OPENING RECEPTION

January 24 | 7:00pm - 9:00pm

IN-PERSON EXHIBITION

Hallway Gallery | January 13  - January 26
White Studio | January 24 - January 26

WHY DO YOU CREATE?

  • See Past Shows

    • Why Do You Create? 2025 Juried Exhibition provides artists with an opportunity to reflect on the motivations and significance behind their creative practices. This exhibition also served as a platform for Ontario artists to present their work alongside their peers, while offering art enthusiasts the chance to discover the exceptional talent within the visual arts community.

    This year’s show features a carefully curated collection of 50 works, selected by jurors: Sue Archibald, Jo Yetter, and Daniella Williams. Each piece offers a unique perspective on the exhibition theme, revealing the personal stories that inspire the artists’ expression.

    We invite you to explore this inspiring exhibition, connect with the artists’ visions, and celebrate the diverse and dynamic creativity within Ontario’s visual arts landscape.

    VAM JURORS 2025

    Daniella Williams

    Daniella Williams is a Toronto-based figurative painter whose work captures intimate, unpolished moments of daily life. Through expressive brushwork and a warm palette, she explores themes of intimacy, vulnerability, and voyeurism, blending personal memories with art history influences. Williams’ work, exhibited across North America, blurs the line between public and private, inviting viewers to reflect on the act of looking. Educated at the University of Guelph and New York Academy of Art, she continues expanding her practice and fascination with the human form.

    SEE WEBSITE

    Sue Archibald

     Sue Archibald, a graduate of the University of Guelph with specializations in painting, drawing, and printmaking, has expanded her studies at institutions like Grant McEwen School of Design, the Toronto School of Art, and the Haliburton School of Fine Arts. A member of the Society of Canadian Artists (2024) and the Ontario Society of Artists (2020), she was recognized as an Established Artist finalist for the Marty Awards in 2018 and 2019, winning in 2019. In 2023, Sue curated eight unique exhibitions for Summer and Grace Gallery. Her works are displayed in private and international collections across North America and Europe. 

    SEE WEBSITE

    Jo Yetter

    Jo Yetter is a cross-disciplinary artist whose practice centers on reciprocity with materials and language. Working with text, care, propagation, printmaking, objects, and place, Jo’s work embodies stillness, gathering, and nurturing, reflecting a unique, un/a-gendered form of mothering shared with inanimate beings. Rooted in care as maintenance and nourishment, Jo completed their MFA at York University, where they were awarded the CGS Master’s Scholarship.

    SEE WEBSITE

    Gallery

    Elevators

    Alexander Robinson
    2024
    36 x 24 in
    Acrylic and wax pastel on canvas

    1st Place

    Philosophizing

    Bernardo Cioppa
    2024
    18 x 21 in
    Photography, stock paper

    2nd Place

    The Exchange

    Vincent Horace
    2024
    30 x 40 in
    Acrylic and Oil Pastel on Canvas

    3rd Place

    Mother Earth

    Attila Keszei
    2024
    16 x 12 x 15 in
    Raku-fired ceramic

    Honourable Mention

    Digital Madonna

    Judith Hart
    2024
    23 x 30 in
    MIXED MEDIA/3D COLLAGE

    Honourable Mention

    The Pond in Winter

    Julian Toh
    2023
    12 x 18 in
    Fine Art Giclee Print

    Melody for Today

    Arthur Sciberras
    2024
    20 x 24 in
    Arylic on Canvas

    Edgar

    Mark Sterling
    2024
    9 x 12 in
    Watercolour on cold pressed paper

    Auden (Fallen Angels)

    Jane Garcia
    2023
    8.25 x 13.5 x 8.25 in
    white clay, enamels

    Elevators

    Alexander Robinson
    2024
    36 x 24 in
    Acrylic and wax pastel on canvas

    Alexander Robinson is a multidisciplinary artist based in Toronto. Robinson utilizes afro picks and their function of detangling to explore themes of belonging, conformity, and self-discovery. Bringing a sense of playfulness and nostalgia to his work, he’s influenced by the vibrant city life of his upbringing and the video games of his youth. Throughout his practice, Robinson examines the knots within our psyches and the unraveling of tangled expressions to reach sincere human truths.

    Growing up in apartment buildings amidst the ongoing Eglinton Crosstown construction, I was surrounded by all kinds of signs—construction, road, and pedestrian signs, but also symbolic signs of opportunity and intuition. In my work, I become these signs, not to instruct but to feel and express. Carving into shades of brown, I share pieces of myself, creating a visual language that connects with my roots and resonates within me and others.

    Philosophizing

    Bernardo Cioppa
    2024
    18 x 21 in
    Photography, stock paper

    I’m inspired by random incidents of people being or doing intriguing things. As such, street photography speaks to me. My approach is more inspirational than the mastering of technique. I like to think I’m making a one frame movie where, ideally, the photo will tell a story or prompt questions about the scene. I’m trying to capture that poignant moment before it is forever gone. You need to be decisive taking into consideration several calculations from composition to direction of light, to subject matter. And mixed with a little luck, hopefully catch the moment.

    The Exchange

    Vincent Horace
    2024
    30 x 40 in
    Acrylic and Oil Pastel on Canvas

    This piece starts my story, historically, as a contemporary artist of the South Asian diaspora. This piece looks at India’s colonization and movement of people, which resulted in the existence of me. I draw meaning through my Pakistani Christian background and search for self identity.

    Lahore rugs were high quality hand knotted rugs from the border regions of present day Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Chobi rug in the background accurately depicts two “breathing squares” (in reference to ‘Habibi’ by Craig Thompson), representing my own two identities as a Pakistani Canadian.

    These style of rugs were found exquisite by British colonizers. The designs of the South East made their way to Britain, and were widely used there. In the present day, Axminister continues to make these pattern rugs, but with a variance in technique.

    The red dress representing blood spilled on the Axminister rug nods to an exchange between these two cultures.

    The figure in red holds a white china cup making the same nod, through the traditional tea set on the table. Both exist, and had to, for me to exist.

    Runa Islam’s “Be the First To See What You See as You See It” is referenced in this piece, relating the Crown to fine white china, shattered near the table.

    Two leopards represent strength, class and resilience, of the land and peoples of the Indian sub continent that were colonized and displaced. All three figures represent the new borders of India, following the end of the British Raj.

    Mother Earth

    Attila Keszei
    2024
    16 x 12 x 15 in
    Raku-fired ceramic

    Art, more than any other form of human expression serves as a repository of human experience in any given society at any given time. Earth, as an entity, is experiencing stresses from many different angles. Cracks appear at many places on its body due to celestial, tectonic, or maybe even human activities. I wanted to use the Raku-firing technique’s known crackling manifestation to indicate those stresses on our beautiful planet, on Earth.

    DIGITAL MADONNA

    Judith Hart
    2024
    23 x 30 in
    MIXED MEDIA/3D COLLAGE

    Digital Madonna is a visual tale of the current ‘Zeitgeist’: digital transformation of humans and merging their environment. AI is disrupting how we relate to our own humanity, socially as well as, to our changing social and natural environment.

    This work (among many others) is a social conversation piece, intended to raise awareness about the dangers of AI and how it encroaches and fades out our humanness. The hardware/motherboard background is in stark contrast to the little clay Madonna holding a dove and a flower in her hands, reminding us of being the guardian of our beautifully expressed humanity vs. the ‘machine’, the electronic world of bits and bytes that, although very useful, powerfully structured, still totally devoid of humanness. The little, hidden messages created from discarded computer and calculator parts remind us to be aware of some of the dangers of this technology 4.0 transformation and guard our hearts (besides further developing our thinking/skills in the digital era.

    Finally, my art also serves as a reminder of reuse, repurpose and recycle, thus all these electronic parts of masterful carriers of new meaning, will NOT end up in the landfills, but in peoples’ homes enabling them to find new meaning, staying playful in their own storytelling and alleviating fear of the ‘new world’ of digital transformation.

    I love to create because my art serves not only as an aesthetic outlet for my creativity, but as a vehicle of transformation for the community (workshops: The Art of Junk), who enjoys their own ‘meaning-making’ activities by participating or simply just viewing my stories told in mixed media.

    The Pond in Winter

    Julian Toh
    2023
    12 x 18 in
    Fine Art Giclee Print

    I create through photography as a form of storytelling. My love for this art form comes from being able to communicate visually and to tell a story words simply cannot. Utilizing various photographic techniques, I capture seemingly ordinary moments and transform them into moments I refer to as “beauty in the everyday”. This photo, I feel, captures that very essence as it conveys the beauty and textures of a half frozen pond with the emotions and atmosphere of early winter.

    Melody for Today

    Arthur Sciberras
    2024
    20 x 24 in
    Arylic on Canvas

    This painting began as a celebration of the beauty and joy of music—a tribute to the transformative power of melody and rhythm. It evolved into a reflection on one of music’s deeper role: its ability to transcend tragedy and endure even in the face of catastrophe. Set against today’s backdrop of places ravaged by conflict, where nuclear doctrines are rewritten and chaos reigns, the painting captures the delicate balance between music’s ability to uplift and the harsh realities of contemporary strife. In this fusion of joy and despair, the piece stands as both a tribute to the enduring power of art and a call for awareness of the world’s ongoing struggles.

    Edgar

    Mark Sterling
    2024
    9 x 12 in
    Watercolour on cold pressed paper

    Artist Statement: “Edgar” by Mark Sterling

    Born in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania in 1956, I live in Toronto’s Parkdale neighbourhood with my wife Colleen. I am more or less retired from careers in architecture, urban design and planning, and from teaching in those fields at the Universities of Toronto and Waterloo.

    I consider myself to be a draughtsman rather than a painter. I am primarily interested in the topography of the human face as a subject for scrutiny. I generally explore this through portraits of people I love and/or admire.

    I spend a considerable time examining photographs of my subjects, which I make myself when possible. Initially, I prepare detailed black and white drawings, which I consider to be maps – usually with a sharp 2H pencil. I consider this stage to be a “constructed” moment. When it seems appropriate, I “freeze” the process here, with the addition of some details in a softer pencil.

    A number of watercolour washes over the drawing with a wet-on-dry technique allow me to explore elective affinities of line, colour and tone.

    From time to time, I work in landscape and still life and for a certain period during the Covid 19 pandemic I painted only fish.

    Edgar, the subject of my submission, is a lovely man, who I see almost every day, who was kind enough to let me make his portrait. I enjoyed spending time with his image while making the drawing and seeing his reaction when I showed him the finished work.

    Instagram: acronym111

    Auden (Fallen Angels)

    Jane Garcia
    2023
    8.25 x 13.5 x 8.25 in
    white clay, enamels

    I was born with an undeniable compulsion to create, but for the last decade, I’ve found myself musing about the strange reasons people make the dreadful decisions they do. This piece, ‘Auden’, depicts a Fallen Angel. We don’t know what happened to him or why, but we can all empathize with that pointy-sharp moment of failure where shock, grief, regret and reality all set in. In Auden we also see, in his powerful form and the control in his horizontal posture, a refusal to collapse. This is but a suspended heartbeat before the strength and resilience of the human spirit will pull him back up to meet his consequences and press onward in his journey.