Paige Bromby (Fergus, ON)

Bio

Paige Bromby is an emerging artist and facilitator based in Fergus, Ontario, on the traditional lands of the Petun, Haudenosaunee, Attiwonderonk, and Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. In 2019 Bromby showcased an immersive painting installation at Capacity 3 Gallery (Guelph). Upon graduating from the University of Guelph with a Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art in 2020, Bromby began delivering arts programs and workshops within the region while continuing to exhibit her paintings in various galleries across Ontario. Her exhibition ‘Clay in the Soil’ at N/A Gallery (Guelph) in 2021 explored the drastic changes and complex history of Bromby’s family farm, which is often depicted in her work. In 2023, she attended the Artist Parent Project Residency with MOTHRA at Gibraltar Point Toronto Island. Working primarily in painting and drawing, Bromby explores her relationship to the land in a digital age. 

Artist Statement

I am drawn to painting the landscape because of its ability to feel like an extension of home with the complexities of the unknown. My life has been consumed by screens, a filter through which I see the majority of my world, including the land. Working primarily in painting, I  explore my relationship to the land in a digital age. Creating paintings that require the recording, translation and filtering of the landscape through my own eyes and the ‘eyes’ of technology. Working from my own photographs, I break down these images through digital manipulations and layered composition; Pursuing a translation with each individual brush stroke. Initially maintaining a strong connection to the screen, eventually the image is abandoned and I begin relying on reveries and instinct to find the landscape in a middle ground between artist and technology. 

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Omar Chris Canales-Cisneros (Barrie, ON)

Bio

Omar Chris Canales-Cisneros is an artist of Salvadorian descent. He graduated with distinctions from OCAD U in May 2023, majoring in drawing and painting with a minor in sculpture and installation. He was the recipient of both the Mrs. W.O. Forsyth Award and the Urquhart Memorial Scholarship. He has Exhibited at TOAF, the art gallery of Mississauga, and the billboards of Dundas Square. As a transman, his work explores identity through heritage, sexuality, and gender. Implementing the artistic methodology of decreation he burns materials that are representative of prejudicial ideologies and incorporating the resulting ashes as pigment for hand-mulled oil paint. His most recent work combines this technique with canvases fabricated from Salvadorian textiles, dissecting themes of family dynamics in relation to his identity and has translucent elements to allow the textiles to come through, allowing their vibrancy to contrast the somber monochromatic palette of the ash paint.

Artist Statement

This body of work explores themes of gathering and familial bonds, with particular emphasis on the significance of shared spaces and traditions. The ashes used in this series were sourced from the family fire pit a place of communal gathering— adding a layer of meaning derived from the setting itself. It depicts three generations are connected through the intimate act of braiding each other's hair. This tradition is one I felt I had undermined during my transition. I had distanced myself from many aspects of my heritage, struggling to reconcile the values tied to it with my experience of gender and identity. In cutting my hair for gender-affirming reasons, I believed I was severing ties with a practice that had long been a symbol of connection to my family and culture.

This painting, therefore, functions as an act of reconciliation, a re-engagement with cultural practices. The title, Olga…Olga…Omar, encapsulates this reclamation. It references a name I once sought to distance myself from; Repeating the name twice, to honor the women who came before me. The name "Omar" follows as the name I have chosen to carry forward, transforming and deepening my respect for the cultural lineage that it represents.

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Roberto Centazzo (Toronto, ON)

Bio

Roberto Centazzo is a traditional printmaker based in Toronto. Roberto studied graphic arts in Italy and has an extensive career in the printing and imaging industry, since 2022 he is exploring the complex art of copper plate etching printing. With his graphic background, Roberto works in a contemporary style creating images that explore the properties of the golden ratio, not only as a layout aid but also as the subject of the stories.

Artist Statement

The centuries-old art form of etching printing is my time machine. Here, I can step out of this ever-changing digital world and enter the stillness of the analog land.

Currently I am exploring the properties of the golden ratio, not only as a layout aid but also as the subject of my stories. In the latest series, the Traveller journeys through  surreal landscapes and arrives at a town where everything is in harmony, the streets, the buildings and monuments all respect the Divine proportions.

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Michael Dawson (Toronto, ON)

Bio

Michael Dawson is an artist and illustrator based in Toronto. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from OCAD University.

Artist Statement

My work explores the mystery and allure of the cosmos through dream-like imagery composed of thousands of stipples, each one a star.

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Bri Dyer (Toronto, ON)

Bio

Bri Dyer, a visual artist in Tkaronto (Toronto), Canada, focuses on the beauty of overlooked moments in routine life. Her work explores themes of memory and the Everyday, often referencing photography. Dyer believes mundane moments hold the key to true joy, and their neglect strips life of its uniqueness. Using painting and photography, she contrasts fleeting snapshots with the layered, emotional depth paintings can provide. Though creation of the object, paintings become handmade portals into memories, adding context and symbolism. Her art bridges the present and past, recontextualizing images and embedding herself in their narrative. Through wet and dry mediums, Dyer celebrates neglected moments, inviting viewers to find significance in the mundane.

Artist Statement

Biggest Splash Wins is a painting from a broader series called And now, she picks up the pieces. The work reimagines fragmented childhood memories, weaving archival photographs with the introspection of adulthood. Photographs, while capturing fleeting moments, are incomplete—confined to their frames and stripped of context, leaving the mind to reconstruct what is absent. Dyer embraces this gap, using it as a space to piece together her own narrative, blending memory with interpretation.

The raw canvas serves as a metaphor for the mind—porous, impressionable, and open to transformation. Paint merges with the canvas fibers, turning the ephemeral nature of memory into a tangible object. Through this process, the photograph transcends its static form, evolving into a lived event, both in the psyche and in physical space.

Dyer’s art bridges memory and material, past and present. Her work transforms forgotten moments into objects with presence and depth, inviting viewers to reflect on the interplay between recollection and reinvention.

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Matthew Shaun Ferguson (Barrie, ON)

Bio

Matthew Ferguson was born in Barrie, Ontario in 1988. A passion for creating led him to study at Brock University where he graduated with a BFA in Fine Art. While an injured dominant hand mired his early career, it also internalized within him an understanding for the resilience and reverence required to create art at a professional level. He continues to live and work in Barrie, where he is a member of Spare Room Artist’s Studios and Gallery.

Artist Statement

Matthew Ferguson was born in Barrie, Ontario in 1988. A passion for creating led him to study at Brock University where he graduated with a BFA in Fine Art. While an injured dominant hand mired his early career, it also internalized within him an understanding for the resilience and reverence required to create art at a professional level. He continues to live and work in Barrie, where he is a member of Spare Room Artist’s Studios and Gallery.

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Jill Hobson (Calgary, AB)

Bio

A New Zealand-Canadian artist, Jill Hobson’s unique lens reflects both moving extensively - displacing her from family and country of origin, and previous neuro-psychology work that shed light on profound relationships. Painting empowers her to symbolically bridge time and distance to feel connected to her roots and her here-and-now milieu. Hobson graduated with Honours in painting from Auckland University and enjoyed diverse teaching roles and residencies. A highlight of her teaching career was establishing and directing an independent art school for ten years. In addition to exhibiting and painting commissions, she is actively engaged in her art community, jurying, curating and installing Gallery exhibitions. She has paintings in international private, corporate, and public collections, including hospitals, care facilities, and community spaces. 

Artist Statement

Jill Hobson's paintings delve into human relationships, exploring what binds us together. Abstracted figures serve as metaphors for the human condition. She views people as vessels of connection and shares moments and sensations that range from fractured to hopeful and inclusive.

Boundaries are reduced, and permeable figures merge with each other and with their distinct environment. Hobson has a consistently experimental and intuitive approach, combining significant elements with a collage aesthetic. Paintings are created with layers of mixed water media and graphite using connection processes like join, share, and equalize. Symbolic relating colours parallel her theme. Horizontal marks suggest flux, growth, and life’s passage.  Preferring an ambiguous narrative, she invites viewer completion. 

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Helen Mak (Toronto, ON)

Bio

Helen Mak is a self-taught Chinese-Canadian artist based in Toronto. Her work blends traditional Chinese shan shui (landscape) painting with abstract expressionism, influenced by her experiences as a second-generation Chinese-Canadian. Mak explores the complexities of growing up with both Eastern and Western teachings, using dreamlike landscapes to envision a world where these cultures intersect. Her paintings examine themes of belonging, displacement, and the tension between tradition and modernity, with nature and the environment playing a central role. Through her work, Mak invites viewers to reflect on identity, culture, and our connection to the world around us.

Artist Statement

Bouquet explores nature as a space that holds emotions, with no boundaries between what’s felt and what’s real. Its moving energy and impermanence reminds the viewer of the fleeting yet profound moments that connect us to the natural world. Inspired by the fluidity of Chinese shan shui and abstract expressionism, Helen Mak’s intuitive approach to painting reflects the symbiotic relationship between the self and the environment.

Bouquet invites the viewer to play with the spirituality of nature. Each mark, texture, and gesture of the painting echoes the presence of life, revealing the landscape to be not only a physical space, but a surreal manifestation of emotion and spirit.

The work's layers of texture evoke transformation: a convergence of time, movement, and sensation. As viewers immerse themselves in the piece, they are meant to feel the delicate interplay between growth and decay, stillness and flux. It becomes a mirror, reflecting the observer’s inner world and offering a chance to pause, breathe, and acknowledge the interconnectedness of all life. Through this process, Bouquet shows the viewer how the natural world can be both a place for quiet reflection and a constant, evolving source of vitality.

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Claire McNamara (Halifax, NS)

Bio

Claire McNamara (she/her) is a Canadian oil painter of white settler descent, currently based out of the ancestral and unceded Indigenous territory of the Mi’kmaq Nation, in K’jipuktuk/Halifax, Nova Scotia. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Western Ontario (2020), and a Masters of Fine Arts from NSCAD University (2024).

Artist Statement

McNamara’s practice investigates her lived experiences of girlhood through lenses of gesture, obsession, and temporality. Her work employs an intersectional feminist methodology to question and critique the hierarchies within the canon of a white euro-centric ‘art history,’ through the subversion of ‘Taste' and skill. Influenced by familial imagery, movement and performance, and classic myth, paintings beam with poetic tension and come together in a garden of watery dreams. Urgent brushstrokes and pastel tenderness conceptuality flirts with the fluidity and malleability of the memory behind each piece. Paintings serve as a love letter to the artist’s past; of childhood bedrooms, ballet classes, pale blue floral sheets, sun-bleached photographs, and of princes and fairies, reunited in the innocent understanding of intimacy and love that is held in youth.

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Ana Norton (Welland, ON)

Bio

Ana graduated from the OCADU Sculpture and Installation program in 2012 and currently works making video games in the Niagara Region. Outside of business hours, she continues to make art and is fascinated by the bridging of the virtual and physical worlds she inhabits, and explores this transitory space by means of 3D printing forms to be metal cast. Her work also cross-pollinates with her own experiences having transitioned gender, and grappling with the concept of femininity and womanhood, and what those virtual concepts mean when translated into daily life and her own experiences.

Artist Statement

Ritual is an exploration of building identity through fragments of repeated action. The pattern is a double star quilt block rendered in 3 dimensions and cast in aluminum. The tradition of quilting is a highly ritualistic act; a specific set of steps are followed and repeated to build an object of significance out of otherwise discarded fabric.

I first became fascinated with quilts as a concept when I underwent gender confirmation surgery. Before the surgery, I had expected that I would feel completeness, as if a major chapter in my transition had reached its conclusion. During my recovery, I felt relieved and happy and a whole host of positive feelings, but at the same time, there was a lack of finality. The occasion had come and gone and felt unmarked. I didn’t feel any more or less of a woman than I had before. I began to research coming-of-age and womanhood rituals and learned of the strong tradition in western history of women making quilts to mark milestones. 

This work is one of a number of others titled Ritual, all using the language of quilting. Each work cements a small piece of my own ritual of becoming—taking the fragments of lived experience, combining them through a ritual of creating identity, and defining what womanhood and femininity mean to me. 

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Ariel Schneider (Maple, ON)

Bio

At 25, Ariel Schneider has already established a unique artistic voice through their exploration of sculptural representation. With a background in architecture and fashion, Ariel brings a multidimensional approach to their work, incorporating larger-than-life scales and unconventional materials. Their art delves into the human experience, capturing its complexities and nuances through innovative sculptural techniques, always with a loving tenderness of the materials in use and reuse. Ariel's pieces invite viewers to engage with the physical and emotional dimensions of humanity, offering a reflective dialogue on personal and collective existence.

Artist Statement

Genuine leather is a life-sized cow soft sculpture made from discarded leather couches. The piece appropriates the false idol symbolism of the cow from the golden calf story sourced from the Old Testament to reinterpret the ‘rectangular cow’ form from 18th century paintings commissioned by aristocrats to exemplify their larger than life cattle

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Erin Shadoff (Toronto, ON)

Bio

Erin Shadoff (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist and educator living and working in Toronto. Her work explores the reconstruction of dreams and memories to create an altered personal narrative and investigate the limits of personhood. Her detail-oriented approach is highlighted by a strong value scale that creates an atmosphere with surreal qualities. Erin holds a BFA in Drawing and Painting from OCAD University (2016) and was selected to participate in the Florence Off-Campus Program in Florence, Italy (2013-14). Recent exhibitions include Biennale Internationale du Carnet d’Artiste at Maison Tessier-dit-Laplante (Québec, 2024), Fix Up Look Sharp at Northern Contemporary (Toronto, 2024) and UnFramed at Propeller Art Gallery (Toronto, 2023). She has participated in national and international artist residencies such as Château d’Orquevaux (Orquevaux, France 2021) and Spark Box Studio (Picton, Ontario 2018). Her work is housed in private collections across North America, The United Kingdom and Australia.

Artist Statement

I have been focusing on creating a series surrounding the reconstruction of dreams and melding them with snapshot memories to create new personal narratives. When attempting to depict a dream, the emphasis for me is on the place where it occurs. From there the study of landscape, indoor spaces and light has become a large focal point for this series and is continuously ongoing. In searching for ways to extend mark making in the realm of drawing, I utilize handmade papers and various shading techniques to give my work depth while referencing the diluted images and foggy vignettes that encompass dream recall

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Sheida Shakarian (Mississauga, ON)

Bio

I’m an illustrator with a passion for expressing the human experience through humour and narrative-based visuals. I love any form of creativity that evokes a feeling of nostalgia. I’ve worked as a photoshoot producer, graphic designer and illustrator and despite my deep interest and admiration for all creative fields, I always find myself drawn back to the world of illustration.

I’m based just outside of Toronto but was born and raised in Iran. The unwavering humour of the Iranian people as a form of coping mechanism during hardships has influenced much of my character and creative work as an illustrator.

Artist Statement

All of my memories have within them, both in the foreground and background, the presence of friends, family, colleagues and even strangers. There isn't a single feeling or experience I've had that doesn't somehow bear the imprint of other people. When I look back at my work, I realize what I’m attempting to recreate is the warmth and familiarity of those shared moments. 

When I was protesting in Iran, what I remember vividly is the woman who shielded me from the brutality of the military. When I was cry laughing, I remember looking at my friend whose facial expression started it. When I was feeling deeply depressed and lonely, I remember finding solace in the words of strangers. Consequently, in nearly all my illustrations, interactions and narratives unfold among the characters, reflecting the collaborative tapestry of my experiences. This interpersonal dynamic inherently shapes the themes within my work.

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Heejung Shin (Eden Mills, ON)

Bio

Heejung Shin is a multidisciplinary artist from Korea whose work spans installation, drawing, and painting. Her practice investigates identity, the fragility of the human body, and the law of impermanence, focusing on the cultural and social displacement that leads to the loss of language, culture, and self. Using Hanji, traditional Korean mulberry paper, she creates layered collages and immersive installations that embody themes of resilience and transformation.

Heejung holds an Honours degree in Fine Arts Studio Practice with an Intensive Studio Specialization from the University of Waterloo. Her achievements include recent project funding from the Ontario Arts Council and awards such as the Printing Special Award, Helen L. Cross Memorial Scholarship, and Vern Hacking Award. She has exhibited at the Gang-Won Contemporary Art Group Exhibition at Gangneung Museum of Art in Korea and was featured in Nuit Blanche Winnipeg, showcasing her growing presence in the art world.

Artist Statement

Hanji, Korea’s time-honored mulberry paper, embodies resilience, texture, and a profound connection to the earth, echoing stories rooted in generations. In my work, Hanji becomes a vessel for exploring the delicate balance between diaspora and identity through abstract landscapes. Each fragment of paper, whether cut, torn, or repositioned, retains its intrinsic integrity, symbolizing the diasporic experience — individuals separated from their ancestral lands yet holding onto their essence.

My collages, composed of layered Hanji, mirror the convergence of diasporic communities, where histories, traditions, and memories intertwine to form a cohesive yet multifaceted identity. Abstract landscapes serve as their backdrop, representing the emotional terrains of belonging and longing. These shifting geographies evoke nostalgia for homelands, the embrace of new communities, and the in-between spaces of self-discovery.

Through this interplay of Hanji and abstract forms, my work acts as a bridge, connecting histories and geographies while reflecting on the enduring spirit of displaced communities. It celebrates the beauty of resilience and transformation, honoring the narratives of those who find harmony in the duality of their roots and adopted homes. For me, this confluence is not just a medium but a dialogue on identity, migration, and the stories we carry forward.

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Xiao Fan Wang (Toronto, ON)

Bio

Xiao Fan Wang (b. 1993, China) is an emerging voice in contemporary painting based on Toronto, specializing in oil and acrylic mediums. Drawing from a largely self-taught background, she crafts portraits that forge deep connections with viewers through thoughtful reflection on societal themes, often woven with layers of allegory and symbolism.

Her work, characterized by its emotional depth and introspective quality, has been showcased in numerous juried and group exhibitions across the Greater Toronto Area.

Artist Statement

This work is based on a Chinese idiom, which roughly translates to “a forcefully plucked melon is not sweet” – often used as a warning that forced intimacy is less enjoyable. In traditional East Asian culture, women are expected to be sweet and obedient. Much like the melons laying in the fields, society regards them without respect for their individuality and personal pursuits, and at the “right time,” they are to be plucked, enjoyed and propagated. At a time where East Asian women are pushing back against traditional concepts of womanhood, this painting depicts the melancholy of a girl laying in a field of melons, knowing how difficult it is to break free of the cultural ideals she is bound by.

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Betty Wood (Toronto, ON)

Bio

Betty Wood (b. Newcastle Upon Tyne, 1986) is a queer, Toronto-based fibre artist. Betty spent nearly 15 years working as a design and arts journalist and editor before transitioning to rug hooking, embroidery, and punch needle during the pandemic. Her self-taught practice is rooted in art history and gender studies, producing large-scale tapestries that document queer domesticity and joy. Betty’s unique ‘slow art’ focuses on the experience of making, drawing on her role observing and commenting on the world of art and design to create comforting textiles that have a painterly feel. She uses a combination of hand tools to create her larger-than-life scenes that play with ideas of domesticity, scale, and the urban landscape. Betty’s work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Toronto, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Youngstown.

Artist Statement

The domestic sphere has long been seen as a “feminine” space, with needlecraft and textile arts often denied a gallery setting. Betty’s work engages with this prejudice by treating fibres in a painterly fashion and playfully transposing snapshots of private, domestic spaces into public settings to charge them with new meaning. Betty’s textile works celebrate quiet resistance, queer homemaking, joy and the nostalgia of memory. Using a mix of hand hooking, needle punch and embroidery techniques, Betty “sketches with yarn”, rooting her practice of “slow art” in repetition and imagination, capturing lost and transient spaces. Part of a series, Still, Life, begun during the recent pandemic and encompassing spaces across the Atlantic - the works also read as a love letter to 20th century furniture design and biophilia, with plants taking on the role of protagonist, East-End Reflections adds the family cats to the quiet domestic dramas. 

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