WHO DEFINES CANADIAN ART?
Canadian artists paint our landscapes, our cities, our people and our experiences. They work across painting, photography, sculpture, abstraction, realism and countless other forms of expression. Some were born here. Some chose Canada as home. Some draw inspiration from Canadian traditions, while others challenge them entirely.
This fall, Donna Child Fine Art Gallery explores that question through three exhibitions bringing together contemporary gallery artists and significant historical Canadian works.
Together, they consider where Canadian art has come from, who we are today—and where we might be going.
There may not be one answer. And perhaps that’s the point.
Landscape has long played a central role in Canadian art—but our relationship to place is never singular.
Where We Come From explores Canada’s enduring relationship with landscape through artists who reinterpret place through memory, atmosphere and individual perspective.
PART ONE — WHERE WE COME FROM
Place. Landscape. Memory.
GARTH ARMSTRONG
Armstrong’s impressionistic landscapes speak directly to Canada’s enduring relationship with the natural world. His paintings are grounded in specific places, yet shaped by personal observation and memory—reminding us that landscape is not simply geography, but an individual experience of place.
C.A. HENRY
Henry approaches the Canadian landscape through a distinctive contemporary lens, transforming the familiar into something expressive and deeply personal. His inclusion considers how artists inherit the tradition of landscape painting while continuing to reshape it through their own visual language.
GEZA KOKAI
Kokai’s work brings an expressive and often unexpected sensibility to familiar subjects. Within Where We Come From, his paintings demonstrate how memory, observation and imagination can transform our experience of place—moving landscape beyond documentation toward something emotional and individual.
VICTORIA PEARCE
Pearce reimagines landscape through her intricate, labyrinth-like visual language. Natural forms become patterns, pathways and rhythms, offering a distinctly contemporary interpretation of the Canadian environment and challenging us to look at familiar landscapes in entirely new ways.
LESZEK WYCZOLKOWSKI
Wyczolkowski reduces landscape to its essential forms, rhythms and relationships. His work demonstrates how the Canadian landscape can move beyond traditional representation into abstraction—while still retaining a powerful sense of place, atmosphere and connection to the natural world.
Canada has never had just one story—and neither has Canadian art.
Who We Are shifts the conversation from place to people, bringing together artists whose work explores identity, memory and lived experience. Personal, cultural and universal, these perspectives reveal the many stories that shape how we see ourselves—and Canadian art.
PART TWO — WHO WE ARE
People. Stories. Perspectives.
CEM BASARIR
Basarir brings a distinctly contemporary and individual perspective to the exhibition. His work reflects the idea that Canadian identity is not singular or fixed, but shaped by different experiences, influences and ways of seeing—an important part of the evolving story of Canadian art.
TOLLER CRANSTON
Cranston embodied an extraordinarily individual vision of Canadian identity. Artist, athlete, performer and storyteller, he resisted easy categorization. His highly personal imagery reminds us that Canadian art can be shaped as much by imagination, experience and individuality as by geography or tradition.
CHARLES MALINSKY
Malinsky’s figurative work places people and human experience at the centre of the conversation. Through gesture, character and narrative, his paintings explore the complexities of identity and our relationships with one another—giving visual form to stories that can be both intensely personal and universally recognizable.
KATERINA MERTIKAS
Mertikas transforms everyday Canadian life into colourful narratives of family, community and shared experience. Her distinctive naïve style celebrates ordinary moments as meaningful ones, making her work a natural expression of Who We Are: the stories of people, neighbourhoods and memories that collectively shape our sense of home.
RICK TAYLOR
Taylor finds his subjects in the streets, storefronts and everyday rhythms of Toronto. His work records the places people inhabit and the urban experiences they share, reminding us that Canadian identity is shaped not only by wilderness and landscape, but by cities, communities and daily life.
If Canadian art isn’t defined by a single style or tradition, where does it go next?
Where We’re Going looks to what comes next, bringing together artists who reimagine familiar subjects, explore new materials and forms, and approach tradition from distinctly individual perspectives. Together, their work expands our understanding of what Canadian art can be—and what it might become.
PART THREE — WHERE WE’RE GOING
Tradition. Reinvention. Imagination.
CHRIS GORDANEER
Gordaneer expands the conversation beyond painting through photography, bringing a contemporary visual language to the series. His inclusion reflects the continuing evolution of Canadian art across media and demonstrates how artists can reconsider familiar subjects through new ways of framing, observing and interpreting the world.
SARAH GRANT
Grant’s ceramic practice brings together natural inspiration, material and form. Her work moves the exhibition decisively into three dimensions, demonstrating how contemporary Canadian artists are expanding traditional craft processes into sculptural practices that blur the boundaries between fine art, design and the handmade.
INUIT SCULPTORS
Inuit sculpture represents a vital and continually evolving voice within Canadian art. Rooted in cultural knowledge, material and storytelling while responsive to changing artistic practices, these works challenge any simple division between tradition and innovation—demonstrating that the two can exist powerfully together.
RAYNALD LECLERC
Leclerc demonstrates that looking forward does not require abandoning tradition. Drawing upon the long history of Canadian landscape painting, he brings atmosphere, light and an unmistakably individual sensibility to a familiar subject—showing how established traditions remain relevant when continually reinterpreted by new generations.
BRENDA MCCAFFERTY
McCafferty approaches familiar subjects through vibrant colour, expressive composition and a strongly individual point of view. Her work illustrates how contemporary artists can take recognizable traditions and make them distinctly their own—reinvention driven not by rejecting the past, but by seeing it differently.
LAYNE VERBEEK
Verbeek’s work in glass embodies experimentation, material and transformation. By using light, colour and the physical properties of glass as integral parts of the work, his practice expands the conventional boundaries of Canadian art and points toward the possibilities that emerge when artists embrace different materials and processes.
HOW WILL THE NEXT GENERATION DEFINE CANADIAN ART?
Landscape still matters.
Tradition still matters.
But so do photography, sculpture, abstraction, cities, communities, personal experience—and the unique vision of every artist.
Canadian art has never been defined by a single style.
It has always been defined by the people who create it.
WHO DEFINES CANADIAN ART?
Perhaps every generation does.
Artwork from Our Featured Canadian Artists
WHO DEFINES CANADIAN ART?
Three Exhibitions. Many Voices. One Big Question.
October 1 – December 31, 2026
WHERE WE COME FROM | Place. Landscape. Memory.
Artists’ Reception • Saturday, October 17 • 6-8 PM
WHO WE ARE | People. Stories. Perspective.
Artists’ Reception • Saturday, November 7 • 6-8 PM
WHERE WE’RE GOING | Tradition. Reinvention. Imagination.
Artists’ Reception • Saturday, November 28 • 6-8 PM
RSVP: donna@donnachildfineart.com | 416.620.0500
Donna Child Fine Art Gallery
365 Evans Ave., Suite 101
Toronto, ON M8Z 1K2
416.620.0500