Aaron Jones: Fountain of Dreams

Inspired by Black fantasy and science fiction narratives, this solo exhibition by Pickering-based artist Aaron Jones presents a new installation that combines video, collage works, photomurals, and a multi-channel soundscape. Finding inspiration from exploring the vast northern shoreline of Lake Ontario, Jonesā€™ nuanced approach brings insights to land-based practices, placemaking, local histories, and world-building methodologies.

The immersive soundscape combines field recordings of natural areas around the Humber River with samples of electronic sounds from a theremin. The audio creates a moody atmosphere that unfolds across different areas of the space, and is paired with a new video work and photo-murals taken near shores of Lake Ontario. In the video, a ghostly presence moves throughout a landscape that is both familiar and uncanny. Meant to evoke an experience of haunting within his childhood home, Jones employs this phantom figure to pay tribute to its ongoing presence in his life, opening possibilities of new worlds and access to other realms.

Jones describes this work as an, ā€œattempt to affirm a spiritual-symbiotic relationship to natureā€ through which he, ā€œhopes to evoke a sense of disorientation, where the spectral spaces feel hyperreal, yet beautifully strange.ā€ In a period defined by socio-ecological uncertainty, the work proposes ways of being in tandem with the natural world, and considers what it means to be human beyond the body. By constructing imagined spaces from images of thriving and overgrown urban areas, Jones proposes an idealized relationship to the world that considers environmental futurity and celebrates abundance. Here, bold fictions are defined by the unknown, and viewers are challenged with seeing themselves within the uncertainty.

Exhibition Publication

View a digital copy of the publication for this exhibition here.

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 ā€˜peaceā€™; 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 motherā€™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 Ontarioā€™s We Are Story: The Canada Now Photography Acquisition exhibtion. Heā€™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.

Installation of Fountain of Dreams at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 2023. Images by Toni Hafkenscheid.

This exhibition is supported by TD Bank Group through the TD Ready Commitment.

Anna Binta Diallo: Topographies

Topographies is a new body of work by Winnipeg-based artist Anna Binta Diallo, exploring map-making and world-building. Inspired by the rich visual histories and formal qualities of maps, this new installation explores the metaphoric and symbolic possibilities of representation. If a map is a translation of the important elements and characteristics of a particular place during a moment in time, this exhibition asks, what happens when the view is expanded? How do you contain a multitude of perspectives across geographies, times, and cultures? What richness is revealed through these layered forms of meaning-making?

For Topographies Diallo employs a personal archive of historical and outdated maps to re-interpret them as the basis for a new body of sculptural works. Exploring the sedimentary layers that form various imagined terrains, the work builds on this concept as a metaphor for the layered histories, material cultures, and human/non-human flourishing that happens within a place over time. Using layers of Plexiglas, the hung panels form large-scale topographies, consisting of cut-out shapes, textures, and found imagery, interpreted as vertical landscapes that include fossilizations of visual information, and clues of human habitation. Employing the use of light, space, layering, and depth, these new works are a material departure from Dialloā€™s recent work, proposing new ways to convey a narrative that continues to expand on previous research on folklore, language, history, and transcultural identity.

By assembling imagery from a diverse set of archival sources, this immersive installation maps a new world, evoking themes of place-making and stewardship, as well as the consequences of colonial histories and conquest, divisions, and ownership. Together, the works in Topographies explore how our perception of land and ground can transform, interwoven with our experiences and history, mutating and morphing like the earthā€™s crust.

Exhibition Publication

View a digital copy of the publication for this exhibition here.

Anna Binta Diallo is a multidisciplinary visual artist who explores themes of memory and nostalgia to create unexpected works about identity. She was born in Dakar (Senegal, 1983), grew up in Saint-Boniface (Manitoba), and lived more than fifteen years in Montreal/TiohtiĆ”:ke/Mooniyang.  She completed her BFA at the University of Manitobaā€™s School of Fine Arts (2006) and received her MFA from the Transart Institue in Berlin (2013). Her work has been exhibited widely in Canada and internationally (Finland, Senegal, Mali, Taiwan, and Germany), in institutions such as Centre CLARK, QC, Museum London, London ON; Contemporary Calgary; MOCA Taipei; SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, and featured in Biennales such as Momenta and Bamako Encounters. In 2022, she unveiled her first public artwork, a mural integrated into the architecture of the Espace Denis Savard, in the Verdun Auditorium in Montreal. She is the recipient of several awards, prizes, and distinctions, notably from the Conseil des Arts et des lettres du QuĆ©bec and the Canada Council for the Arts. In 2021, she was a finalist in the Salt Spring National Art Prize, was awarded the Barbara Sphor Memorial Prize from the Walter Phillips Gallery at the Banff Centre, and received the Black Designers of Canada Award of Excellence. In 2022, she was long-listed for the Sobey Art Award. Her works are part of numerous public and private collections, including; EQ Bank; RBC Royal Bank, and Scotiabank. She is currently an Assistant Professor at the School of Art at the University of Manitoba, on Treaty 1, the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples and the MĆ©tis Nation. Anna Binta Diallo is represented by Towards Gallery.

Installation of Topographies at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 2023. Images by Toni Hafkenscheid.

The artist gratefully acknowledges support from the Canada Council for the Arts for this exhibition.

This exhibition is supported by TD Bank Group through the TD Ready Commitment.

Queering the Collection

Queering the Collection brings together a selection of artworks from the RMGā€™s permanent collection and seeks to expand upon the established interpretations of these artworks by looking at them through a queer lens. The artworks were selected taking into account records and documentation that suggest these artists lived outside of gender and sexuality binaries and in doing so, questions why these facts have been historically removed from conversations about the artist and their work.


ā€œQueerā€ as a term is often used as shorthand for the wider 2SLGBTQIA+ community. Historically used as a slur, it was reclaimed during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s as a way to refuse stigmatization. Today the term remains controversial, but is rooted in the urge to challenge normative systems and relations, question accepted boundaries, and reject societal expectations. It is a way of being in the world, a shared sense of understanding and community with other queer people. In the current global context, when the rights of queer people are being simultaneously recognized and all but erased, examining historical queerness feels increasingly urgent, acknowledging that we have always been here, and provides a sense of ancestry to young queer people.


Queerness has always been present in the arts but has been historically dependent on artists remaining invisible and unnamed. Rediscovering and acknowledging the queer stories of these artists, explicit or covert, adds a valuable layer to the interpretation of their work. The featured artists have used their artwork as an outlet to explore themselves, seek change, and redefine the world around them. Some artists lived openly, sharing their lives and experiences publically through art, some we may only be able to speculate about, while others lived quietly during a time when their private lives were criminalized. They have used their artwork to express the pain of losing loved ones to AIDS, the joy of queer relationships, and the banality of everyday life; essential human experiences often only permitted in private spaces for many queer people in history and even today.


Queering the Collection invites viewers to consider a new lens of interpretation when looking at these works. In questioning how society interprets our histories, we establish foundational methods for being curious and questioning how we live today, and think critically about our role in the world.

Installation of Queering the Collection at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 2023. Images by Toni Hafkenscheid.

The RMG Spring Artisan Market

The Robert McLaughlin Gallery is very excited to host our first artisan market of the year in partnership with the City of Oshawa.

The RMG Spring Artisan Market will take place on Sunday, June 11th from 11-4PM. Our market will be conducted indoors, alongside the Oshawa Peony Festival.

Featuring high-quality artisans from across the GTA, we strive to provide a unique and local shopping experience.

Curatorial Tours: Fountain of Dreams and Topographies

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 [email protected] with any specific requests.

No advance registration required.

Part of the Curatorial Tours Series.

Curatorial Tours: Queering the Collection

Join Project Coordinator, Digital Collections and curator of this show Heather Riley for a guided tour of their permanent collection exhibition, which explores themes of queerness within the RMGā€™s collection.

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 [email protected] with any specific requests.

No advance registration required.

Part of the Curatorial Tours Series.


Save the date! Join us for these upcoming Curatorial Tours:

September 21 ā€“ Untouched Landscapes and Topographies, Erin Szikora

OPG Sunday: Colourful Flowers

Letā€™s celebrate Oshawaā€™s Peony Festival together! We will create fantastical colourful flowers in our studio space.

Free admission.

This is a drop in event. No registration is required.


This event is generously sponsored by Ontario Power Generation.

OPG Sunday: Watercolour Collages

Join us for a special guest, Ms Love from The Love & Light Collective at 11am who will do a literary workshop with a story, active movement and discussion on a book called “Indigo Dreaming”. In the studio, create a watercolour collage inspired by the book and the Oshawa Art Association exhibition.

Free admission.

This is a drop in event. No registration is required.

A young girl living on the coast of South Carolina dreams of her distant relatives on the shores of Africa and beyond. Indigo Dreaming is a poetic meditation between two young girlsā€”on different sides of the seaā€”who wonder about how they are intricately linked by culture, even though they are separated by location. The girlsā€™ reflections come together, creating an imaginative and illuminating vision of home, as well as a celebration of the Black diaspora. This gorgeous lyrical tale engages the senses and evokes childlike curiosity and wonder.


This event is generously sponsored by Ontario Power Generation.

Seniors Spring Social

Letā€™s celebrate spring together! We are offering an afternoon of tea, tours, a floral arranging workshop, and watercolour painting opportunities. This free event is funded by the Government of Canada’s New Horizons for Seniors Program.

Schedule of events

  • Tours of the RMG exhibitions at 1pm and 2pm
  • Watercolour Flowers workshop 1:30-2:00pm or 2:30-3:00pm (drop in maximum 15 per session)
  • Floral Arranging Workshop with Brookstead Flowers 1:30-2:30pm Ā (waitlist available)
  • Tea and Coffee in our onsite Arthurs Restaurant 1-3pm
Funded by the
Government of Canadaā€™s
New Horizons for
Seniors Program

OPG Sunday: Patterns and Prints

We will be inspired by the patterns, colours and shapes seen in the Piecework exhibition to create two unique artworks.

Free admission.

This is a drop in event. No registration is required.


This event is generously sponsored by Ontario Power Generation.