Jim Bourke

Folded News belongs to a continuing series of paintings that focus solely on hands engaged in different gestures and tasks. By isolating this fragment of the body, I’m interested in how subtle movements can suggest mood, character, and story. The act of holding or folding a newspaper—seemingly ordinary—becomes a cinematic moment when framed in paint. My work often explores the intersection between painting and cinema: how cropping, composition, and gesture can invite a viewer to imagine a wider scene beyond what is shown. In this way, the hands become both subject and storyteller, creating an incomplete narrative.

Jim Bourke, Folded News, encaustic on canvas mounted on panel, 101.6 × 127 cm (40 × 50 in), 2021

Member since: 2017

Number of exhibitions at the gallery: 4

Tell us a story about Red Head: I would say one of our most engaging and challenging times was surviving COVID as a collective. The members accepted not only the loss of exhibition time but also the cost of monthly fees required to maintain the gallery. We endured almost two years of Zoom meetings, negotiations with 401 Richmond, and the complex task of rescheduling 17 members on the other side of the pandemic. We even managed to take advantage of the shutdown by applying for grants to renovate the office and storeroom. We survived!

Jim Bourke is a Toronto-based figurative painter who specializes in encaustic painting. His bold and nuanced works are created through a process of indecisions and revisions, revealing the visible traces of their construction. Bourke has studied fine art at York University and the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) and has won awards in numerous juried exhibitions. He was a member of the artists’ collective, Red Head Gallery. His paintings can be found in various private and corporate collections.

 

Geoffrey Lok-Fay Cheung

Inter explores the intersection of memory, identity, and place. This digital photographic painting merges images from East Asia and the Pacific Northwest, creating a visual amalgamation of geographically and temporally distinct concepts of home. By layering multiple photographs digitally, I allow tones and hues to interact, creating new shapes and colours that mimic the entanglement of memories. Digital painting and post-processing serve as meditative tools that also examine how technology shapes our access to and interpretation of the past.

Geoffrey Chung, Inter, archival pigment on watercolour paper, edition 2 of 3 + A/P, 50.8 × 76.2 cm (20 x 30 in), 2022.

Member since: 2024

Number of exhibitions at the gallery: 1

Tell us a story about Red Head: Before I called myself an artist, I worked full time as Science Communicator. At the time, I felt I was missing something; I was searching for some expressive purpose and camaraderie beyond my science career.

One gruelling workday, I threw down my headphones and grabbed my travel mug, steeping my melancholy. I found myself wandering aimlessly in the 401 Richmond Building where I stumbled into the Red Head Gallery. Something interrupted my restlessness. There was a captivating show, and the artist, Elaine Whittaker, generously spent hours speaking with me as I processed my wonder.

It's a funny thing that of all the art galleries and exhibitions I’ve seen and enjoyed, it had to be that right one, that right connection, that would reveal a possibility: that I could, myself, be an artist. Now a member of this collective, I see the power of our shared enthusiasm and commitment as vital to community, inspiring others—opening minds to new possibilities.

Geoffrey Lok-Fay Cheung is an artist examining the way bodies hold and transform memories, from its compaction against familial narrative, to its dilation through ritual and ceremony. Cheung’s practice is guided by diverse disciplinary traditions that incorporate photography, organic materials, and digital processes. His exploration of identity and cultural practices is informed by his lived experience as a queer second-generation Canadian settler of Chinese descent. His work often integrates metaphysical perspectives, informed by his background as a Master of Science graduate from the University of Toronto. He obtained his Master of Fine Arts degree in 2024 from Emily Carr University.

 

Christine Dewancker

The symbology of plans series isolates specific symbols used to demarcate space in architectural drawings, abstracting and reconfiguring these references.

CLT (Caress, Lean, Touch) is a series of sculptures using the cross-laminated-timber construction method, now widely adopted in mass-timber building projects as a sustainable building method. CLT uses recycled 1x3 dimensional lumber off-cuts to create geometric forms that are then carved into organic forms. Suggesting the interaction of touch and the body, these forms aim to highlight the sensual aspects of the material, which can be obscured when in its rigid, geometric shape. The contours of the cross-laminated lines intersect with the organic carved form, highlighting the texture and natural grain of the lumber.

Christine Dewancker, CLT (Caress, Lean, Touch), laminated pine, 61 × 61 × 40.6 cm (24 x 24 x 16 in), 2022.

Member since: 2019

Number of exhibitions at the gallery: 2

Tell us a story about Red Head: Joining the gallery as a new member only a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic was difficult; I was searching for a deeper connection and avenue to contribute to the arts community and was inspired by Red Head’s long history as an arts collective. Getting through those first few unpredictable years of the pandemic is a true testament to the resiliency of Red Head!

Christine Dewancker is an artist currently living in Toronto, Canada. Through her work she explores the physical and psychological effects of the spaces we occupy and how the built environment informs our experiences and relationships with each other. She is interested in systems of production and circulation and how these conditions influence our relationship to materials and place. Much of her work is site specific, responding to the environment in which it is situated and is informed by the historical, socio-economic and ecological conditions that produce the places we inhabit.

 

Tonia Di Risio

Baking equipment and tools used to bake a cake will be traced from my kitchen and displayed as a collection of drawings. And a cake will be baked for the Red Head Gallery’s 35th anniversary celebration. The drawings selected were part of a larger installation titled Gather which was exhibited at Red Head Gallery in spring 2025.

Tonia Di Risio, Gather, installation view. drawings on paper, mixed media. Dimensions variable, 2025. Image credit: Geoffrey Lok-Fay Cheung.

Member since: 2012

Number of exhibitions at the gallery: 7

Tell us a story about Red Head: Red Head sparked my early interest in becoming an artist. As an art student, I first heard about the gallery through my instructors and visited the space at 96 Spadina. I’ve always valued its artist‑run, collective model. Being a member connects me with engaged artists who support my growth, and my exhibitions allow me to experiment and develop new work. I’m continually impressed and inspired by the strong practices within the membership.

Tonia Di Risio is a multimedia artist who often makes use of photography, video, collage and installation in her practice. Her work has developed through an ongoing engagement with domestic spaces, food preparation and interior design. She received a BA in Art and Art History from the University of Toronto and Sheridan College and an MFA from the University of Windsor. She has exhibited across Canada and has been the recipient of Canada Council, Nova Scotia, and Ontario arts grants. Along with founder Claire Tallarico, Di Risio helped to establish the Alchemy Artist Residency program. Alchemy is devoted to the exploration and synergy between artistic practices, cooking and the sharing of locally cultivated food. She has been a Red Head Gallery member since 2012. 

 

Soheila Esfahani

These series of work question the notion of being Canadian by researching the landscape paintings of the infamous Canadian artist Tom Thomson. In this project, Esfahani removes herself from the work by hiring another artist, Jessica Joyce, to replicate 3 Tom Thomson paintings and by 3D printing the paintings. This act of removal situates Esfahani as the observer of the work rather than the maker and translates the work into stereotypical objects. Through applying theories of cultural translation to the realm of visual arts practice, this project destabilizes the idea of a static Canadian identity and suggests Homi Bhabha’s third space as site of identification, where cultures are negotiated, and new narratives are adapted and hybridized. 

Left to right: Morning Replica, oil on board, painted by Jessica Joyce, 21.6 × 25.4 cm (8.5 x 10.5 in), 2024. Canoe Lake Replica oil on board, painted by Jessica Joyce, 21.6 × 25.4 cm (8.5 x 10.5 in), 2024. Red Sumac Replica, oil on board, painted by Jessica Joyce, 21.6 × 25.4 cm (8.5 x 10.5 in), 2024. All works by Soheila Esfahani.

Soheila Esfahani, Plastic Canoe Lake, 3D printed PLA, 21 × 25.4 cm (8.25 x 10.5 in), 2023.

Soheila Esfahani, Plastic Morning, 3D printed PLA, 21 × 25.4 cm (8.25 x 10.5 in), 2023. Installation view.

Member since: 2006

Number of exhibitions at the gallery: 7

Tell us a story about Red Head: As an artist, I have been fortunate to be a part of the Red Head collective and be able to test my ideas in my solo exhibitions there. The exhibitions at Red Head have always led to other exhibitions at public galleries.

Soheila Esfahani is a visual artist and Assistant Professor at Western University. She is a recipient of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund. Her work has been exhibited across Canada and internationally including at the Aga Khan Museum, Canadian Cultural Centre Paris, Doris McCarthy Gallery, Cambridge Art Galleries among others, and collected by various public and private institutions, including the Canada Council’s Art Bank. Recently, Esfahani designed a coin for the Royal Canadian Mint’s Celebrating Canada’s Diversity Collection. 

 

James Fowler

In Dirty Drapes, I take the structure of a homophobic joke and stitch it into filet crochet, a technique often associated with domestic interiors and intergenerational craft. I am interested in the collision between crude language and a form of making tied to comfort and respectability. The drape format is intentional. Drapes regulate privacy and visibility, marking a boundary between what is public and what remains concealed. Installed as two panels, they hang like parted curtains, presenting language that typically circulates in private, male dominated spaces rather than in formal exhibition contexts. The work examines how sexuality is unevenly managed under patriarchy. Gay men are often reduced to spectacle and excess, while aging women’s sexuality is contained within domestic roles and rendered culturally invisible. By placing a slur within a feminized craft tradition, I shift its context and expose the social structures that allow such language to persist.

James Fowler, DIRTY DRAPES (How do you make a f*****t scream twice), , fillet crochet, medium worsted yarn, 91.4 × 106.7 cm (36 x 42 in), 2025.

Member since: 2023

Number of exhibitions at the gallery: 1

Tell us a story about Red Head: Red Head Gallery, for me, does not exist as a series of single spectacular exhibitions, but as a sequence of smaller scenes that, woven together, feel like a beautiful shared life. Our monthly Zoom meetings sometimes feel a bit like Hollywood Squares, where each member’s face is lit by a different lamp in a different space, yet there are always familiar objects any artist would notice. During these meetings, someone is always working away on a project while budgets and schedules are being discussed. It’s comforting to see that we all have full lives outside our little boxes on the screen—someone’s partner passes by in the background, or someone’s cat decides it’s time to show off its butt. There have been long Nuit Blanche nights when we stayed awake together, fuelled by caffeine and the thrill of making art in real time in front of Toronto’s art lovers. We have piled into cars for field trips, crossing borders to see exhibitions that rearranged our thinking. We have packed art into suitcases and sent it across oceans, believing culture travels best when delivered by hand. In the shared effort of maintaining this space, I feel a sense of belonging. And then there are the potlucks. Bowls of salad and plates of cake, and bottles of wine, spread across our folding table and side benches, and our conversations become less about shipping invoices and more about our families, our friendships, our favourite things, and our ideas. In these moments, the gallery feels less like a space and more like a shared promise we’ve made to each other and to a community we love.

James Fowler is a Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist, curator, and community organizer. His work spans painting, textile, and sculpture, exploring queer cartography, ecology, and the politics of belonging. A member of Red Head Gallery and co-founder of the Throbbing Rose Collective, he produces projects such as Nuit Rose and Queer Up North, building platforms for experimental and community-engaged art.

 

Grant Heaps

Fantasy Earthquake is a visual description of what could happen when a large earthquake shakes San Francisco. The text is from In Search Of… Earthquakes 1977. The embroidery of jumbled letters was completed in 2020.

Grant Heaps, Fantasy Earthquake. Linen, cotton, polyester, silk, wool, nylon, embroidery. 50 × 100 cm (19.7 × 39.4 in), 2020.

Member since: 2023

Number of exhibitions at the gallery: 1

Tell us a story about Red Head: The Red Head Gallery has given me a community within the art world. The gallery is made up of folks who all love art but this collective view is always varied, surprising and inspiring. The kindness and support each individual has given me fills me with joy.

Grant Heaps is a textile artist from Toronto. He grew up in an imaginary world of fabric and nature. His Mother, a maker of decorative household items, lit up his fantasy world. Her projects still inspire him to produce his labour-intensive pieces. Grant chooses to use waste and scrap materials as his medium. As a member of The National Ballet of Canada's wardrobe department since 1994, he has been exposed to costumes of great beauty and quality.

 

Gillian Iles

Two artworks and found objects from the installation All and nothing are presented.

All and nothing responds to overlooked places, marginal spaces, the frayed places of our city and the non-ideal. Things and locations that hold little perceived significance or influence. Transitory. Yet to be defined and determined, they represent pure potential - the opportunity for something different or better to occur. They represent the contradictory confluence of wonder, dereliction, inception and devastation. 

The work presented here juxtaposes two unrelated and diametric realities, both in POV and content, creating a suspended moment of tension and determination - ordinary moments whose confluence teeters on a tipping point.  

An intersection of contradiction, hope, fervency and brutality. Unadorned. 

Impermanence is emphasized through the use of glassine surface having a disposable quality akin to the vestiges found in the locations.

The work is intentionally momentary—the potential versus the legacy of the artwork was the goal.  Once started, artworks were completed directly. No redoing or reworking. Accidents and irregularities were accepted and honoured.

Gillian Iles. All and nothing, mixed media on two glassine sheets, wood, rope & found object, 243.8 × 152.4 cm (96 x 60 inches), 2022. Image credit: Geoffrey Lok-Fay Cheung.

Member since: 2012

Number of exhibitions at the gallery: 7

Tell us a story about Red Head: Artist-led initiatives are important to me. Diversity of and accessibility to artistic spaces is critical.  I was a founding member of Propeller and then Loop. I wanted to be part of the legacy and persistence of Red Head. I keep finding new ideas within the unique physical attributes of the gallery. I admire the artists that Red Head draws to it -  fearless, experimental and committed.

Since 1997, Gillian Iles has exhibited in public institutions, artist-run centres and commercial galleries in Europe, USA, South America and Canada.

Ideas draw from geopolitical events and their relationship to individual experience. She finds commentary within power dynamics, social constructs and systems of belief related to colonial Western culture; particularly their manufactured existence, illusionary value, tenuous persistence and questionable motives. Contradiction and precarity are relevant at all stages – within idea, material choices and methods of presentation. Gillian’s practice spans painting, sculpture, constructions, sound and video. Installations merge real and illusionary space into a composite of realities and points of view. Often large-scale, her installations respond to the opportunities of a space and ways to implicate the viewer. She is a founding member of two artist collective galleries in Toronto - Propeller and Loop, and has been with Red Head collective since 2012. She teaches at OCADU and Sheridan College in Canada.

 

Alexander Irving

The Elegy paintings are composed by transcribing material collected from letters and notebooks. Selections of text are overlaid onto the ground of the support to form meanders, webs, and veils; text becomes form.

Alexander Irving. Elegy. Acrylic on linen.

Member since: 2024

Number of exhibitions at the gallery: 1

Tell us a story about Red Head: I have been acquainted with Red Head Gallery and its artists since moving to Toronto in the early 90s. Having recently become a member, I have enjoyed the camaraderie and mutual support the collective offers, as well as a commitment to the wider community through exhibitions like Get Noticed and engaging with artists and artists’ collectives both nationally and internationally.

Alexander Irving has worked in a variety of media, always returning to drawing as a place of inquiry and wonder. Graduating from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1987, he has since exhibited his artwork nationally and internationally. His recent work is text-based in pencil, paint, and print. The work is full of beginnings, repetitions, and bifurcations that never lead to unity, an end, or an exit. Drawing upon personal reflections and seminal texts from the likes of Roland Barthes and Franz Kafka, the original is transformed into image through the transcription and layering of text.

“I am interested in a text that negotiates the diversity of its possible continuance and becomes, as it were, infinite. My medium is repetition.”

 

Sarah Kernohan

Nilas is a continuation of Kernohan's Splitting Distance project. This series of photographic collages transmit icy surfaces, tumultuous waters, rocky shores, and portals. This flint originated from the shores of France or the United Kingdom and is now found in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, whose namesake was coined by French settlers, who named the location “Baie de Glace” (Bay of Ice). The chalky surface of the flint gives way to semi-translucent surfaces with reflective flecks and shards, similar to the textures and patterns found in ice and light bouncing off of water. 

Sarah Kernohan, Nilas, pigment print on Hahnemühle museum etching paper, 101.6 x 129.5 cm (40 x 51 in), 2025.

Member since: 2021

Number of exhibitions at the gallery: 2

Tell us a story about Red Head: My first group exhibition was at the Red Head Gallery in 2003, after being invited to submit work for a group exhibition happening in the gallery during the first Nuit Blanche. I mailed a small drawing in a tube halfway around the world from New Zealand, where I was living at the time. I have helped friends and former Red Head members install their exhibitions, and joined the gallery in 2021, and it has felt like my landing pad in Toronto. A few decades on, I’m thrilled to exhibit alongside my Red Head colleagues, now as a member of the collective, and to continue growing with this community. 

Sarah Kernohan’s works on paper explore the connection between subtle landscape elements and large-scale geological processes. She holds an MFA from the University of Waterloo and a BFA in Drawing and Painting from OCAD University. Recent exhibitions include Bridging Borders (Coordenadas Residencia, Buenos Aires), Splitting Distance (Red Head Gallery, Toronto), and Snow-blind (Gallery Stratford, Stratford). She has participated in residencies in Canada and abroad, and her work has received grants and awards from the Arts Awards Waterloo Region, Ontario Arts Council, and Region of Waterloo Arts Fund. She is based in Kitchener, Ontario. 

 

Ian Mackay

Ian Mackay’s paintings marry precise design with playful ambiguity. His visual vocabulary of flattened forms, floating shadows, and biomorphic figures suggests both mid-century modernism and contemporary conceptualism. Mackay’s work is simultaneously formal and subversive—inviting viewers into a layered visual game of structure, wit, and invention.

Ian Mackay. Basium, oil on bamboo panel, 35.6 × 4.3 cm (14 x 11 in), 2024.

Ian Mackay. Carcer, oil on bamboo panel, 35.6 × 4.3 cm (14 x 11 in), 2024.

Member since: 2013

Number of exhibitions at the gallery: 6

Tell us a story about Red Head: Probably my most memorable experience at the Red Head Gallery was witnessing how the members responded to the pandemic of 2020. Faced with mandatory shutdowns, we came together to sustain the gallery’s momentum and to support one another through an extraordinary and uncertain period. We turned to social media to keep the gallery visible and active, and we used the downtime constructively—successfully applying for a Trillium grant that allowed us to renovate and strengthen the resilience of the space itself. Throughout this difficult time, members acted with remarkable generosity and selflessness, finding ways not just to endure, but to move the gallery forward.

Ian Mackay is a Canadian artist living in Niagara where he maintains his studio. He completed his AOCA at Ontario College of Art in 1980 and a BFA in Integrated Media in 2009.  Ian co-founded the punk rock band The Diodes and the musical performance space "The Crash n Burn" at the Centre for Experimental Art and Communications. Ian is an artist member of The Red Head Centre for the Visual Arts in Toronto, where he has served as director. His work can be found in many private collections.

 

David McClyment

I frequently use hand-cut stencils to transfer drawing imagery to prepared surfaces. These two stencils were used to develop imagery in my most recent exhibition, Then, There's This... I have often felt that the stencils themselves have their own appeal. So, I am presenting them here in their own right.

David McClyment, Pond 1, hand cut stencils mounted on plexiglass, 61 x 91.4 cm (24 x 36 in), 2025.

David McClyment, Pond 2, hand cut stencils mounted on plexiglass, 61 x 91.4 cm (24 x 36 in), 2025.

Member since: 2021

Number of exhibitions at the gallery: 3

Tell us a story about Red Head: I have been regularly exhibiting my artwork for over 45 years. All kinds of galleries: commercial, public, artist-run. All across Ontario and in Europe. But in joining Red Head a few years ago, it feels like I have come home. Artists working together to nurture a community where challenge and experimentation are the norm.

Knowing that I have a reliable and regular venue in which to show is hugely helpful in advancing my own creative practice. As I start to envisage a series of images, in my mind, I immediately begin to project them into the space at Red head. Being intimate with the energy of the gallery changes what I do and how I might do it. Each show, in effect, becomes immediately “site specific”.

My favourite part of being a Red Head member is that singular moment when the work is finally installed. No one else in the gallery. Just me. I can finally clearly see what I have created. The imagery starts to hum and so do I.

David McClyment's compulsion to draw has never been about making money or attracting fame. Both come and go. But what is important is that getting his hands dirty makes him happy. Nor is he particularly good at doing what someone else—like a dealer, curator or buyer—tells him to do. “Artist-empowered” just feels right. He started his exhibiting career with a Toronto co-op, Workscene, now gone. In becoming a recent member of Red Head Gallery McClyment, he has come full circle from where he started.

McClyment is inspired daily by his long-time reason for living, Sue Bracken and their eminently talented son, Jaimie McClyment.

 

Laura Millard

Floods, fires, droughts; what is the place of visual art in our engagement with the climate crisis? How do we move beyond the sublime, the elegiac, and the ‘grand’ in visual representations of Arctic regions further problematized by colonial histories of scientific expedition and extractive resource depletion in areas now inundated with tourism?

Changes we are making on a global scale to our environment are accelerating in locations where I have recently made work. In both Canada and Norway, I have focused on visualizing precarious landscapes on the verge of radical change—exploring ideas of time, cycles, and the hubris of ‘making our mark’.

Laura Millard, Lost in Fog, watercolour and chalk on photo mounted on panel, 33 × 48.3 cm (13 x 19 in), 2025.

Laura Millard, Onlooker, watercolour and chalk on photo mounted on panel, 33 × 48.3 cm (13 x 19 in), 2025.

Member since: 2023

Number of exhibitions at the gallery: 1

Tell us a story about Red Head: I had long admired Red Head Gallery and the exhibitions I’d seen there, but it was Sarah Kernohan’s show Snow-blind in 2023 that spurred me to return to the gallery repeatedly and then engage in conversations about applying to join as a member. That show really blew my mind. Still one of the best exhibitions I’ve seen anywhere, ever. Love that work. The friendliness of the gallery, the people in the space, it struck me as truly special. And it is! 

Just after joining the collective, I learned of the exchange show Red Head was doing with plan.d. produzentengalerie in Dusseldorf. What? We were straight into a group show in Germany and I was amazed by the organization and energy of the collective. 

I have had one exhibition at Red Head and it was a great experience, leading to other opportunities. Getting to know the members as has been a joy and the entire experience has been enriching on every level. 

Laura Millard has exhibited in artist-run, commercial and public galleries across Canada and internationally; including Where Where Exhibition Space, Beijing, China, Doris McCarthy Gallery, Glenbow Museum Calgary, Sookmyung Women’s University, Korea, St. Lawrence University Art Gallery, New York and at the AGO in Toronto. She received a BFA from NSCAD University Art and her MFA from Concordia University. Millard has done several artists residencies including the Banff Centre, NSCAD University, Brucebo Studio in Sweden and Red Gate in Beijing, Dawson City, Yukon and The Arctic Circle Residency, Svalbard.

 

Tazeen Qayyum

My practice is rooted in empathy and explores poetic forms of memories, shared vulnerabilities, and quiet reflection. Inspired by the poem Aaj ik harf ko phir dhoondta phirta hai khayal by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, one of the most celebrated Urdu writers of his time, I selected words and stanzas that reflect opposing yet interconnected concepts. This inspiration led to a series of four drawings titled Harf (Letter), illustrating the affinity I find between my art and Faiz's work, where he skillfully expresses political commentary through the lens of beauty, romanticism, and spiritual prose. The meditative act of continual repetition offers an opportunity to slow down, align, and contemplate.

Tazeen Qayyum, Harf حرف _I (letter) “Madh bhara harf koi zehar bhara harf koi”, Archival ink, gouache and tea stain on hot-press archival board, 25 x 20 cm (10 x 8in), 2023.

Tazeen Qayyum, Harf حرف _III (letter) “Dil-nasheen harf koi qahar bhara harf koi” , Archival ink, gouache and tea stain on hot-press archival board, 25 x 20 cm (10 x 8in), 2023.

Member since: 2021

Number of exhibitions at the gallery: 2

Tell us a story about Red Head: Since becoming a Red Head member, my biggest takeaway is the collaborative environment it fosters. I genuinely feel like I’m part of a network of amazing artists who have my back!

Tazeen Qayyum is a Pakistani-Canadian multidisciplinary artist. Trained as a miniature painter of South Asian and Persian traditions, Qayyum continues to explore new materials and processes through drawing, installation and performance. Her work has been exhibited around the world, and is part of several public and private collections including The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), Canada; The Art Mill Museum, Qatar; Welt Museum, Austria; TD Canada Trust Permanent Collection; The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Canada; Doris McCarthy Gallery, University of Toronto; National Gallery of  Jordan; and National Art Gallery, Nepal. 

 

Amin Rehman

Through my art practice, I have continuously explored themes of geopolitical conflict, war, and peace by questioning foreign policy reforms that simultaneously address and overlook the complexities of cross-cultural immigration—especially within border regions—in an era of globalization. My past projects underlined the ongoing influence of post-colonialism in new foreign policy—alongside aggressive global capitalism. Post-colonialism and capitalism both tend to become central signifiers in my art for how an "ordered" world is envisioned. I use visual print media and text to critique how borders, trade, finance, and information, envisioned as aesthetic designs, can interrogate geopolitical security, migration, and the pervasive global trend of extreme nationalism.

Amin Rehman, Where Do We Go, encaustic on board, 2015-2025.

Member since: 2024

Number of exhibitions at the gallery: 1

Tell us a story about Red Head: It was great to present one of my important research projects, titled Bleeding Borders, at the Red Head in November, 2025.

Amin Rehman (Toronto, ON) is a multidisciplinary visual artist exhibiting since the 1980s. His work engages with and comments on the current effects of neo-colonialism, globalization and climate change, encompassing multiple artistic mediums such as installation, painting, video and neon. He studied at the National College of Arts (Lahore, PK). Recent exhibitions include Water Wars, Karachi Biennial, Pakistan (2022); Bleeding Borders, Art Gallery of Grand Prairie, Alberta, Canada (2021); with multiple awards from Canada Council for the Art, Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Arts Council grants awarded between 1995 to 2025. Rehman received the Chalmers Fellowship Award in 2008 and 2021, the British Council Fellowship in 1988, a Smithsonian Internship in 1988, and named Artist of the Year in 2005 by the South Asian Visual Arts Collective.

 

Lois Schklar

Rattles have become a symbol for creative and personal reflection on life’s transitions. Like a rite of passage, they announce “I Am Here.” It is this affirmation that continues to intrigue, challenge and support me in my work and life. 

The rattles in I Am Here (Red Head 2021 exhibition) are constructed of materials collected over a lifetime. Pill bottles provide the core structure of each rattle, while other recycled bits and pieces from previous work are repurposed but not disguised. The elements used to create each rattle are documents of their history and their presence in the life of the artist.

Member since: Joined Red Head in 2017. Love the gallery space and wanted to exhibit experimental work without the pressure of a commercial space. 

Number of exhibitions at the gallery: 3

Tell us a story about Red Head: The Creative Series, a time-limited project made possible by the Ontario Trillium Foundation, was facilitated by Jennifer Vong, the administrator at Red Head Gallery, and produced for both social media and a web site presence.

I spent a fun filled few weeks on a project with fellow Red Head member, Gillian Iles, as we explored places within Toronto that reflect both an urban and landscape sensibility. During this period of time Gillian and I chose three sites, created interventions that we documented and then removed all traces of the intervention at the site.

Lois Schklar has exhibited throughout Canada and the US. Her work has been recognized in both craft and fine art venues. In the craft community, she is best known for her burlap sculptures (1997 - 1998) and non-traditional dolls (Thirty Years of Dolls, 2011).

Schklar has received numerous grants from the Toronto Arts Council, the Canada Council, and the Ontario Arts Council for her mixed-media installations (2014 - 2024).  Most recently, she was awarded a TAC Creation Grant for her 2025 exhibition, Obfuscated.

 

Pearl Van Geest

This work is an extension of previous works that, informed by theories of queer ecology explores the connection between the human/animal body and the natural world, working towards the blurring of commonly perceived binaries and dichotomies. By mirroring and rotating imagery in a bisymmetrically vertical orientation, suggestions of openings, portals, body parts and creatures appear and disappear - suggesting interconnectivity and fluidity between the macro and micro, the biotic and abiotic, and the human and non-human. For this work, which I began in Argentina at the Coordenadas Residencia (part of Red Head Gallery’s exchange), I cut stencils using drawings made while exploring the streets, galleries, buildings and ecological areas of the city. I rotated and mirrored these along the vertical axis of heavy watercolour paper, cut to the tiered shape that appeared in the architectural structure of the residence building. The modular pieces can be installed in various configurations. This is ongoing work – I have completed the four shown here, and more will be added to my upcoming exhibition at the Red Head Gallery in April 2026.

Pearl Van Geest, Broken Forest: Reflection and Refraction. watercolour on paper, mounted on board, each panel 71.1 × 35.6 cm (28 x 14in).

Member since: 2023

Number of exhibitions at the gallery: 1

Tell us a story about Red Head: I love the comradery, support and collaborations that are part of being a member of Red Head Gallery. I was excited and proud to join Red Head, not only to exhibit in the same gallery as my great friend and collaborator, James Fowler, but to be part of a space with other artists who I know and admire. Since being a student at OCAD in the 90’s the shows there were always inspiring and a frequent destination.

I have met many new artists through our international collaborations such as with PlanD in Dusseldorf, Germany and Coordenadas Residencia in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The challenges of these exchanges have necessitated new processes which continue to inform my practice. 

Other events closer to home have been fun and inspirational: the fundraiser that we did together at the gallery for the Argentinian exchange; the Nuit Blanche fundraiser making an artwork each hour for 24 hours; and the “field trips” - to Buffalo AKG Art Gallery, the World Of Threads exhibition and Tazeen Quayym’s home and gallery in Oakville.

Pearl Van Geest (she/her) is a queer Canadian artist, writer, curator and arts educator, practicing since graduating from OCAD in 1996. She also holds a BSc, MFA and BEd. Her work is included in private and public collections, including the Canadian Arts Council’s Art Bank. She was short-listed for the RBC Painting Prize (2003), and was the recipient of the Canadian Art Foundation’s Art Writing Prize in 2015. Most recently, she co-curated Queer Up North (2024-25) with James Fowler, an extensive collaborative project including a 2SLGBTQI+ residency, a series of exhibitions (Wild Waysides: Queer Ecologies) and symposia. She teaches at Brock University.

 

Elaine Whittaker

Sunspot AR3505 and Ode to the Last Bikini are artworks that pay homage to our fraught relationship with the sun as we experience rapid and increasing climate change. No more seeking the perfect tan, in the perfect bikini. Now we reach for hats, long sleeves, sunscreen, and shade in today’s quickly burning world. Preserved in salt, the bikini has become an artifact, a fleeting, and wistful memory of our past.

Elaine Whittaker, Ode to the Last Bikini, Synthetic nylon fabric, salt, grown salt crystals, 30 x 20 x 30 cm (11.8 × 7.9 × 11.8 in), 2024.

Elaine Whittaker, Sunspot AR3505, synthetic yarn knotted on metal scaffold, 40.6 × 40.6 × 17.8 cm (16 x 16 x 7 in), 2024.

Member since: 2004

Number of exhibitions at the gallery: 10 solo exhibitions

Tell us a story about Red Head: I am deeply grateful to all the passionate artists that I’ve had the privilege of working with in the collective. Their dedication to the gallery is truly inspiring. I have lost track of how many years I served as Treasurer, but there is nothing more rewarding than presenting the latest financial statement, saying, “Well, everyone, we are finally out of debt, and we even have a surplus!” 

I am grateful to all the poets, musicians and dancers who have engaged with my artwork and brought their communities to the gallery.

In 2010, I presented my exhibition entitled (in)trepid cultures. For the last evening of the show, I brought together nine poets to give readings on the theme of Beauty and Terror. One poet, R. M. Vaughan, was terrified of just being in the gallery with live bacteria on the walls (in petri dishes). He read his poem, apologized, and quickly left. I know my BioArtworks have been called a ‘fascinating perversity’ (BlogTO review), but I could not assure Richard that he was not in any danger.

Elaine Whittaker is a multidisciplinary artist intersecting art, science, medicine, and ecology. Her installations, sculptures, and mixed media artworks incorporate traditional and unconventional materials including paint, mosquitoes, salt crystals, human/animal cells, textiles, repurposed fibres, and live microorganisms. She has exhibited in art and science galleries and museums in North & South America, Europe, China, South Korea, and Australia including the Centre Pompidou (France), Gwacheon National Science Museum (South Korea), London Science Gallery (UK), and the McMaster Museum of Art (Canada); and is featured in journals and books on BioArt, new media and medicine.