Cover image: Khadejha McCall, Untitled, Silkscreen on canvas, 2000. Photo credit: Chiedza Pasipanodya.
If you’re seeking exhibitions with works from OCAD University students, faculty and alum over the holidays, you’ve come to the right place! While OCAD U art galleries will be closed from December 23, 2022, to January 2, 2023, inclusive, there are many places to see OCAD U talent.
Bundle up and check out these exhibitions over the break.
Exhibitions in Toronto
Aga Khan Museum
77 Wynford Drive
Light Up the Dark
December 27 to 29, 2022
Animations and projections by OCAD U students and alum will be on display on the west facade of the Aga Khan Museum from 6:30 to 9 p.m. each evening, inspired by the importance of light in Islamic art and culture, and the desire to have a cultural exchange with the Toronto community.
The OCAD U artists behind Light Up the Dark are students and alum from Experimental Animation, Drawing and Painting, Digital Painting and Expanded Animation, and graduates from the Interdisciplinary Master’s in Art, Media and Design.
These include: Mohammad Abdullah, Liliya Eruysal, Rebecca Van Fraassen, Justyna Janik, Kim Luong, Gabriel Masewich, Nikole McGregor, Mahnaz Nezarati, Eli Schwanz and Ghazal Tahernia.
Lines, Planes and Bodies by Justyna Janick.
The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery
231 Queens Quay West
Arctic/Amazon: Networks of Global Indigeneity
On until December 31, 2022
Co-curated by Dr. Gerald McMaster, who retired from OCAD U this fall. He was previously a professor in the Faculty of Arts and Science Professor and the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Visual Culture & Curatorial Practice.
This exhibition explores the ways Indigenous contemporary artists and collaborators take on issues of climate change, globalized Indigeneity and contact zones in and about the Arctic and the Amazon during a time of crisis.
Untitled (Série elementar- Lama) (2017) by Uýra, photograph printed on fine art paper.
Flying Books
784 College Street
Marcas
On until February 2023
With works by Program Assistant, International Programs and Collaboration and 2017 Drawing and Painting alum Jasmine Cardenas. Curated by 2012 Criticism & Curatorial Practice alum Sagan MacIsaac (Sagan Editions).
In this exhibition, Cardenas presents four abstract paintings that use layers of collage, found materials, recycled textiles, pumice stone and sand. Her unique combination of texture and a rich, vibrant palette creates images that evoke natural shapes (leaves, trees, flowers) and landscapes.
Eyes on You by Jasmine Cardenas, oil/mixed media on primed paper.
A Space Gallery
401 Richmond Street West
Practice as Ritual / Ritual as Practice
On until February 23, 2023
Curated by Andrea Fatona, founder of the Centre for the Study of Black Canadian Diaspora, Tier II Canada Research Chair in Canadian Black Diasporic Cultural Production and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Art at OCAD U.
Practice as Ritual / Ritual as Practice is a group exhibition featuring the works of 10 Black women artists who participated in the historical 1989 DAWA Collective exhibition, Black Wimmin: When and Where We Enter, the first national exhibition to address the exclusion of Black women artists from the visual landscape of Canada. The exhibition attests to and affirms the artists’ sustained practice of producing art that articulates the heterogeneity of perspectives and forms that constitute Black Canadian women’s art today. The works in the exhibition comprise of paintings, photography, text, installations, video, augmented reality, and sculpture.
Khadejha McCall, Untitled, Silkscreen on canvas, 2000. Photo credit: Chiedza Pasipanodya.
Onsite Gallery
199 Richmond Street West
Up Front: Inuit Public Art at Onsite Gallery
On until March 2023
Curated by Ryan Rice, Executive Director and Curator, Indigenous Art, Onsite Gallery.
In partnership with the Inuit Art Foundation (IAF), Up Front: Inuit Public Art at Onsite Gallery is a new series of commissioned digital murals by Inuit artists, produced in vinyl for the exterior façade of the gallery.
The current mural is by artist Kyle Natkusiak Aleekuk. Aleekuk’s works are inspired by the bold colours and style of the printmakers of Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories, including his grandfather Peter Aliknak Banksland and great aunt Agnes Nanogak Goose.
Northern Flash (2022) by Kyle Natkusiak Aleekuk.
Gardiner Museum
111 Queens Park
Replicas and Reunions: Ancient and Contemporary Ceramics from Ecuador
On until March 12, 2023
Curated by Faculty of Art Instructor Maya Wilson-Sanchez.
This exhibition features a new body of work by Quito-based artist Pamela Cevallos and five collaborators from the rural coastal town of La Pila: Andrés López, Genaro López, Daniel Mezones, Javier Rivera, and Guillermo Quijije. The installation explores the artisanal and ancestral knowledge of ceramic production in Ecuador and the continuity of a longstanding tradition.
Sotheby’s (2022) by Pamela Cevallos and Guillermo Quijije, earthenware.
Aga Khan Museum
77 Wynford Drive
Afghanistan, My Love
On until April 10, 2023
With works by alum Shaheer Zazai (BFA 2011).
Conceptualized in Microsoft Word, Shaheer Zazai’s mesmerizing patterns and designs explore the many layers of his complex cultural identity. A selection of Zazai’s digital works and carpets which are inspired by these designs will showcase the artist’s unique processes and his contemplations around what it means to be an Afghan away from their homeland.
Carpet No. 3 (2022) by Shaheer Zazai, handwoven wool carpet. Image courtesy of Shaheer Zazai.
Royal Ontario Museum
100 Queens Park
Canadian Modern
On until July 30, 2023
With works by eight emerging OCAD U artists: Anthia Barboutsis, Elfy Castro, Rachel Leung, Stephanie Singh, Khalalelo Sithole, Dan Chi, Harcharan Jagdev and Peter Huang.
Six works from eight OCAD U designers were selected for display by a jury of distinguished experts, including Dean Dr. Elizabeth (Dori) Tunstall, OCAD U Faculty of Design; Assistant Professor Howard Munroe, OCAD U Faculty of Design; and Dr. Rachel Gotlieb, lead curator of Canadian Modern.
Canadian Modern explores the legacy of Canadian creativity and ingenuity and its impact on our everyday lives. Through over 100 objects designed and crafted in Canada from the mid-20th century to the present, the ROM original exhibition will reveal that design is everywhere—whether we know it or not.
Identity Chairs by Elfy Castro.
OCAD U
100 McCaul Street
pi'tawita'iek: we go up river
Ongoing
A large-scale outdoor mural by Jordan Bennett, curated by Lisa Deanne Smith, Senior Curator, Manager OCAD U Galleries System, Onsite Gallery.
pi'tawita'iek: we go up river on the south wall of OCAD U’s main campus, adjacent to Butterfield Park, grounds the space in Indigenous material culture. This public artwork is rooted in Bennett’s relationships with Mi’kmaq porcupine quillwork. He brings forward and reimagines their graphic patterns, bright colours and inspiring stories. In visiting with these cultural objects, Bennett connects with their visual language and furthers this visual conversation through his contemporary influences and experience.
The Jordan Bennett mural received grant funding as part of ArtworxTO: Toronto's Year of Public Art 2021–2022, a year-long celebration of Toronto’s exceptional public art collection and the creative community behind it.
pi'tawita'iek: we go up river by Jordan Bennett, at 100 McCaul St., OCAD University, 2022. Photo by Jeremy Mimnagh.
Exhibitions outside Toronto
Maison de la culture Janine-Sutto
2550, rue Ontario Est, Montréal
Imaginaires souverains
On until January 15, 2023
If you are in Montréal for the holidays, head over to Maison de la culture Janine-Sutto for this exhibition with works by Faculty of Art Assistant Professor Ésery Mondésir.
The collective exhibition Imaginaires souverains brings together in two places, the Maison de la culture Janine-Sutto and the Galerie Hugues Charbonneau, the works of fifteen Quebec and Canadian artists from Haiti, curated by Dominique Fontaine.
Mondésir's work explores his connection to the Haitian diaspora, based on his own experience of migration.
Esery Mondesir, Katherine, (still image), 2019. Hand-processed 16mm film transferred to HD video (3:31min, looping). Courtesy of the artist. © Esery Mondesir
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
220 E Chicago Ave, Chicago, IL
Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1990s–Today
On until April 23, 2023
If you are in Chicago over the holidays, check out this exhibition with works by Marton Robinson, OCAD U Associate Professor in the Faculty of Design and Chair, First Year Experience in the Faculty of Art Office.
Taking the 1990s as its cultural backdrop, Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1990s–Today is the first major group exhibition in the United States to envision a new approach to contemporary art in the Caribbean diaspora, foregrounding forms that reveal new modes of thinking about identity and place. It uses the concept of weather and its constantly changing forms as a metaphor to analyze artistic practices connected to the Caribbean, understanding the region as a bellwether for our rapidly shifting times.
Robinson's large-scale piece is a 60-part digital print that considers Blackness and racism within the Caribbean, specifically Costa Rica.
Marton Robinson, La Coronación de La Negrita, 2022. Digital print over backlit paper (variable); 60 parts: 44 × 27 in. (111.76 × 68.58 cm) each. Photo: Michael David Rose. Courtesy of Vogue.
Online exhibition
Online
PROCESS
Ongoing
There is no need to leave the comfort of your own home for this exhibition, which is now online.
PROCESS features new works by Reshmi Bisessar, Beverley Freedman, mihyun maria kim, Sara Shoghi, Erin Stripe and Vicky Talwar, that were created as part of an ArtScape residency collaboration with OCAD U in Summer 2022.
The exhibition was held in person from October 7 to 16, 2022 at the OCAD U Grad Gallery, and is now available online. The works are inspired by the idea of process: the way an artist creates an artwork through conception, experimentation, revision, articulation and finalization.
Hues of Gold (2022) by Reshmi Bisessar.