Homeschool Art Class: Spring 2025

Welcome to your school away from home for arts education! Together, let’s dive into various materials and hone our artistic techniques to craft imaginative works of art.

Ages 5 to 7
10:00-11am
$75 Members/$95 Non-Members (8 weeks)

Ages 8 to 12
11:15-12:45pm
$100 Members/$120 Non-Members (8 weeks)

*Cancellation requests received prior to the start of the program will receive a full refund minus a $15 administration fee. We do not issue refunds (partial or full) after the start of the program.

The RMG reserves the right to cancel programs if the minimum enrollment is not met. In the event of a program cancellation, a full refund will be given. If a program is cancelled, registrants will receive notice one week prior to the beginning of the program.

Saturday Studio: Spring 2025

Welcome to your weekend art journey! Every week, we’ll dive into various techniques and materials, discover how we can harness art to express ourselves, ignite our creativity, and produce our own unique artworks.

Ages 5 to 7 10:30 – 12pm
Ages 8 to 12 1 – 2:30pm
$100 Members/$120 Non-Members

*Cancellation requests received prior to the start of the program will receive a full refund minus a $15 administration fee. We do not issue refunds (partial or full) after the start of the program.

Karen Kar Yen Law: Exhibition Opening + Artist Talk

Help us celebrate the opening of Karen Kar Yen Law’s solo exhibition at the gallery! Inspired by diasporic narratives, and the flavour profiles of Chinese cuisine, this exhibition will feature multimedia artworks that incorporate Law’s interest in bridging the languages of printmaking and painting.

At 1:30pm, the artist will reflect on her time in the RBC residency program and share insights into her new work in an artist-led walkthrough of the exhibition.

Learn more about the exhibition here.

This event is free and open to everyone. If there are ways we can support your participation, please contact Hannah at [email protected].

The RBC Emerging Artist Residency Program is generously sponsored by the RBC Foundation’s Emerging Artist Project.

Into the Horizon: Durham Catholic District School Board Art Exhibition

This exhibition celebrates artworks by students in Kindergarten – Grade 12 from across the Durham Catholic District School Board.

Tom Dean: GOOD-BYE

Opening reception: Saturday, April 5, 1-3PM

In 1970, a large piece of raw canvas was hung outside the window of artist Tom Dean’s studio on Saint Laurent Boulevard in Montreal. Measuring 23 feet by 6 feet, the canvas bore gigantic lettering fashioned from glittering blue and gold sequins spelling “GOOD-BYE.” This intervention marked the artist’s very first public presentation—an address of farewell that launched an art career spanning over five decades, exceptional and still evolving. Boundless and expansive, fluidly transcending media, style, space, and norms, Dean’s work continues to challenge conventional categories of artistic production and meaning-making.

Driven by two essential inquiries—why “GOOD-BYE” then, and why Tom Dean now—the exhibition GOOD-BYE revisits the artist’s life in early 1970s Montreal. It brings together a rarely seen body of work—early conceptual artworks on canvas and in sculptural forms—and archival materials from that period, documenting the artist’s extensive and active engagement with the local alternative art scene and broader cultural milieu.

GOOD-BYE travels back in time to map and remap the vision and ambition projected by the artist at the time, while simultaneously standing in the present—behind the passage of history—to reevaluate and reflect on its significance in today’s context.

Tom Dean (b. 1947) is a conceptual artist, known for his work in a diverse range of media including sculpture, installation art, performance, drawing, and printmaking. Playing on tensions between the ordinary and mythical, his works reference both everyday objects and classical icons, alluding to the dream world of the psyche and matters of the soul, while always residing in the intensely material world of desire and the body. He received the Governor General’s Award for Visual and Media Arts (2001), was selected to represent Canada at the 1999 Venice Biennale, and was honoured with the Toronto Arts Award for Visual Arts in 1996. His work can be found in major collections including the National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Ontario, Musée d’Art Contemporain, and Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

Yan Wu is a curator, writer, and translator whose work explores the intersections of contemporary art, architecture, and public space. She is currently the Public Art Curator for the City of Markham and is pursuing a PhD at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto. Wu has co-translated Passages in Modern Sculpture by Rosalind Krauss, Six Years by Lucy Lippard, Rock My Religion by Dan Graham, and Formless by Yve-Alain Bois and Rosalind Krauss into Chinese. Commissioned by M+ in Hong Kong, she co-translated John Cage’s Not Wanting to Say Anything About Marcel (2020) into Chinese and contributed the Chinese text for the online exhibition Marcel Duchamp: Lessons for a Creative Life from Boîte-en-valise.

Leila Timmins is the Senior Curator at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery.

Karen Kar Yen Law: Beyond Bitter

Bitterness is one of five essential flavours in traditional Chinese cuisine, along with salty, spicy, sour, and sweet. Each is regarded as necessary for achieving balance in the body and on the palette. With the goal of creating five corresponding bodies of work for each flavour, Beyond Bitter is Karen Kar Yen Law’s most recent exploration of diasporic identity and intergenerational relationships through the language of Chinese cooking.

In this body of work, Law uses airbrushing, screen printing, painting, and collage to construct dynamic abstract compositions. She builds up the images in layers, applying her materials between coats of resin, suspending them beneath glossy surfaces. Crinkly motifs derived from the skin of a bitter melon repeat throughout the series as positive and negative shapes. Like a good cook, Law repurposes stencils of the bitter melon skin from other printmaking projects to extract all the flavour from her ingredients with inventive curiosity, applying her used stencils and cutouts on top of new screen-printed forms.

The exhibition is inspired by Law’s observation that Chinese immigrants tend to swallow, rather than express, feelings of bitterness. Just as one might treat bitter melons in the kitchen, she considers the possibility of tending to bitter pain or truth interpersonally by devising methods that alleviate what is undesirable and draw out what is pleasurable. However, bitterness also arises in response to socio-cultural circumstances. Fraught with exploitation, exclusion, and racism, the history of Asian immigration in Canada has led to justifiable bitterness in a vast diasporic community. These are conditions that should not be ignored or accepted. Discerning the complex layers of bitterness in the Chinese diaspora, as she has experienced it, Law strives to imagine new recipes that value what bitterness has to offer and release what is beyond bitter and just gone bad.

Karen Kar Yen Law (b. 1997) is a second-generation Cantonese-Chinese artist based in Markham. With an interest in food and domestic culinary practices, Law utilizes printmaking and painting to explore cultural practice and diasporic identity. She received her Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) and Bachelor of Education from Queen’s University. Law was the 2021-2022 Emerging Printmaker Scholarship Residency holder at Open Studio Contemporary Printmaking Centre where she now practices as an artist member. She was the winner of the 2023 Untapped People’s Choice Award at Toronto’s independent artists fair, Artist Project. Law’s artwork has been exhibited throughout Kingston and Toronto, including Union Gallery, the Isabel Bader Centre for Performing Arts, Gallery 1313, Myseum Toronto, and Open Studio. She has provided educational programming for Varley Art Gallery of Markham, Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto, St. Michael’s Printshop, York Region District School Board, and Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

The RBC Emerging Artist Residency Program is generously sponsored by the RBC Foundation’s Emerging Artist Project.

Holiday Tea at the RMG

Join Berry Hill Co. for Holiday Tea at the RMG!

For 3 Days only this year, Berry Hill Co. will be upstairs in Arthur’s hosting a delightful holiday event.

Reserve your spot!

Reservations and any queries must be made directly through Berry Hill Co.

Show and Tell with Christina Leslie: Photo Emulsion Transfers and Gallery Representation

Free. Registration is required.

This is a how-to workshop for artists! Part creative workshop, part career conversation, we’re excited to have Christina Leslie lead a two-part session on photo emulsion transfers and gallery representation. Inspired by her Sugar Coat series in Likkle Acts, Leslie will show participants how to lift a photographic image from one surface to another to create interesting visual effects. Following this interactive demonstration, Leslie will share reflections on and answer questions about her experience gaining gallery representation, including what it is, why it was the right fit for her, and how her relationship with Stephen Bulger Gallery began.

Is there anything we can do to support your participation? Please reach out to Hannah at [email protected].

The Artist Professional Development Workshop series is generously sponsored by the RBC Foundation’s Emerging Artist Project.

About the Artist: Christina Leslie is an artist based in Pickering, Ontario. She earned her BFA in 2006 at OCADU in Toronto and her MFA at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia, USA in 2022. Her photographs have been featured in numerous publications and exhibited both nationally and internationally. Her latest series “Sugar Coat” has been exhibited virtually on Ain’t Bad Magazine (2021), Featureshoot.com (2022), PetaPixel.com (2022), and in-person at BAND Gallery (2023). She has exhibited nationally and internationally at GAMU (2009), Royal Ontario Museum (2010), Pier 21 (201, Art Gallery of Windsor (2017), Peel Art Gallery Museum and Archives (2020), Prefix ICA (2021), and McMaster Museum of Art (2022). Much of her photographic practice revolves around the themes of de-colonialism, identity, immigration, issues of marginalization, history, memory, race, and her West Indian heritage. She often utilizes text and alternative and historical photographic processes to produce her photographs. She is a member of an all-female photography collective, Silver Water Collective and is represented by Stephen Bulger Gallery in Toronto.

RMG Teen Art Zone: Winter 2025

Ages 13-17

Come hang out at the art gallery!

These sessions offer a welcoming space for teens to express their individuality, share new ideas, and try out a variety of art materials in a low-pressure environment. With a new theme each month, they’ll discover new ways to unleash their creativity, whether it be through painting, sculpting, mixed media or something else!

Free drop-in: Please pre-register using this form if possible. Physical copies will be available at the program to complete.

Upcoming Sessions:

January 30, 2025 @4:30PM-6:30PM

February 27, 2025 @4:30PM-6:30PM

March 27, 2025 @4:30PM-6:30PM

FAQ

Do I need to sign up ahead of time?

As a drop-in program, you do not need to sign up, come on in! We will have registration forms available onsite to complete by an adult when you arrive to the program. An adult can pre-register using this form including emergency contact information ahead of time if they do not plan on dropping you off directly. It will be easier to pre-register!

If you would like to communicate with the organizer directly, please contact Farah at [email protected]

What is the space like?

You are encouraged to either come alone or with friends! Plug into your own music or listen to the chatter. Materials and refreshments are provided. As a drop-in, you can come for a little time or a long time.

Where is it happening?

The studio on the lower level. The gallery is free to visit. Walk in through the front doors, turn right and go down the stairs, turn right again once you see the door to the studio. Or, take the elevator near our gift shop to level 1.

Is the environment low-sensory friendly?

We tend to keep the lights dimmed but they are still on. We play music on a medium volume, however this can be turned off upon request. The noise level in the room is about medium. For a pause from the art-making, the exhibition spaces offer quiet seating.

For more details on accessibility, visit this link: https://rmg.on.ca/visit/accessibility-and-accommodations/

Do I need to know how to do art ahead of time? Do I need to be an artist?

No! The art activities are beginner friendly. We offer all the necessary materials and instruction to complete a project. We also value abstract art, ugly art, and silly art. Feel free to try new things.

OPG Sunday: Colourful Collage

Collage with us! Join us to create colourful stripes, funky blobs and wild splashes. Tie it all together with a fancy silhouette topping to make your masterpiece POP out!

Suitable for ages 3+

Free admission, no registration required.

The Robert McLaughlin Gallery is a proud participant in Ontario Power Generation’s Power for Change Project, supporting the areas and people where OPG operates.