Space oscillating between the two: reversed and crossed viewpoints

July 12, 2025 to September 5, 2025

Here, we find ourselves in a space of a reversal where wild animals, displaced and plagued by human settlements and activities, allegorically rise up as the true owners of the Earth. It is also a space of crossovers, where realistic elements are transformed by imaginary and fantastic devices, as well as by perspectives stemming from diverse cultural and religious traditions, notably from North-East Asia and North America, and also from Buddhism and Christianity.

Hyesun Ko is a visual artist who creates her paintings using digital art. The main themes in her work are liberation and revenge of the marginalized and oppressed, represented by humorous and allegorical tapestries.

Public Reception: Friday, July 18 from 6 to 8 pm

This exhibit is supported by the Articipate Endowment Fund, which has given more than $1 million in grants over the past 15 years to support local artists and organizations. These artists exhibit and present their work in professional spaces at Shenkman Arts Centre.

Roadkill Paintings (Found Series)

May 12, 2025 to July 4, 2025

The Roadkill exhibition by Métis artist Chris Glabb confronts the violence society has normalized. All the images in this series were sourced online, primarily from social media, underscoring the harrowing accessibility of violence in digital spaces. The series draws a parallel between the brutalization of animals and the systemic mistreatment of marginalized communities, particularly Queer and Indigenous peoples, who are often dehumanized under the guise of "traditional values" and far-right ideologies. The dystopian nature of a society that accepts the dissection and disposal of animals as a mere byproduct of interconnectedness demands re-evaluation: is this violence incidental or foundational?

Public Reception: Monday, May 12, 6 - 8 pm

This exhibit is supported by the Articipate Endowment Fund, which has given more than $1 million in grants over the past 15 years to support local artists and organizations. These artists exhibit and present their work in professional spaces at Shenkman Arts Centre.

CORRESPONDENCES

February 22, 2025 to April 18, 2025

A collaborative exhibition by 10 Canadian photographers, is tender, personal, and vulnerable. It is a love letter to the world around us in all its beauty and brokenness and an invitation to cultivate greater intimacy with our correspondents in the more-than-human world.

The artists are members of the Kinship Photography Collective, a global community of practice that invites photographers to deepen their empathy and connection with the natural world.

Participating artists: Sasha Chapman Valerie Chartrand, Jim Lamont, Victoria Laube, Leah Mowers, Kim Manley Ort, Richard Robesco, Vera Saltzman, Ruth Steinberg and Jon Stuart.

Public Reception: Wednesday, March 5, 6 - 8 pm

This exhibit is supported by the Articipate Endowment Fund, which has given more than $1 million in grants over the past 15 years to support local artists and organizations. These artists exhibit and present their work in professional spaces at Shenkman Arts Centre.

A Rift in the Valley 

December 11, 2024 to February 14, 2025

Kyle Vingoe-Cram and GHY Cheung have been collaborating since 2015 as artist collective NO and NO. They are currently working on A Rift in the Valley, a graphic novel and speculative fiction about a mysterious sinkhole and its effects on two queer Asian friends living in a small university town.

In A Rift in the Valley, the opening of a sinkhole shakes a sleepy university town. Against this backdrop, artists Oliver Leung and Basil Jung navigate tensions in their friendship after the latter decides to move for new career opportunities. As the sinkhole swallows streets and cuts across parks towards the town's beloved art gallery, it starts to have a mysterious effect on Oliver.

This exhibit is supported by the Articipate Endowment Fund, which has given more than $1 million in grants over the past 15 years to support local artists and organizations. These artists exhibit and present their work in professional spaces at Shenkman Arts Centre.

MAC-CAM - discontinuous, heterogeneous and pluriverse 

September 7 to October 3, 2023

Discontinuous, Heterogeneous, and Pluriversal is a visual arts exhibition curated by Alejandro Salgado Cendales and organized by the Multicultural Artists’ Coalition that invites the viewer to reflect on contemporary social, political, and cultural issues through the prism of immigrant and first-generation-Canadian artists.

Sarah-Mecca Abourahman, a Somali-Indian and first-generation Canadian artist, explores themes of identity, family, and land occupation inspired by her heritage through her visual artwork. She informs her artistic practice through the tradition of oral storytelling, shining light on impactful moments in her familial and community’s history. Abdourahman’s work takes on a decolonial approach, using her practice to reconnect with her homeland from a first-generation Canadian perspective.

Iryna Merkulova is a Ukrainian artist living in Canada. Through her painting of seemingly ordinary everyday objects, she reflects on deeper issues regarding the place of women in contemporary society, consumerism, sustainability, and urban life. Her visual narratives straddle between personal and interpersonal experiences and memories, challenging and comforting the viewer through distant togetherness.

Jon Stuart - Stillwater

October 5 to 31, 2023

Stillwater is a selection of fine art photographic prints depicting the rehabilitation of a wetland area within the National Capital Greenbelt. Alongside the photographs will be interpretive text written in consultation with the National Capital Commission and Rideau Valley Conservation Authority. The images are presented as a mystery tale, illustrating the subtle departures from a ‘normal’ Ontario landscape that can be observed through a close reading of the land. Together with the interpretive text, viewers will be able to reperceive the apparently banal land surrounding them on a day-to-day basis.

Aaron Daniels and Liana Miles - Inscriptions

November 2 to 28

In “Inscriptions” mixed media artists Liana Miles and Aaron Daniels Casey combine their past bodies of work “Weaving of Fables” and “The Discovery Series” into a new collaborative venture, in which the words of lost folktales run amok within scenes of paint and pyrography. By this, the artists allow viewers the ability to connect and spin new tales of their own.

The three large scale works present new tales contextualized by words taken from folktale collections. The stories are laid out in random watercolor inkblots by Liana. The shapes are then used by Aaron to prompt wood burning illustrations. After that, the duo uses a process of chance to choose random words from literary collections which form the poetic passages that can be found on each wooden panel and function as titles.