The Way We Draw

The Way We Draw 

An Exhibition of Experimental Portrait Drawings 

• March 19 to 30, 2025
  Operation Hours

• Ada Slaight Gallery, OCAD University

  100 McCaul, Toronto, ON, 2nd floor

   

This east wall of the Ada Slaight Gallery is an exhibition of the third-year portrait drawing course Face to Face, which is taught in the Drawing and Painting Programme. In this class, students are challenged to re-examine traditional portraiture, inviting unconventional expressions, materials and new critical approaches to the genre. In an open studio format, students probed the received boundaries of this canonical art form while examining new directions they could take regarding the sustainability of their surfaces, colour experimentation, and texture, as well as while trying new drawing mediums. Lectures and studio research highlighted artists using experimentation and working beyond disciplinary boundaries from across the globe. Conceptually, students were challenged to add unique elements of surprise, connect their mediums to the messages they were communicating, and think through how they were interpreting the personalities of their sitters. Viewers are invited to examine these drawings and consider how they, too, can push boundaries, use found objects, draw with materials they have never tried, and explore taking risks in their studio practice.