OPENING RECEPTION

February 21 | 7:00pm - 9:00pm

IN-PERSON EXHIBITION

Hallway Gallery | February 10  - March 2
White Studio | February 21 - February 23

ONLINE GALLERY CLOSES IN

SHIFTING FORMS 2025

Past Residency & Juried Show

VAM proudly presents Shifting Forms (Formerly Now Streaming), an annual juried exhibition showcasing emerging artists (18-29) from across the GTHA.

Co-curated by VAM’s Creative Residents, Maariyah Mohiuddin, Dianna Lawrynshyn, Lorelai Mckeown, and Joanna Konopka this exhibition highlights experimental practices and the ever changing forms of art.

Featuring a diverse range of mediums, from painting and sculpture to digital media and installation, the exhibition reflects the innovative and shifting landscape of emerging art today.

Join us in celebrating the next generation of creatives as they push the limits of form, concept, and materiality

VAM CREATIVE RESIDENTS

The artists participating in VAM’s Creative Residency 2024-2025 will serve as the jurors for this exhibition. With their varied backgrounds and artistic expertise, they have reviewed submissions and selected works that reflect creativity, technical skill, and artistic vision.

Maariyah Mohiuddin

Maariyah Mohiuddin is a recent graduate from OCAD University. Much of her practice involves depicting her Indian culture while also commenting on the intersectionality between her layered identities that overlap through the context of living in the west during a contemporary age. 

Diana Lawrynshyn

 Diana Nadia Lawryshyn is an emerging visual and sound artist with a paining style described as “tremulous” and “introspective”. Her practice is characterized by a willingness to let raw materials guide her, facilitating an organic expression of what lies dormant in her subconscious.

Lore McKeown

Lore McKeown is a sculptor and photographer who has recently graduated from the University of Toronto and Sheridan College’s Art and Art History program. Their work explores the intersections of naturalism, industrialism, and mysticism, embracing the philosophy that creating art for arts sake holds intrinsic value.

Joanna Konopka

Joanna Konopka is a print media artist, designer, curator, painter and filmmaker based in Mississauga, Canada. She recently interned at Images Festival in Toronto which has broadened her knowledge and practice in contemporary film and moving image making. It has inspired her to create art that can be viewed and understood globally through the simply communication of composition, colour and form. She is currently an artist resident at Visual Arts Mississauga where she hopes to continue building her portfolio and getting involved in the local art community.

Gallery

Sabr 2 

Vincent Horace
24 x 32
Acrylic, Oil Pastel, Ink Board, and Gold Leaf on Canvas

Growth

Nora Alkeyat
60
Parametric Digital Fabrication, 3D Printing

Within My Temple Lies a Home

Nilojan Jegatheeswaran
24 x 36 each
Digital Illustration

Green River

Shannon Bogert
7 x 240
Repurposed Skid Straps

Prince Zorah’s Tanakor

Amir Patros
18 x 24
Acrylic paint, Ink and Pencil crayon on Paper

Containment

Joshua Kennington
12 x 15
Mixed Media (Plastic, Metal, Harvested Grape Vine, Glue)

Depthless

Nahye Kim
8.7 x 12.2 x 2.4
Acrylic on Transparent Acrylic Boards

Vigil

Amelie Swayze
20 x 20
Oil on Canvas

All in Together Girls

Sierra Peca
23 x 36
Oil on Canvas

Sabr 2 

Vincent Horace
24 x 32
Acrylic, Oil Pastel, Ink Board, and Gold Leaf on Canvas

The figure in red holds a regal pose, similar to playing a Sitar, echoing the songs of persistence and patience of South Asian women and minorities. Holding a male peacock, or masculine energy, the figure shows the grace by which societal norms were handled and challenged, particularly by women. Mughal style architecture makes up the background and touches upon the roots of these expectations and norms, as a reminder where we came from.

Art Nouveau style floating lily pads and whimsical elements carry the excitement that the future holds, the evolutions of this culture. The wetland flora and fauna not only touch upon the geographical range of the land, but the symbolic substance by which society moves forward, in this case meaning. With this lens, the three “grounds” represent the past, present and future of my diaspora. Throughout all of these changes and expectations, South Asian women have waited patiently, Sabr Se, to receive their flowers. My upbringing involved many strong South Asian women and this piece is a thank you to them.

Much like my own identity, my process work is multi faceted, primarily working from stills from personal videos. Compositions, colour palettes, and edits are done digitally and transferred to traditional mixed media.

Growth

Nora Alkeyat
60
Parametric Digital Fabrication, 3D Printing

Process: A vital step in the process, the fabrication phase, allowed for the execution of the physical components and hardware factors of the design. It also set the stage for an imperative moment of research at Toronto Metropolitan University, through the utilization of all 8-Axis of Freedom on the KUKA150 robotic arm 3D printing.

Within My Temple Lies a Home

Nilojan Jegatheeswaran
24 x 36 each
Digital Illustration

This body of work was conceived alongside a written epic entitled “Nala: In Search of a Way,” and together comprise the culminating work of my Master of Architecture. Inspired by Hindu and Tamil storytelling, this work draws from historical and mythical imagery, illuminating the real and the surreal forces that guide me towards home.

Green River

Shannon Bogert
7 x 240
Repurposed Skid Straps

While working in a factory I have become very aware of the single use items required to manufacture the products of a large scale company. Out of guilt yet unsure what I would do with the waste, I began collecting the plastic straps that arrive in the facility holding skids of cardboard boxes together. Inspired by artists such as El Anatsui and Jackie Winsor, I played around with the plastic strapping’s form until I found a method that most interestingly transformed the material.

Prince Zorah's Tanakor

Amir Patros
18 x 24
Acrylic paint, Ink and Pencil crayon on Paper

Here, Prince Zorah is returning to his temporary lodging from a portal and quickly changes out of his crown and cape. The only person who sees him before he changes is Noor, a smiley bear, a companion he loves very much and who stays with him on every journey. Besides Noor, the prince doesn’t want anyone else inside to be able to see him as Prince Zorah. On his travels, he doesn’t mind if passerby’s see him, but when he is not exploring, not guarded by his disguise… he is afraid of those who truly see him. Letting go is inconceivable for Prince Zorah, but he doesn’t realize there is a power brewing inside of him and waiting for him. But one day, things are going to be very different.

Containment

Joshua Kennington
12 x 15
Mixed Media (Plastic, Metal, Harvested Grape Vine, Glue)

My work is an alternative interpretation of the conventional painting tackling representation of nature after being disassembled and recreated in a pictorial space. Working with grape vine, a species of vine native to Toronto and surrounding regions, and harvested while stewarding during the summer, I wanted to create a painting-like object which relied solely on the frame to give form and structure to this installation. The title refers to both this, and the fact that the grape vine, which makes up most of this work, is a species of vine known to occupy space over and even contain and constrict trees, shrubs and various landscapes if given the chance. So while it’s a native species, it can be very disruptive without management. I wanted to contrast this aggressive tendency by showing remnants of this vine, now fragmented and re-imagined within the confines of a picture frame.

Depthless

Nahye Kim
8.7 x 12.2 x 2.4
Acrylic on Transparent Acrylic Boards

This artwork is a three-dimensional painting depicting an ordinary swimming pool with fantastical elements within it. This work explores my personal childhood imaginations of everyday sceneries in reality. The depth of the pool is emphasised using the physical difference between each acrylic board, enhancing the water-like effect. I experimented with traditional and unconventional mediums of acrylic paint on acrylic boards, utilising the transparent surfaces similar to digital painting layers. A mysterious yet mystical atmosphere is amplified through the slow darkening and desaturation of the colour palette. Moreover, the juxtaposition between the outline of a normal shallow pool, depicted as 0.98 m deep, and the deep underwater scenery below highlights the other-wordly theme of the painting.

Relic

Amelie Swayze
20 x 20
Oil on Canvas

“Vigil” is a representation of my broader interest in ambiguity and the transformation of familiar objects into new, conceptual forms. I created this painting from three reference images of unrelated porcelain figurines and combined them to create a new visual narrative. This piece extends my ongoing exploration of how digital distortion and two dimensional means of portrayal can transform figurines into open-ended symbols, inviting dynamic interpretation. By disrupting the traditional perception of figurines, “Vigil” reflects my desire to challenge conventional narratives, merging the ornamental with the conceptual.

All in Together Girls

Sierra Peca
23 x 36
Oil on Canvas

This work is part of a larger focus on friendships and childhood that provide insight into nostalgia and banality. It seeks to create a scene that viewers can relate to based off of shared childhood experience, while portraying figures/characters that viewers may have inhabited as children. With this work, I hoped to experiment with an abstracted background to emphasize light but also to create a focus on the shared experiences of young girls.