Laura Hair
Laura M. Hair’s work is centrically nature based, following the developmental path of congruous structural designs in organic configurations, with specific consideration directed at the visual connection to the human form. The morphogenesis of shapes is realized in her mixed-media installations.
Laura is an honour graduate of the Creative Arts Program at
Georgian College School of Design and Visual Arts, Barrie. 2013 saw the inclusion of her art in a book promoting the Clarington region.
In 2012, she was among the first of seven Canadian artists to exhibit
work at The Beijing National Art Museum. Laura completed an Artist Residency at the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington and received the 2011 Executive Director’s Artist Recognition Award. Upcoming
exhibits include Watershed, a solo show at Georgian College and Filmic, an IRIS Group show at the Station Gallery, Whitby.
Recent exhibits include; IRIS in the Adirondacks, BluSeed Studios, Saranac Lake, New York; The Last Taboo, Zoomer Show, Exhibition
Place, Toronto; Fluid ll, Agnes Jamieson Gallery, Minden; Deviant
Detours, Kunsthaus Gallery, San Miguel, Mexico; The
Fiction and Self Portrait Projects, Brooklyn Art Library, New York; Fluid, Latcham Gallery, Stouffville. Other exhibits include solo and group shows throughout Ontario including the MacLaren Art Centre, Barrie, The Redhead Gallery, Toronto, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, The Station Gallery, Whitby and The Visual Arts Centre of Clarington. Hair designed and created the stage sets for the fundraiser, Dance for It, Atlantis, Ontario Place, Toronto and Windreach Farms, Whitby. Laura is currently a drawing instructor for the Media Art and Design School of Durham College, Oshawa. She has worked as an artist educator for ArtsSmart, a curriculum based learning project with the
Durham District School Board and as an instructor at various regional art institutions. Laura Hair is a founding member of the IRIS Group, a collective
of Durham Region artists, curators, instructors and writers.
Laura is an honour graduate of the Creative Arts Program at
Georgian College School of Design and Visual Arts, Barrie. 2013 saw the inclusion of her art in a book promoting the Clarington region.
In 2012, she was among the first of seven Canadian artists to exhibit
work at The Beijing National Art Museum. Laura completed an Artist Residency at the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington and received the 2011 Executive Director’s Artist Recognition Award. Upcoming
exhibits include Watershed, a solo show at Georgian College and Filmic, an IRIS Group show at the Station Gallery, Whitby.
Recent exhibits include; IRIS in the Adirondacks, BluSeed Studios, Saranac Lake, New York; The Last Taboo, Zoomer Show, Exhibition
Place, Toronto; Fluid ll, Agnes Jamieson Gallery, Minden; Deviant
Detours, Kunsthaus Gallery, San Miguel, Mexico; The
Fiction and Self Portrait Projects, Brooklyn Art Library, New York; Fluid, Latcham Gallery, Stouffville. Other exhibits include solo and group shows throughout Ontario including the MacLaren Art Centre, Barrie, The Redhead Gallery, Toronto, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, The Station Gallery, Whitby and The Visual Arts Centre of Clarington. Hair designed and created the stage sets for the fundraiser, Dance for It, Atlantis, Ontario Place, Toronto and Windreach Farms, Whitby. Laura is currently a drawing instructor for the Media Art and Design School of Durham College, Oshawa. She has worked as an artist educator for ArtsSmart, a curriculum based learning project with the
Durham District School Board and as an instructor at various regional art institutions. Laura Hair is a founding member of the IRIS Group, a collective
of Durham Region artists, curators, instructors and writers.
Judith A. Mason
Judith Mason is a practicing artist and art educator. She holds a BA in Cultural Studies; a BA in Education and is currently completing an MA in Art Theory. In conjunction with her academic work Mason has spent many years teaching art workshops using numerous approaches. Additionally she has studied textiles, ceramics, drawing and printmaking, sculpture, photography and has been involved in curatorial practice.
Much, if not most, of her work over the past three decades has been completed in and around Peterborough and in the Clarington area, not far from the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, known for its outstanding collection of Painters Eleven. Like Painters Eleven, Mason’s work is characterized by tensions between formal abstract minimalism and recognizable topographies. Her paintings draw parallels between structural abstraction and more conventional visualizations that might be likened to architectural blueprints or biological diagrams that illustrate cell division. Mason's work is rich and eclectic, reflecting both the influences of other contemporary artists and the panoramic scope of her multi-media exploratory history.
Much, if not most, of her work over the past three decades has been completed in and around Peterborough and in the Clarington area, not far from the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, known for its outstanding collection of Painters Eleven. Like Painters Eleven, Mason’s work is characterized by tensions between formal abstract minimalism and recognizable topographies. Her paintings draw parallels between structural abstraction and more conventional visualizations that might be likened to architectural blueprints or biological diagrams that illustrate cell division. Mason's work is rich and eclectic, reflecting both the influences of other contemporary artists and the panoramic scope of her multi-media exploratory history.
Mary Ellen McQuay
McQuay’s photographic practice includes black and white film and original silver gelatin prints. Recently she has made digital files from her silver gelatin prints and created large archival inkjet prints and installation works.”
Studied undergraduate fine art at Sir George William’s University (Concordia) in Montreal, PQ and fine art photography at The Maine Photographic Workshops in Rockport Maine, USA. Since 1983 she has participated in over 30 solo and group exhibitions, including: 2007 Order Inside Chaos, Station Gallery, Whitby ON, 2004 Markings Gallery Vertigo, Vernon, B.C., 2000 Memory and Nature: The Iris Group at the Millennium The Art Gallery of Northumberland, Cobourg, ON, 1998 Gros Morne by Foot, Sherman Hines Museum, Liverpool, N.S., 1994, 1991, 1990 Sacred Silences: Stone Circles and Megaliths The Station Gallery, Whitby ON, The Latcham Gallery, Stouffville, ON and The Rail’s End Gallery, Haliburton ON, 1993 Urban Photographics Urban Photographics Projects, traveling to several Canadian public galleries. , 1992 The Experience of Place: A Silent Language The Robert McLaughlin Gallery Oshawa ON, 1986 New Photographics Gallery 44 Toronto ON.
Mary Ellen has received several awards of excellence, including: 2012 Professional Women Photographers (USA) 36th International Exhibition, 2 honourable mentions selected by juror Mary Ellen Mark; 1993 Urban Photographics (Faces of Canada) 2 selections for the archives of the Museum of Civilization and 1986 National Association of Photographic Artists (Canada), 2 Judges Choice awards.
Her work is represented in the collections the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa ON and the archives of The Museum of Civilization, Ottawa ON, as well as numerous corporate and private collections. Images and writing have been featured in many publications including:
1996 The Callanish Standing Stones: A Stone Age Mystery The Globe and Mail
1996 Journeys Beyond the Lens Art Impressions
1992 Faces of Canada Urban Photographics Projects
1989 Oh Victoria! EnRoute
1986 As You Are Camera Canada
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Studied undergraduate fine art at Sir George William’s University (Concordia) in Montreal, PQ and fine art photography at The Maine Photographic Workshops in Rockport Maine, USA. Since 1983 she has participated in over 30 solo and group exhibitions, including: 2007 Order Inside Chaos, Station Gallery, Whitby ON, 2004 Markings Gallery Vertigo, Vernon, B.C., 2000 Memory and Nature: The Iris Group at the Millennium The Art Gallery of Northumberland, Cobourg, ON, 1998 Gros Morne by Foot, Sherman Hines Museum, Liverpool, N.S., 1994, 1991, 1990 Sacred Silences: Stone Circles and Megaliths The Station Gallery, Whitby ON, The Latcham Gallery, Stouffville, ON and The Rail’s End Gallery, Haliburton ON, 1993 Urban Photographics Urban Photographics Projects, traveling to several Canadian public galleries. , 1992 The Experience of Place: A Silent Language The Robert McLaughlin Gallery Oshawa ON, 1986 New Photographics Gallery 44 Toronto ON.
Mary Ellen has received several awards of excellence, including: 2012 Professional Women Photographers (USA) 36th International Exhibition, 2 honourable mentions selected by juror Mary Ellen Mark; 1993 Urban Photographics (Faces of Canada) 2 selections for the archives of the Museum of Civilization and 1986 National Association of Photographic Artists (Canada), 2 Judges Choice awards.
Her work is represented in the collections the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa ON and the archives of The Museum of Civilization, Ottawa ON, as well as numerous corporate and private collections. Images and writing have been featured in many publications including:
1996 The Callanish Standing Stones: A Stone Age Mystery The Globe and Mail
1996 Journeys Beyond the Lens Art Impressions
1992 Faces of Canada Urban Photographics Projects
1989 Oh Victoria! EnRoute
1986 As You Are Camera Canada
CLICK FOR MORE IMAGES
Margaret RodgersMargaret Rodgers is an Oshawa-based artist. Much of her work combines painting and photography, including both transfer processes and contact printing using solar sensitive dyes on vintage linens. In 2018 she exhibited solar prints at Fort St. John North Peace Museum, B.C. and at the Women's Art Association of Canada, Toronto. Other exhibition activity includes IRIS at 20+1 (CWSE) at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), IRIS at 20 RMG, FILMIC , Station Gallery, Whitby 2015, Closeups at RMG Oshawa 2015, No Man's Land (Erring on the Mount festival, Peterborough), The Tree Museum: Easy Come, Easy Go (AGP), WhiteOut, TAC Art/Work Gallery, Toronto, and OshawaSpaceInvaders, 2013-14. International exhibition activity includes Deviant Detours, Kunsthaus Gallery, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, Beijing World Art Museum, and the Lake Placid/Saranac Lake area, NY.
She is founder of the IRIS Group, a collective of women artists, formerly art professor at Durham and Centennial Colleges and Director/Curator at VAC Clarington. She is the author of Locating Alexandra (Toronto: ECW, 1995) about Painters Eleven artist Alexandra Luke, and is published in venues including OshaWhat, Art and Ecology, Sculpture, Urban Glass, Canadian Art, ESPACE, and the Journal of Canadian Studies. Her blog is at margaretrodgers.ca.
She was a member of Heritage Oshawa for several years and served on Oshawa's Cultural Leadership Council . She is a member of the Women's Art Association of Canada.
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www.margaretrodgers.ca
She is founder of the IRIS Group, a collective of women artists, formerly art professor at Durham and Centennial Colleges and Director/Curator at VAC Clarington. She is the author of Locating Alexandra (Toronto: ECW, 1995) about Painters Eleven artist Alexandra Luke, and is published in venues including OshaWhat, Art and Ecology, Sculpture, Urban Glass, Canadian Art, ESPACE, and the Journal of Canadian Studies. Her blog is at margaretrodgers.ca.
She was a member of Heritage Oshawa for several years and served on Oshawa's Cultural Leadership Council . She is a member of the Women's Art Association of Canada.
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www.margaretrodgers.ca
Janice Taylor-Prebble
An honor graduate of Georgian College and The Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto, with a year’s study in Florence, Italy.
Janice has been trained as a printmaker and painter with a focus on portraits in oils. Her recent work continues to create portraits in other media. Included below is “A History of Small Gatherings”, which displays hand prints collected from the International Women’s Day Celebrations. She is also an apprentice-electrician.
Recent exhibits include Iris in the Adirondacks at BluSeed Studios, Saranac Lake, New York, and Artsweek Peterborough 2010.
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Janice has been trained as a printmaker and painter with a focus on portraits in oils. Her recent work continues to create portraits in other media. Included below is “A History of Small Gatherings”, which displays hand prints collected from the International Women’s Day Celebrations. She is also an apprentice-electrician.
Recent exhibits include Iris in the Adirondacks at BluSeed Studios, Saranac Lake, New York, and Artsweek Peterborough 2010.
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Sally Thurlow
Sally Thurlow is a multi-disciplinary artist. She recently had a solo show at the Visual Arts Centre in Bowmanville, ON which will be traveling. This latest series of sculptures was brought into focus by a six week Artist in Residency program by the sea, in Newfoundland’s Gros Morne National Park. Her solo show, Canoe Dreamings finished a two year tour of six Ontario public galleries in 2008. Following the Canoe Dreamings series, this work is closely related in terms of cultural and environmental explorations. The work employs 3 separate, yet interconnected elements: driftwood figures, porcelain shards, and rock-shaped vessels as a repository for memory and reflection, all found where land meets water, offering us new meaning, while appreciating their origins and history. “Shorelines border one world with another, where the beachcomber’s harvest is exposed by nature’s rhythm in deep time. This flotsam and jetsam: what is it saying, washed up with twisted limbs, rusted protrusions, broken down compositions? Memory is embedded, ennobled by the process of ageing. From being tossed away or lost, then washed up, then recovered and restored to dignity and purpose, these forms represent a deeply human longing for reclamation. Like all of us, they are simply travellers through time, looking for meaning.” from RECLAMATION catalogue.
Sally grew up in rural Toronto. She has lived by the water most of her life. This has greatly influenced her her work as well as her BA majoring in Fine Arts from the University of Toronto, finishing with Cultural and Environmental Studies at Trent University, with significant earlier studies at OCAD and George Brown College. She has given numerous talks and workshops at Trent U and in schools, public galleries, and for private groups. She has been the recipient of numerous Ontario Arts Council Awards, and is a member of The Iris Group and The Red Head Gallery, both artists’ collectives. Her work is held in private collections across Canada. For more information please visit her website: www.sallythurlow.com and You Tube: Sally Thurlow, for a four minute video.
CLICK for exhibition brochure for SALLY THURLOW: AT THE ROOT, March 4 -28, 2015 at RedHead Gallery, Toronto,
www.sallythurlow.com
Sally grew up in rural Toronto. She has lived by the water most of her life. This has greatly influenced her her work as well as her BA majoring in Fine Arts from the University of Toronto, finishing with Cultural and Environmental Studies at Trent University, with significant earlier studies at OCAD and George Brown College. She has given numerous talks and workshops at Trent U and in schools, public galleries, and for private groups. She has been the recipient of numerous Ontario Arts Council Awards, and is a member of The Iris Group and The Red Head Gallery, both artists’ collectives. Her work is held in private collections across Canada. For more information please visit her website: www.sallythurlow.com and You Tube: Sally Thurlow, for a four minute video.
CLICK for exhibition brochure for SALLY THURLOW: AT THE ROOT, March 4 -28, 2015 at RedHead Gallery, Toronto,
www.sallythurlow.com
Wendy Wallace
Wendy Wallace is a graduate of the University of Toronto and Sheridan College where she received a Bachelor of Arts with a Specialist in Visual Studies and Major in Art History (1984). She received a scholarship in 1985 from the Banff Centre's School of Fine Arts where she completed an independent study session. In 2009 Wallace continued her studies receiving a Bachelor of Education from the University of Ontario, Institute of Technology.
The Robert McLaughlin Gallery in 1994 purchased A Cultural Symbol Of life in Durham Region, for their permanent collection.
In 1997 her work was chosen for Art on Public Lands Competition, and the resulting work, Symbiosis, was exhibited at the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington, 1998-99. This work was installed on the exterior grounds of the Robert McLaughlin Gallery during her solo exhibition Evolving Artefacts, 1999 and remained there till 2005.
Wallace's work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions including The Station Gallery, Whitby Arts Inc., Doris McCarthy Gallery, University of Toronto, Scarborough College, Durham Art Fest, Visual Arts Centre of Clarington, the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Art Gallery of Northumberland, Kent Farndale Gallery, Latcham Gallery, Downtown Oshawa, Red Head Gallery, Toronto, Kunsthaus Gallery, Brooklyn Library, New York and recently at Hamilton Artists Inc.
Wallace has received individual artist grants from the Ontario Arts Council and project grants from the Canada Arts Council to create and further develop bodies of work. Since 1999 Wallace has received the Ontario Arts Council, Artist in Education Grant sharing her art practice with students across Ontario.
Wendy Wallace's images reflect on subjects that play with the metaphorical narrative. Her work challenges environmental relationships of living creatures, plants, architecture and the manufactured object resulting in a residual imprint of activities. Wallace’s work creates narratives of these observations and challenges the interrelationships of architecture, industry, people and nature. The work embodies a social consciousness; images cruise through the consequences of roles subjects play in the landscape centered on the impact of the narrative.
Discovering the everyday in cities and towns raises the significance while searching for cultural similarities and differences. Overall her work identifies the urban/rural/suburban landscapes as cultural symbols. www.wendywallace.ca