Art In Ottawa

2024 Sobey Art Award Exhibition
2025-01-02 - 2025-04-06 | National Gallery of Canada, 380 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, ON, K1N 9N4, Canada
In partnership with the Sobey Art Foundation, the National Gallery of Canada is proud to present the works of six artists from across the country, each shortlisted for the 2024 Sobey Art Award.
The dynamic practices of these artists offer profound insights into themes of place, identity, community, and belonging. Taqralik Partridge (Inuk, Scottish) creates an installation that reflects the intergenerational significance of caribou for Inuit and Arctic Indigenous peoples, using an amautik (child-carrying garment) and video. Judy Chartrand (Cree) uses mixed media to challenge colonial narratives, racism, and stereotypes. Métis filmmaker Rhayne Vermette crafts poetic, multi-layered stories centered on family, home, distance, and identity. June Clark’s multidisciplinary approach explores the intersections of personal and family histories, memory, and identity. Nico Williams (Anishinaabe) reimagines everyday objects through collaborative beadwork sculptures, drawing on rich intergenerational practices. Mathieu Léger examines his Acadian heritage in a global context, exploring how ancestry shapes present experiences through physical actions.
A special complimentary publication featuring the six finalists will be available to all on-site visitors.
This exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Canada in collaboration with the Sobey Art Foundation.

The Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts 2024
2025-01-02 - 2025-03-23 | National Gallery of Canada, 380 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, ON, K1N 9N4, Canada
Founded in 1999, the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts (GGArts) honor the exceptional careers of Canadian artists. Administered by the Canada Council for the Arts, these prestigious awards recognize the achievements of artists, curators, and craftspeople who contribute to Canada’s dynamic visual and media arts community.
Each year, up to eight awards are presented: six for artistic achievement, one for excellence in fine crafts (the Saidye Bronfman Award), and one for significant contributions to contemporary visual arts, media arts, or fine crafts.
To celebrate this year’s honorees, the winners will showcase their work throughout the National Gallery’s contemporary and historical collections. From immersive installations in public spaces to interventions that challenge existing narratives within the permanent collection, the eight laureates present a fresh, thought-provoking perspective on the art of today.
This exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Canada in collaboration with the Canada Council for the Arts.

Breakaway
2025-01-02 - 2025-02-09 | Art Hub Gallery, 50 Bennett St, Carleton Place, ON, K7C 4J9, Canada
On January 2, 2025, the Art Hub Gallery will reopen its doors with an exciting new exhibition, BREAKAWAY, featuring the latest works from over 40 talented Arts Carleton Place artists. This fresh showcase offers a diverse array of creative expressions, including glass, ceramics, jewelry, oil paintings, acrylics, watercolors, photography, mixed media, and much more.
Whether you’re a seasoned art enthusiast or simply looking for a little peace and joy during the winter season, BREAKAWAY is the perfect opportunity to discover something new and inspiring. The exhibit celebrates both the artistic diversity and the vibrant spirit of our local art community, inviting visitors to connect with art that stirs the soul. Stop by the Art Hub Gallery to experience the creativity and passion of our artists—it’s a wonderful way to brighten your winter days with art that sparks joy and imagination.

Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction
2025-01-01 - 2025-03-02 | National Gallery of Canada, 380 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, ON, K1N 9N4, Canada
In the 20th century, textiles were often regarded as secondary—viewed as applied art, women’s work, or domestic craft. Woven Histories challenges these hierarchies by highlighting the vital role textiles have played in shaping fine art, particularly in the realm of abstraction. The exhibition brings together over 130 works by more than 45 artists from diverse backgrounds and generations, offering a rich exploration of weaving and related techniques within modernism, one of the 20th century’s defining art movements.
Visitors will encounter a range of textile techniques, including weaving, knitting, netting, knotting, and felting, while learning about the diverse motivations that have driven artists from Anni Albers to Rosemarie Trockel and Jeffrey Gibson (Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians/Cherokee Nation). Some artists use textiles to promote social change; others address pressing political issues. For many, textiles serve as both subject and material to critique or reinvigorate abstraction’s formal language, challenging its patriarchal history and gendered identity.
Woven Histories traces the often-overlooked thread of art history, uncovering the work of creators who have been marginalized due to their gender, race, or class.
The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in collaboration with the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Spaghetti Chorus
2024-12-30 - 2025-03-30 | National Gallery of Canada, 380 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, ON, K1N 9N4, Canada
Visitors are invited to speak into one of two microphones suspended at the ends of a long, glowing thread. As voices travel through shafts of color, they transform into a fusion of music and light, creating unique melodic moments.
Designed specifically for the National Gallery of Canada’s iconic Scotiabank Great Hall, Spaghetti Chorus is a new installment in Daily tous les jours’ Hello series. This series explores the music and harmonics of human speech through poetic messaging systems. In a world increasingly dominated by screens, Spaghetti Chorus uses the human voice to forge musical connections, inviting a deeper bond beyond words.

Hope
2024-12-24 - 2025-02-10 | CARDELREC Rec Centre, 1500 Shea Road, Stittsville, ON, K2S 0B2, Canada
A small art show featuring local artists.

Arteast Promenade - Winter Harmony
2024-12-20 - 2025-02-25 | Shenkman Arts Centre, 245 Centrum Blvd, Orléans, ON, K1E 0A1, Canada
Promenade Arteast is a permanent gallery space located on the lower level of the Shenkman Arts Centre.

Stories My Father Couldn’t Tell Me: Jeff Thomas Origin
2024-10-19 - 2025-03-16 | Ottawa Art Gallery, 50 Mackenzie King Bridge, Ottawa, ON, K1N 6E2, Canada
This exhibition delves into the critical and creative practices of Jeff Thomas, an Urban-Iroquois photographer, curator, activist, and cultural theorist. Through his work, we explore how Thomas’ artistic process—highlighted by artist proofs, archival materials, and a new series titled Dream Panels—reflects his authorship of his lived experience on this land. His work resists government designations and engages in activism and reflection, asserting Indigenous presence and sovereignty.
Since 1980, Thomas has challenged the exclusion of Indigenous histories, experiences, and sovereignties in urban environments, particularly in his hometown of Buffalo, NY. His early works, including street photography and portraits of his son, Bear, marked the beginning of his efforts to map the erasures and continuities of Indigenous knowledge. By recontextualizing archival images by colonial photographers like Edward S. Curtis and William James Topley, Thomas crafted complex narratives that countered historical misrepresentations.
The breadth of Thomas’ oeuvre reflects his expansive curiosity and the deep connections he sees between place and time. In Dream Panels, he revisits four decades of art-making, focusing on themes that have remained central to his practice: Indigenous masculinity, disability, fatherhood, and the intricate relationships between land, ancestors, and family. These panels underscore how these concerns have shaped his ongoing, rigorous exploration of identity and community.
This exhibition is part of a unique partnership between the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) and the Ottawa Art Gallery (OAG), committed to supporting the agency, self-determination, and cultural sovereignty of Indigenous artists, cultural producers, and communities.

Potency
2024-10-01 - 2025-01-31 | The Niche Ottawa Gallery, 1439 Youville Drive, Orleans, ON, K1C 4M8, Canada
Potency is defined as the power of something to influence or make an impression. The theme explores questions of identity, the topic of storytelling, and sharing artists’ unique lived experiences.

Rachel Kalpana JAMES Bright Oriental Star
2024-09-21 - 2025-06-08 | Ottawa Art Gallery, 50 Mackenzie King Bridge, Ottawa, ON, K1N 6E2, Canada
Dialogue between contemporary and historical art offers fresh perspectives on the past, and in this exhibition, South-Asian Canadian artist Rachel Kalpana James creates an immersive installation that illuminates a pivotal moment of East-West interaction in the early 20th century. Her work centers on Rabindranath Tagore’s 1929 visit to Canada. A renowned Indian poet and philosopher, Tagore’s ideas on spirituality and nature resonated deeply with audiences worldwide. While the impact of his visit on Canadian artists, particularly members of the Group of Seven such as Lawren S. Harris and Frederick Varley, has been largely overlooked, James’ installation offers a space to reconsider this overlooked influence.
Through a dynamic interplay of media, James pairs stylized footage of foliage with text from Tagore’s poetry and newspaper clippings documenting his Canadian visit. The pulsating words on screen, evocative of a heartbeat or a newsreel, create a sense of urgency and immediacy. Distorted images of iconic Canadian landscapes—reminiscent of Group of Seven works—subtly challenge the established artistic narrative. Projected onto a chalked background, the installation navigates the space between documentary and imagination, blurring the boundaries between history and fiction. By inviting viewers to question how history is shaped and perceived, James’ work encourages a critical re-examination of the complex relationship between colonial and national narratives in Canadian art.

Through the Ground Glass: Reframing William James Topley
2024-06-21 - 2025-02-09 | Ottawa Art Gallery, 50 Mackenzie King Bridge, Ottawa, ON, K1N 6E2, Canada
Through the Ground Glass explores a dialogue between the historical work of Ottawa photographer William James Topley and the practices of six contemporary artists: Lori Blondeau, Chun Hua Catherine Dong, Anique Jordan, Neeko Paluzzi, Adrian Stimson, and Geneviève Thauvette. These artists engage with image manipulation, hauntology, costumes, and theatricality to challenge established narratives and reclaim agency through portraiture.
Topley’s innovative use of the composite technique, similar to cut-and-paste collage, highlights photography’s power to construct compelling stories. In parallel, the contemporary artists in this exhibition draw on this principle to resist, deconstruct, and critique existing frameworks, creating works that envision and catalyze new possibilities for identity and representation.
