Art In Ottawa

Cool Surprises
2026-01-06 - 2026-01-25 | Foyer Gallery, 1701 Woodroffe Avenue, Ottawa, ON, K2G1W2, Canada
Who doesn’t like a pleasant surprise? At Foyer Gallery’s 5-Person Focus Show this January, many “Cool Surprises” await!
Whether you’re drawn to artwork about people or animals in action, peaceful or nostalgic scenes, local joys or far-off landscapes, from Iceland to Africa, mountains to shorelines, this show has something for everyone!
Step inside and be transported to wonderfully surprising places!

Opening Lines
2026-01-07 - 2026-03-01 | Kanata Civic Art Gallery, 2500 Campeau Drive, Kanata, ON, K2K 2W3, Canada
The Kanata Civic Art Gallery is pleased to welcome the new year with Opening Lines, our first exhibition of 2026.
This large group show introduces seven new members to the gallery alongside works by existing members. Together, they present over 80 artworks in a wide range of mediums, including painting, sculpture, photography, and textiles. All artwork in the exhibition is available for purchase.

Julie Beauchemin Mirrors
2026-01-15 - 2026-02-03 | Galerie St-Laurent + Hill, 293 Dalhousie St, Ottawa, ON, K1N 7E5, Canada
My practice is grounded in abstract painting as a form of narrative construction. I approach painting as a language system, where mark-making functions as syntax and movement across the surface reveals relationships between space, time, and gesture. Through layered processes of application, erasure, and accumulation, my work navigates between intuition and deliberateness, order and disruption.
Working primarily with mixed media on canvas, I employ acrylic paint, oil pastels, spray paint, inks, and unconventional materials. These elements are applied through dense, tactile passages and thin, diluted washes, allowing the history of the process to remain visible. While the work may initially suggest immediacy or spontaneity, it is guided by sustained attention to composition, colour, rhythm, and material interaction.
My paintings draw from street-based mark-making, narrative painting, and art-historical conventions, positioning these references within a single visual field. I am interested in how gestures associated with immediacy and informality can coexist with formal painterly structure. Acts of scratching, wiping, and reworking are integral to the process, introducing cycles of destruction and reconstruction that guide each painting toward resolution.
By working with multiple media and defragmenting established conventions, my practice proposes a metalinguistic approach to painting—one that embraces contradiction, physical presence, and the visibility of process as essential components of meaning.
Mirrors serves as a conceptual lens for this body of work, extending beyond literal reflection to consider how experience, perception, emotion, and interaction are mirrored through the act of painting. The works emphasize response as a central principle, where gestures unfold in relation to prior marks and material conditions, much like the effects of our interactions on one another. Through layered material processes, the paintings trace the imprint of response and presence, while serving as records of moments in time.

Imaginarium - Don Monet, Beth Shepherd & Sarah Wayne
2026-01-20 - 2026-03-29 | ASP Gallery, 35 Stafford Road, Ottawa, ON, K2H 8V8, Canada
Welcome to Imaginarium — a space where memory, myth, and whimsy collide. Each work in this exhibition offers a doorway into a world just slightly askew from our own, where the familiar transforms into the fantastical. Imagination reshapes the everyday, inviting curiosity, reflection, and a quiet sense of wonder.
Don Monet(link is external) focuses his practice on landscape, photo-collage, and acrylic painting on birch plywood. Through photo-collage and acrylic paint, he creates sequences of fractured photos which are then unified through paint and traditional landscape techniques. Co-Founder and director of Cube Gallery, Ottawa (2005-present), Don has organized dozens of thematic group exhibitions and solo shows and provided a venue for hundreds of artists.
Beth Shepherd(link opens email application) is an Ottawa-based artist working in printmaking, photography, video, and text. Situated at the intersection of ecology, animal advocacy, and ecocritical art history, her multi-year art-research projects explore the non-human world and humanity’s impacts on it. In this exhibition, the artist imagines a garden far beyond.
Sarah Wayne is an acrylic painter and mixed media artist creating works focused on abstracted figures and landscapes. An accountant by profession, Wayne brings a structured and disciplined approach to her art. Her bold colour palette and emphasis on shape combine to create stimulating pieces that invite the eye to linger.
ASP Gallery, Stafford Studios
Nepean Creative Arts Centre, Unit 1
35 Stafford Road, Bells Corners
Free admission
The gallery is open to the public by appointment only: cgc@ottawa.ca

Alexandra Tataru. Faces of Passage: A Gilded Tapestry of Hybrid Ethnicities
2026-01-29 - 2026-03-10 | Atrium Gallery – Ben Franklin Place, 101 Centrepointe Dr, Ottawa, K2G 0B5, Canada
Opening: Thursday, February 5, 5:30 to 7:30 pm
Faces of Passage: A Gilded Tapestry of Hybrid Ethnicities is a portrait-based multimedia exhibition exploring unique identities shaped by movement and cultural exchange. Inspired by Canada, travel, and Eastern European heritage, hand-crafted gilded portraits merge global patterns and contemporary forms, reimagining ethnicity as fluid, relational, and continually becoming.
Alexandra Tataru, MA, is a European-born artist residing in Canada. Trained in art and design from childhood, she studied in Eastern Europe and was awarded a scholarship in Spain. Working in oil, acrylic, pastel, and gold leaf, she creates vibrant cityscapes and portraits, capturing the energy of culture, travel, and human expression.
ATRIUM ART GALLERY
Ben Franklin Place
101 Centrepointe Drive
Free admission. Wheelchair accessible.

Voir bleu
2026-01-30 - 2026-03-29 | Galerie Montcalm, 25 Laurier St, Gatineau, Quebec, J8X 3Y9, Canada
Gatineau présente cet hiver Voir bleu, une exposition issue de la Collection Loto-Québec, à la Galerie Montcalm. Commissariée par Manon Pouliot, responsable de la Collection Loto-Québec, Voir bleu réunit une trentaine d’oeuvres d’artistes québécois et célèbre plus de 45 ans d’engagement envers l’art d’ici.
L’exposition s’articule autour de quatre univers :
– Bleu abstrait : oeuvres liées aux grands courants modernistes québécois;
– Bleu nature : paysage, environnement et rapport au territoire;
– Bleu optique : perception, lumière et photographie;
– Bleu engagé : oeuvres portées par un propos social ou politique.
Parmi les artistes présentés, on retrouve Serge Lemoyne, Fernand Leduc, Françoise Sullivan, Guido Molinari, ainsi que trois artistes de la région de l’Outaouais (Pierrette Lambert, Dominique Plastre et Denise Tremblay).
Citations
« Accueillir l’exposition Voir bleu, c’est offrir à la population de Gatineau un voyage au coeur d’une des plus importantes collections d’entreprises au Québec. C’est une occasion unique de voir se côtoyer les grands courants modernistes et la vision d’artistes de chez nous, dans une exploration poétique et engagée qui saura toucher tout le monde », a déclaré madame Isabelle N. Miron en tant que présidente de la Commission des arts, de la culture, des lettres et du patrimoine (CACLP).
« Voir bleu propose une exploration au coeur des quelque 4 800 oeuvres de la Collection Loto Québec, un patrimoine culturel inestimable. Les pièces retenues pour cette exposition mettent en lumière la diversité des styles qui traversent l’art québécois tout en faisant écho à l’histoire de la couleur bleu, chère à la Société. Nous invitons le public à découvrir ce parcours et à porter un regard renouvelé sur la place du bleu dans leur entourage », a souligné la responsable de la Collection Loto-Québec, madame Manon Pouliot.

Shaelynn Tredenick The Weight of Quiet
2026-02-05 - 2026-02-24 | Galerie St-Laurent + Hill, 293 Dalhousie St, Ottawa, ON, K1N 7E5, Canada
Shaelynn Tredenick
The Weight of Quiet
February 5 – 24
Vernissage: Thursday, February 5, 5:00 – 8:00pm
Tredenick Artist Statement
The Weight of Quiet: An exploration of stillness, tension, and emotional restraint.
I feel compelled to scan – drawn to preserving fleeting moments before they disappear. My work does not begin with a fixed narrative, but with an instinct to reimagine familiar florals into contemporary compositions guided by emotion and sensation rather than story.
Working with both living bouquets and preserved botanicals, I’m interested in moments of transition—when vibrancy softens, structure loosens, and beauty exists briefly between states. Recently, my practice has shifted toward embracing this tension more fully, allowing compositions to hold both calm and intensity at once, where restraint and release exist in quiet balance.
Rather than offering a prescribed meaning, my work creates space for reflection and emotional stillness under the surface. Built through feeling first, each piece invites viewers to sit with instability, softness, and their own interpretations.
Tredenick Biography
Shaelynn Tredenick is a photo-based artist based in Ottawa, Canada, holding a Graduate Diploma in Photographic Arts + Production from the School of Photographic Arts: Ottawa and a formal degree in Photography from Algonquin College. A decade of competitive dance informs her work, bringing a sense of movement, rhythm, and choreography into her visual practice.
Her current practice centers on scanography of both preserved and living botanicals, drawing inspiration from 17th-century Dutch floral paintings while engaging with contemporary digital processes and everyday arrangements. Through careful composition, hand techniques, and digital manipulation, she reimagines historic floral motifs with a modern sensibility, creating forms that exist between nature, memory, and transformation.

Elizabeth D’Agostino, Kelly McDonald, and Ava Roth
2026-02-07 - 2026-02-21 | Wall Space Gallery, 1090 Bank St, Ottawa, ON, K1S 3X5, Canada
This month, we are featuring three artists whose practices engage deeply with natural materials and ecosystems: Elizabeth D’Agostino, Kelly McDonald, and Ava Roth.
Elizabeth D’Agostino
Canadian artist Elizabeth D’Agostino works across print media, sculpture, and installation, drawing inspiration from the rich complexity of Canadian flora and fauna and the delicate relationships between organisms and their environments. Her finely detailed etchings and mixed-media works often blur the boundary between plant and animal forms, generating imagined ecosystems that reflect on biodiversity and ecological transformation.
Kelly McDonald
Ottawa-based photo-based artist Kelly McDonald creates contemplative botanical work that resonates with her personal experience living with Parkinson’s disease. In her Relics series, McDonald photographs locally sourced plant specimens at various stages of decay, printing the images on delicate washi paper. These works reflect both the lifecycle of the botanicals and the evolving physical experience of the artist, acknowledging loss and resilience while honoring the beauty of each form.
Ava Roth
Toronto-based artist Ava Roth’s interdisciplinary work spans encaustic painting, embroidery, weaving, and natural materials. In her Honeycomb Collection (often referred to in relation to her Honeybee Collaboration works), Roth places art objects into beehives where honeybees build honeycomb around them, resulting in pieces that emerge from an interspecies collaboration. This body of work explores profound relationships between humans and the natural environment, highlighting the creative agency of non-human collaborators.

“It’s the kids’ turn to shine” Symmes and Darcy McGee Schools
2026-02-12 - 2026-02-22 | Galerie Old Chelsea, 783 Route 105, Chelsea, QC, J9B 1P1, Canada
Galerie Old Chelsea is pleased to present the artworks by the art students from Symmes School and D’Arcy McGee High School in Aylmer. About ten years ago, Galerie Old Chelsea approached a local Chelsea school to invite them to work on art during the year, culminating with an exhibit at the Galerie. Both the kids and the teacher were very enthusiastic, and we’ve been giving the opportunity to other schools ever since.
This year, we are delighted to showcase the art by Symmes Junior (Grades 7–8) and D’Arcy McGee High School (Grade 9) in Aylmer, Quebec. Their teacher, Heawon Chun, tells us that the works span a variety of materials and processes, including drawing, mixed media, collage, painting and needle felting. Students were guided to work creatively while learning techniques that help them build confidence and skill with each medium.
The works on display celebrate their commitment, imagination, and hard work. Please join us in congratulating these young artists on their beautiful accomplishments.

Elaf Selim at Constitution Square
2026-02-15 - 2026-04-13 | Constitution Square, 350 Albert St, Ottawa, ON, K1R 1A4, Canada
Elaf Selim is a fine artist known for luminous, romantic paintings that explore femininity, stillness, and emotional refuge. A Canadian-Egyptian artist raised in Kuwait, her work is shaped by a life lived across cultures, landscapes, and visual traditions. From an early age, she was encouraged toward imagination and creative expression, laying the foundation for a lifelong devotion to art.
Her painting practice is informed by training in classical oil painting and modern mixed-media techniques, resulting in dreamlike works that balance structure with intuition. Rooted in Contemporary Romanticism, Selim creates contemplative paintings of feminine figures, gardens, and delicate symbols. Her work offers a counterpoint to a culture of speed and anxiety by privileging slowness, intimacy, and light.
Selim’s imagery is immediately recognizable: feminine figures, gardens, and symbolic elements inhabiting a gentle, luminous world just beyond waking. Working intuitively, she draws from dreams, memory, meditation, and nature. Her process includes layered oils, fluid mark-making, and hand-printed collage papers created from botanical materials gathered in her garden, resulting in works that glow with depth and subtle texture.
She creates in her home studio surrounded by gardens, with the intention that her paintings become sanctuaries; offering collectors moments of rest, intimacy, and calm within a fast-paced world. Her work is represented by galleries, exhibited in juried and curated shows, and held in private collections, resonating with collectors drawn to quiet beauty, emotional presence, and romantic stillness.

Intersections
2026-02-16 - 2026-03-29 | Art Hub (127 Bridge St.), 127 Bridge Street, Carleton Place, ON, K7C 2V6, Canada
Stop in between February 15 and March 29, 2026 to see the show, Intersections.The Art Hub cooperative gallery is staffed by the artists themselves and you can stop in any time to meet them and get to know their work!Open 10-5 daily, 7 days a week, at 127 Bridge St., Carleton Place, ON

OBSIDIAN
2026-02-20 19:00 - 23:30 (America/Toronto) | The Urban Centre, 70 Bongard Ave, Nepean, ON, K2E 7Z9, Canada
OBSIDIAN is a FORM event — a curated art experience by Public Display Agency that blends design, dialogue, and discovery. This one-night showcase unites visual artists, designers, and makers in an immersive, gallery-style setting at The Urban Centre. OBSIDIAN invites guests to slow down, engage, and experience art in a new way. Admission is RSVP-based and pay-what-you-want, making it accessible while supporting artists directly. We believe art helps people find meaning, belonging, and community. Through events like OBSIDIAN, Public Display Agency brings artists and audiences together to feel seen, supported, and part of something bigger.

“Rostros: Faces And Voices Of Women Artists In The Outaouais Region” by Taimi Tovar
2026-02-26 - 2026-03-15 | Galerie Old Chelsea, 783 Route 105, Chelsea, QC, J9B 1P1, Canada
February 26 to March 15, 2026 – Wednesday to Sunday, noon to 5 pm
Vernissage: Saturday, February 28, 2 to 4 pm
For International Women’s Day, Galerie Old Chelsea is proud to present a photographic and documentary exhibition by Taimi Tovar. This initiative celebrates the presence of women in the arts, whether they are painters, musicians, architects, researchers, or cultural builders.
Born out of a shared desire to highlight the female creators who shape our cultural landscape, this exhibition is much more than a series of portraits. It is an intimate encounter with fourteen committed female artists from diverse backgrounds who share a passion for creation and expression. Through their perspectives, their stories, and their varied disciplines, these artists embody resilience, audacity, and feminine creative power.
This exhibition goes beyond simply taking portraits. It is also a series of interviews highlighting women artists from the Outaouais region. Through a series of portraits, Tovar explored the strength and growth of these exceptional women artists, each contributing in a unique way to the cultural richness of our community. It is a project that highlights women who embody inspiration through their role as artists.

Florence Victor Fairy Tales and Other Stories
2026-02-26 - 2026-03-17 | Galerie St-Laurent + Hill, 293 Dalhousie St, Ottawa, ON, K1N 7E5, Canada
Everyone’s life is worth telling. We all have a story whose chapters address various subjects: fears, doubts, moral dilemmas, obstacles, but also encounters, friendship and love. In fairy tales, the perilous forest journey allows the main character to mature, enriched by trials and life lessons, and by the friendships forged along the way (see B. Bettelheim, The Use of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, 1976). In my personal narrative, the cities of New York and Berlin become, in turn, this forest, a place of passage and learning.
This is the premise of this exhibition.

Where Water Meets Land: Mary Gourlay
2026-02-26 - 2026-04-05 | Arbor Gallery, 103 High St., Vankleek Hill, ON, K0B 1R0, Canada
Mary Gourlay’s work emerges from an emotional and physical immersion in the natural world, responding to the power, fragility, and temporality of landscape. Exploring remote environments by canoe, kayak, and on foot, Gourlay creates sketches, small paintings, and photographs that capture fleeting moments of encounter. These fragmentary records form the basis for larger studio works that distill her lived experience of nature into richly expressive paintings. Since settling in Canada in 1992, her work has been shaped by the landscapes of the Canadian Shield, the south shore of the St. Lawrence near Rimouski, and the Pacific coastline of Vancouver Island.

Rise: Sinclair A. Maloney
2026-02-26 - 2026-04-05 | Arbor Gallery, 103 High St., Vankleek Hill, ON, K0B 1R0, Canada
Sinclair A. Maloney presents: Rise – a focused selection of landscape and seascape paintings. With a professional background in photography spanning 15 years, his work is informed by a strong sense of composition and a keen observational eye.
Influenced by 19th-century painters such as Corot and Courbet, and often compared to Turner for his atmospheric sensibility, Maloney’s paintings balance precision and mood, offering carefully observed scenes infused with subtle light, depth, and movement.

Joy Kardish | Simplicity in a Turbulent World
2026-03-07 - 2026-03-21 | Wall Space Gallery, 1090 Bank St, Ottawa, ON, K1S 3X5, Canada
Exhibition Dates: March 7 – 21
Vernissage: Saturday, March 7 from 3 – 5 pm
Wall Space Gallery is proud to present Simplicity in a Turbulent World, a solo exhibition by Ottawa-based photographer Joy Kardish, in celebration of International Women’s Month. The exhibition considers the quiet, sustaining moments often overlooked in the midst of unrest. In this body of work, Kardish turns toward the textures of stillness, the subtle play of light and surface, and the small spaces where presence settles into form. Working through historic analog processes, she creates images that favor deliberation over immediacy and material depth over spectacle.
Across the exhibition, Kardish’s use of cyanotype, gelatin silver, and lith printing reflects a commitment to process as a form of discipline. They are structured, measured, and materially grounded. In a time marked by volatility and distraction, Simplicity in a Turbulent World proposes a steadier visual language, one rooted in light, shadow, and the enduring physicality of the photographic print.

Iryna Merkulova | Peripheral Surfaces
2026-03-07 - 2026-03-21 | Wall Space Gallery, 1090 Bank St, Ottawa, ON, K1S 3X5, Canada
Exhibition Dates: March 7 – 21
Vernissage: Saturday, March 7 from 3 – 5 pm, artist talk @ 3:45 pm
Wall Space Gallery is excited to present Peripheral Surfaces, a solo exhibition by Montreal-based artist Iryna Merkulova, in celebration of International Women’s Month. In this series, Merkulova treats the storefront window not as a transparent boundary but as a charged surface where desire, access, and distance collide. Her paintings do not present the city as coherent or navigable. Instead, they concentrate on glass, signage, glare, and artificial light, the very elements that structure how we look and what we are permitted to see.
Born in Kyiv and based in Montreal, Merkulova approaches urban space from a position shaped by movement and relocation. Reflection becomes more than a visual device. It becomes a condition of inhabiting the city without fully claiming it. Commercial surfaces dominate the field of vision, flattening architecture into image and transforming interiors into spectacle.
Across Peripheral Surfaces, the city emerges as layered, seductive, and unstable. Glass does not clarify but multiplies, and signage does not simply advertise but structures perception. Merkulova’s brushwork reinforces this instability, allowing forms to flicker between solidity and dissolution. These paintings locate urban life at the edge of visibility, where belonging is provisional and space is experienced through surface.

Art Lending of Ottawa Art Show
2026-03-07 10:00 - 16:00 | Jim Durrell Recreation Centre, 1265 Walkley Rd, Ottawa, ON, K1V 6P9, Canada
Saturday, March 7, 2026, from 10 am to 4 pm at the Jim Durrell Recreation Centre,1265 Walkley Road, Ottawa, Ontario

Art Show Free Admission

Free Parking & Wheelchair Access

Gift certificates are available at each art show for future art purchases or rentals.

No sales tax

Door prizes available to be won
Art by over forty local juried artists includes affordable oils, acrylics, watercolours, mixed media, encaustics, ink, pastels, photography, printmaking, and mosaics.

Dinho Bento: Another Cycle
2026-03-12 - 2026-04-21 | Atrium Gallery – Ben Franklin Place, 101 Centrepointe Dr, Ottawa, K2G 0B5, Canada
Another Cycle presents paintings and mixed-media works exploring the intersection of the human body and nature through surreal atmospheres and organic textures. Dinho Bento reflects on belonging, shelter and transformation, inviting viewers into a poetic dialogue about identity, emotional connection and the cyclical essence of existence.
As a Brazilian artist based in Canada, Dinho Bento merges Minas Gerais Baroque heritage with precise organic observation. He’s an internationally recognized muralist who maintains a research‑driven studio practice. His work examines tensions and harmonies between humanity and nature, creating a dialogue between public art and exhibition space.

Levelling Up
2026-03-18 - 2026-04-26 | Kanata Civic Art Gallery, 2500 Campeau Drive, Kanata, ON, K2K 2W3, Canada
The Kanata Civic Art Gallery is pleased to present “Levelling Up,” a new exhibition featuring the work of 26 gallery artists.
This vibrant show brings together a wide range of styles, subjects, and mediums, offering visitors an engaging look at the depth and diversity of our artistic community. From painting and photography to mixed media and more, each piece reflects the continued growth and creative evolution of our members.
All artwork is available for purchase, making this a wonderful opportunity to add original, local art to your collection.
We invite you to visit and experience the exhibition in person.
Exhibition Dates
March 18 to April 26, 2026
Location
Kanata Civic Art Gallery
Mlacak Community Centre
2500 Campeau Drive
Kanata, Ontario

Naturally Canada
2026-03-19 - 2026-04-05 | Galerie Old Chelsea, 783 Route 105, Chelsea, QC, J9B 1P1, Canada
“Naturally Canada / Naturellement le Canada” is a dynamic exhibition of mixed media artwork inspired by the vast and diverse nature of Canada.
The collection features works that range from abstract interpretations to detailed representational pieces. Each artwork demonstrates a visible integration of mixed media and/or mixed techniques—combining materials such as paint, collage, texture, found objects, and layered processes to create depth and dimension. Through this diversity of styles and methods, the exhibition reflects not only the richness of Canada’s environment but also the varied artistic voices inspired by it.
“Naturally Canada / Naturellement le Canada” celebrates the beauty, complexity, and spirit of the natural world, inviting viewers to experience Canada’s landscapes through innovative and expressive artistic perspectives.

Whispers of Change
2026-03-30 - 2026-05-17 | Art Hub Gallery, 50 Bennett St, Carleton Place, ON, K7C 4J9, Canada
A new Art Show at Art Hub Gallery this spring.

Lenni Workman - NEW WORK
2026-04-07 | Galerie St-Laurent + Hill, 293 Dalhousie St, Ottawa, ON, K1N 7E5, Canada
Lenni Workman – Artist Statement
My work is a Request.
A request to the viewer to look and look again, don’t stop at superficial information.
A request to notice how time and light transform your visual world. Experience that a still-life or a room acts as a sun-dial.
A request to see the alignment of the micro and macro worlds: how much a reflecting jar of water resembles the photographs we see of our galaxy.
A request to see that we humans are part of this complex and fragile natural web of life.
A request to concentrate and dream at the same time. Just for a moment, hang your soul up on a bough with apple blossoms.
A request to marvel at the power of a seed to put out roots and the power of a bud to flower. Allow this observed power to energize your efforts to conserve nature on our planet.
Let the perfection of a moment of light summon the awe and love that it deserves.
Lenni Workman – Biography
Lenni Workman was born in Belleville, Ont., and grew up on a farm just north of there. She studied Art History at Queen’s University, graduated from St. Lawrence College, Kingston, in 1973, and has been exhibiting paintings since then. Recipient of many awards and grants, her works can be found in numerous public, corporate, and private collections throughout North America and Europe.

Slip Terrace by Andrew Rucklidge
2026-04-09 - 2026-04-26 | Galerie Old Chelsea, 783 Route 105, Chelsea, QC, J9B 1P1, Canada
April 9 to 26, 2026
Vernissage: Saturday April 11, 1-4 pm
Galerie Old Chelsea is thrilled to present a series of new paintings by Andrew Rucklidge, an internationally recognized artist now living in Chelsea. The exhibition captures the invisible yet deeply familiar forces that shape the earth over time as Rucklidge draws on processes such as erosion, sedimentation, metamorphism, volcanic eruptions, exposed faults, and slipping terraces.
Andrew Rucklidge’s practice is rooted in an exploration of the planet’s internal gestures—subtle, powerful movements translated into paint through a deeply material and process-driven approach. Working with ancient and traditional media including egg tempera, distemper, watercolour, handmade inks, encaustic, and sun-thickened linseed oil, he constructs surfaces that echo the layered complexity of geological formations.

Terry Brynaert - still*life
2026-04-09 - 2026-04-28 | Galerie St-Laurent + Hill, 293 Dalhousie St, Ottawa, ON, K1N 7E5, Canada
Still*life is not a meditation on fruit bowls or porcelain vases; it proposes a dialogue between breath and silence, between the pulse of existence and the hush of its surroundings. These paintings have emerged from the experience of living surrounded by nature—a life steeped in forests, rivers, and the quiet choreography of seasons. They are offered as invitations to pause, to inhabit the stillness that nature offers without demanding, and to recognize that stillness is never empty; it hums with life.
From a distance, the works may appear akin to realism, as if reality itself were gently lifted from the forest floor and pinned to canvas. Yet, as the viewer approaches, the illusion fractures. What may have appeared serene reveals a riot of detail—brushstrokes that mimic the chaos of wind‑tossed leaves, textures that echo the restless industry of bees buzzing about. This duality mirrors the experience of walking in the woods: the grandeur of treetops overhead, and, at your feet, a single ant bearing the improbable weight of a pine needle. Stillness, here, is not stasis; it is a layered complexity, a quiet teeming.
It is from this layered, breathing stillness of the natural world that the studio’s own quiet emerges. In the act of painting, thought slows to a near‑motionless drift, settling into a trance‑like, empty‑headed calm. The studio becomes a kind of interior forest—silent, attentive, stripped of urgency—where gesture arises without strain and decisions surface from a place beneath language. This meditative quiet is not separate from nature but echoes it, becoming another form of listening.
Immersion in nature is not an escape but a return. Silence is not absence, but presence amplified. Each painting becomes a vessel for this paradox—where calm and vitality coexist, where the infinite and the infinitesimal converse in colour and form.
In still*life, the viewer is invited to slow down, to look twice, to surrender to the tension between order and disorder. These works are not so much representations; they are translations of experience, carrying the scent of pine, the flicker of shadow, the pulse of unseen lives. They strive to remind that stillness is not the opposite of life—it is its most profound articulation.

Trailer Trash - Randall Anderson
2026-04-09 - 2026-05-17 | Arbor Gallery, 103 High St., Vankleek Hill, ON, K0B 1R0, Canada
Step into the world of Randall Anderson in Trailer Trash, a provocative exploration of high and low culture through personal and social lenses. Drawing on his upbringing in trailer parks, early work as a diesel mechanic, and extensive studies in critical theory and formalist painting, Anderson creates work that challenges conventional ideas of art and cultural value. His pieces blend everyday experience with formal experimentation, offering intimate and thought-provoking reflections on the spaces we inhabit and the ways we interpret them.

Dimensions - Annie-France Bowker
2026-04-09 - 2026-05-17 | Arbor Gallery, 103 High St., Vankleek Hill, ON, K0B 1R0, Canada
In Dimensions, Annie-France Bowker explores form, perception, and imagined landscapes through handwoven wall hangings. Her work navigates the space between the tangible and the abstract, where geometry meets intuition and structure gives way to otherworldly possibility. Weaving is a deeply meditative process for Bowker, and in its rhythm, she often finds herself transported into unfamiliar inner spaces. Each piece begins as a sketch and evolves on the loom into a kind of puzzle, guided by both logic and instinct. Though the process is not always exact, there is a moment when material, gesture, and intention align, and each work finds its form.

Nicole Allen | From the ground up
2026-04-11 - 2026-04-25 | Wall Space Gallery, 1090 Bank St, Ottawa, ON, K1S 3X5, Canada
Wall Space Gallery is proud to present From the Ground Up by Ottawa artist Nicole Allen. This exhibition reflects both a physical and emotional journey toward renewal and serves as a meditation on growth, resilience, and the transformative power of starting anew. Through her richly layered florals and botanical imagery, Allen explores the delicate interplay between vulnerability and strength, much like blossoms reaching toward the light after a long winter.
Born in Oakville, Ontario, Allen developed an early appreciation for painting the Canadian landscape through her father. The artist holds an undergraduate degree in Art History from Queen’s University, and an honours diploma in Applied Museum Studies from Algonquin College. Over the years, Allen has consistently developed her painting and figurative skills through her studies at the Ottawa School of Art and local art groups. Since beginning to exhibit her work in 2010, Allen has shown throughout the Ottawa region and now paints full-time from her studio as a member of the Loft Artists Collective. Her work is held in private collections across Canada, the United States, and Europe.

Kaitlin Johnson | Falling Back into Bloom
2026-04-11 - 2026-04-25 | Wall Space Gallery, 1090 Bank St, Ottawa, ON, K1S 3X5, Canada
Wall Space Gallery is delighted to present Falling Back into Bloom by Kaitlin Johnson. In this new body of work, Johnson revisits florals with a fresh perspective and a sense of freedom. Blending abstraction with representation, she approaches still life as a dynamic space for experimentation, where colour, pattern, and form can shift, overlap, and evolve. Each painting carries an air of mystery, encouraging viewers to take their time and discover their own personal connections. At its essence, the exhibition embodies openness, instinctual exploration, and the joy found in the creative process.
Born in Toronto, Kaitlin Johnson currently lives and works in Oakville, ON. Johnson works primarily in acrylics on canvas, creating dramatic abstract paintings that inspire joy. After completing her B.A. in Visual Arts from The University of Western Ontario, the artist obtained her art teaching degree from the University of Wollongong in NSW, Australia. Johnson’s artistic practice focuses on teasing out the beauty and raw emotion of each inspiration, drawing on rhythms and unique combinations of colour gathered through travel, nature, and anything else that catches her eye.
