over the Oshawa Creek, 1910, The Thomas Bouckley Collection.
The Creek was deemed polluted and unsafe for human consumption as early as 1902 due to over 50 years of industrial activities along it. Since 1958, the health and quality of the Oshawa Creek has been monitored closely by the Central Lake Ontario Conservation Authority, and today in cooperation with the City of Oshawa. This exhibition pulls together a selection of photographs to reflect on the history of industry along the Oshawa Creek and to consider the effects rapid development has on the quality of health and life in a growing city.
The Thomas Bouckley Collection is a photographic collection originally compiled by Oshawa historian and collector Thomas Bouckley. It consists of over 3500 images that depict the visual history of this community and is searchable online.
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 [email protected].
This exhibition is generously supported by the RBC Foundation’s Emerging Artist Project.
We are pleased to present the annual Durham College Thesis Exhibition! Like all visionary explorers, the students in Durham College’s Fine Arts Advanced program are involved in a continual process of identifying and studying meaningful subjects that pertain to their own evolving bodies of work. They first research then develop strategies unique to their practice through experimentation, all the while learning to define and focus their personal interests. This exhibition includes a wide range of subjects, interests, and mediums. Celebrate EMERGING VISIONS with the staff and students of Durham College!
The opening reception will be hosted during RMG Friday: Renewal on May 5, 2023. Then, stop by the gallery at 1pm on May 10th for an artist-led tour of the exhibition. This is your chance to learn more about specific projects and hear about the journey from conception to fabrication to presentation.
This exhibition is generously supported by the RBC Foundation’s Emerging Artist Project.
This event has passed and registrations are closed.
$55/adult
$28/ child under 12
Come join us for tea on Mother’s Day at The RMG!
Berry Hill Food Co. will be hosting seatings on May 13th and 14th. Bring all the moms for delicious prix fixe with tantalizing teas. Then tour our exhibitions and a visit to the RMG Shop. Treat the special people in your life, to local artisan treasures. Guests in for Tea will receive a 10% discount at the Shop.
All reservations are managed by Berry Hill Food Co.
Visit the RMG between April 28th and May 14th to check out the Oshawa Art Association’s 55th Juried Art Exhibition. This exhibition showcases artworks created by artists from across Durham Region.
