Art Exhibition: Of Wonders, Wild and New

Artist Biography:

Bre Shanahan (she/they) lives and works on the traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Mississaugas. Working primarily in sculpture and drawing, her practice investigates problematic dualisms through sustained material inquiries. The work manifests as concentrated chapters–extended investigations into specific mediums and methods that reveal complexities embedded in binary thinking.

Beyond the studio, Shanahan’s practice extends into pedagogical and community-engaged work, treating the gallery as a site for collaborative knowledge production.

Shanahan holds an MFA from Concordia University (2019) and a BA from the University of Toronto (2014). A SSHRC recipient (2017), her artist-teacher collective STAC received a SSHRC grant in 2025. Residencies include programs in Austria, China and North Carolina. Currently she is an inaugural resident artist at the Art Gallery of Burlington, member of Assembly Gallery Artist Collective (Hamilton) and Quite Ourselves Artist Collective (Montreal), maintaining a studio practice at the Cotton Factory.

Description of Work:

Flux Forest transforms everyday Canadian plastic objects into a sculptural pseudo-woodland fabricated in wood. Employing traditional woodworking and digital fabrication, the installation invites viewers to reconsider ubiquitous disposable items through material translation. Tree trunks formed from stacked bottles, foliage from fence patterns, and wooden “microplastics” compose an immersive ecosystem.

The title invokes plastics’ thermoplastic flux—their capacity for endless reshaping that enabled post-war disposable culture. Both plastic and wood share designed invisibility, blending seamlessly into their surroundings. Yet these wooden sculptures will degrade over time, proving paradoxically weaker than their petroleum-based originals—confronting the normalization and invisibility of waste in our natural environments.

Artist Biography:

Ericka Walker received a B.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an MFA from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. She lives and works in Nova Scotia, Canada, where she is an Associate Professor at NSCAD University.

Walker’s practice operates on vernacular histories of the graphic arts. Her print works and site-specific murals subvert the propagandistic function of nostalgia in contemporary culture, disputing the civilizing influence and assumed moral authority of nation building in North America. Walker exhibits widely throughout North America and internationally. Her prints are housed in multiple public and private collections and have been selected for numerous awards.

Description of Work:

This set of prints, and their corresponding carved woodblocks, illustrate four distinct explosions drawn from the history of Canadian military activities, resource extraction, and logistics accidents. There exists a point of tension where such acts of state-sponsored or otherwise capital-driven destruction meet the Earth and the forces unleashed expand up- and outwards, resolving in a beguiling, temporarily-suspended swirl of cloud physics, particulate, and light. These light/dark qualities are captured essentially in the simple woodcut printmaking techniques employed.”

Artist Biography:

Kelsey Powless is an Indigenous woodworker from Six Nations of the Grand River. Her passion for woodworking started in 2018; having never operated a power tool in her life, Kelsey quickly learned her way around a scroll saw. 3 months later, Kelsey brought Powless + Co. to life. Over the last 6 years, Kelsey has created these one-of-a-kind art pieces in her mind and brings them to life with her hands. Through her crafts(wo)manship it has been the mission of Powless + Co. to assist in the revitalization of Indigenous culture and languages. At its core, this will always be an area of eternal learning; however, Kelsey believes that her art can spark the necessary conversations towards revitalization.

Description of Works:

Goldyn

As the sun drifts toward the horizon, there is a brief moment when everything is transformed; Edges soften, shadows lengthen, and the world is bathed in warmth. Goldyn captures that fleeting pause in time: the golden hour.

This mosaic echoes the quiet rhythm of a setting sun. Layers of warm honey and amber move through this piece like light passing through the sky, while the natural black walnut ground the piece, mirroring the silhouettes that emerge as daylight fades.

Goldyn emulates the feeling of the calm, reflective glow that arrives just before dusk. It’s that moment of gratitude, transition, and beauty that asks us to slow down and be present.

Midnight

When the world quiets and light recedes, a different kind of glow emerges. Subtle, steady, yet profound. Midnight is an homage to that hour when darkness is not empty, but full.

Anchored in deep charcoal, inky blues, and muted earth tones, this mosaic reflects the soft illumination that lives within the night itself. At its core, Midnight speaks to introspection; a reminder that stillness holds movement, and darkness carries its own form of light.

Midnight is not the absence of light, but its transformation. It’s exudes a calm, enduring glow that exists only when the stillness of the night is fully embraced.

Dawn

Dawn captures the first quiet breath of the day. That tender moment when night releases its hold and light begins to return; where stillness and movement meet at the horizon.

This design is intentional yet unhurried, echoing the way morning light stretches slowly across the land. This is not the brightness of midday, but the promise of it.

Dawn invites reflection on beginnings: fresh starts, softened edges, and the calm clarity that exists before the world grows loud.

Sky

Sky is a celebration of daylight in its fullest expression; open, expansive, and alive with movement. This mosaic captures the energy that arrives once the sun has fully risen, when colour sharpens, and the world feels wide with possibility.

At the heart of Sky is balance and brilliance. Armed with a steady center from which vitality radiates. This composition emulates the vibrancy that each new day brings.

It is a tribute to brightness without restraint — a reminder that daylight is not just seen, but felt.

Artist Biography:

Marc Sparfel was born in 1972 in Brittany, North-West of France. He spent his childhood in the countryside, in front of the sea. His first contact with art was through his father’s books on Prehistory, Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece.

After graduating in Commerce, he subsequently completed his civil service by working as a technician in a puppet theatre. At the age of 23 he entered an Art School.

In 1999 he moved to Barcelona, Spain, where he still lives today. Being immediately intrigued by the sheer amount of wood abandoned in the streets, he gradually began to incorporate this material into his sculptures. First, he used furniture in a long series of masks, animals and mythological beings. Now, using simple wood scraps, he is building geometrical and abstract constructions.

His work has been exhibited in Spain, France, Germany, the United States, Israel, The Netherlands, the UAE and Denmark.

Description of Work:

I’m making constructions with reclaimed wood, somewhere between an architectural model and a cabin, a map or even a landscape. I work by improvisation, trying to work quickly and intuitively, without overthinking. It’s a volume work, without any figurative reference, searching for new forms.

I occupy the space with the material and play with presence and emptiness, and then I let the piece grow so that other pieces come and form a family. During the creative process, I spin stories freely in my head, without any intention of telling those stories to others, but just as an internal conversation to feed my creative energy.

I don’t know exactly what my work is about, but I like it that way, that there is a hidden part to discover, it’s a mystery to me. I try to find intuitive directions for my sculpture that overcome the need to be explained, aspiring to connect with the preverbal childlike nature present in each of us.

Artist Biography:

Born in Bressanone in 1957, Willy Verginer is a world-renowned Italian contemporary artist. He initially trained in painting at the Art Institute of Ortisei, and after graduating in the 1980s, he was drawn to the rich woodcarving tradition of his native Val Gardena. Determined to forge his own path, Verginer adopted a self-directed approach to learning, deliberately stepping beyond conventional artistic norms. His work continues to merge traditional craftsmanship with contemporary perspectives and forms.

From 1984 to 1989, Verginer taught at the Professional School of Selva. The early 2000s marked a breakthrough in his career, as he developed and first exhibited his distinctive figurative sculptures, characterized by the juxtaposition of untreated lindenwood and bold, vibrant colors. This innovative approach propelled his career forward. In 2011, he represented Trentino Alto Adige at the Venice Biennale. In the years that followed, his work was shown at prestigious venues including the Biennale Italia – Cina in the Villa Reale in Monza, the First Annual Collectors Contemporary Collaboration at the Hong Kong Arts Center, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Lissone, the Biennale Gherdëina, the Ianchelevic Museum in La Louvière, Belgium, and the Galleria Civica of Trento. His work is represented in galleries and collections around the globe, including the Canada, the United States, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

Deeply influenced by his upbringing in the stunning natural environment of the Dolomites and by growing environmental concerns, 2017 marked another turning point in Verginer’s practice. His work increasingly explores environmental themes and the impact of human activity on nature. Since then, he has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions at institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow, the Zhejiang Art Museum, the Hangzhou Wuhan Art Museum, the Guangdong Museum of Art in China, and the Ithra Museum in Saudi Arabia.

Willy Verginer lives and works in Ortisei, Italy

Artist Biography:

Renée Condo (b. 1979, Gesgapegiag, QC; lives and works in Tiohtià:ke, Montréal, QC) holds a BFA in Studio Arts and an MFA in Sculpture from Concordia University. Condo’s solo exhibitions include One who shatters particles, one who smells flowers, Blouin Division, Montreal, QC (2025); Shifting Perspectives, Warren G. Flowers Gallery, Montreal, QC (2023); Sisip-Sipu, Knowing Differently, Contemporary Native Art Biennial (BACA), Galerie Laroche/Joncas, Montreal, QC (2022). Her work has been included in group exhibitions including a duo exhibition, A Quiet Truth, at Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2024); Honoring Kinship, BACA, Art Mûr, Montreal, QC (2020) among others.

Condo’s work can be found in numerous public and private collections including the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, QC; The University of Toronto, Toronto, ON; RBC Bank, Toronto, ON; Scotiabank, Toronto, ON; TD Bank, Toronto, ON; LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Beijing, China; and Telus, Toronto, ON. Including public artworks in Laval and Gesgapegiag, QC. She is currently a laureate of Fonderie Darling’s long-term residency program.

Description of Work:

Renée Condo’s practice often explores the relationship of part and whole—how each element belongs to something larger, while the larger also resides within each part.

She turns to the Mi’gmaq Sky World, exploring cyclical time, creation as continuous becoming, the presence of ancestors and spirit, and the idea that different realms are distinct but not entirely separate – connected through portals and thresholds that invite reflection on continuity and transformation.

Mi’gmaq law is based on heart knowledge, the understanding that how one feels about something is more important than how one thinks about it. Research now suggests that humans have between 22 and 33 senses, far beyond the five usually acknowledged. For Condo, this affirms the deep wisdom of prioritizing feeling—an approach that engages our whole selves.

With this understanding, she is very aware of the energetic state when handling her materials. Her intention is to infuse the work with care and love, with the hope that this can be felt by the viewer. Condo hopes people take away a feeling above all—a sense of vast interconnectedness, of belonging to something greater. She also hopes the work helps us question our own ingrained paradigms and creates space for the perspectives of others, opening the possibility of relating differently to one another and to the world around us.

In searching for answers about how everything is connected—beyond her own feelings and intuitions – Condo first turned to quantum physics. Ideas like wave-particle duality and entanglement felt familiar, almost like memory. She later recognized that these principles were also integral to a Mi’gmaq worldview. Not having been raised in an explicit Mi’gmaq consciousness due to historical disruptions, this realization came later in life. Today, as her connection to Mi’gmaq worldview and cosmology deepens, she uses quantum physics as a point of comparison, choosing instead to highlight a Mi’gmaq perspective on space and time.