Olivia Brouwer

Olivia Brouwer is an interdisciplinary artist based in Cambridge, Ontario. In 2016, she graduated from the Art and Art History joint program, specializing in painting and printmaking, at the University of Toronto Mississauga and Sheridan College. Since then, her work has been exhibited in a number of shows across Canada, the United States, and England. Some of which include Canada House (UK), Gillespie Gallery of Art (US), the Blackwood Gallery (CA), the Art Gallery of Mississauga (CA), Tangled Art + Disability (CA), Cambridge Art Galleries (CA), and Centre[3] (CA). Brouwer has completed residencies at NG Art Creative Residency (France), the Cotton Factory (Canada), Centre[3] (Canada), Sync Re-ignite (Canada/England), and the Haptic Horizons residency with VibraFusion Lab (Canada). She was one of 52 finalists for the 2021 Salt Spring National Art Prize, an award winner of the City of Hamilton Creator Award, as well as a recipient of various grants from the Waterloo Region Arts Fund, Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts.

As a partially blind artist, Brouwer explores the idea of blindness through her art, melding organic and geometric abstraction with scenes inspired by natural organisms and spiritual teachings relating to vision from both a metaphorical and literal sense. Inspired by the Rorschach Inkblot Test, she addresses blindness by examining ideas surrounding belief, perception, clarity, and sight with an abstract image. Her most recent work explores visual art accessibility, the “viewing” culture of visual spaces, and the activation of human senses beyond the reliance of vision, such as touch and sound, enabling an inclusive experience for both non-sighted and sighted viewers."

Website: oliviabrouwer.com

Instagram: @olivetreeonthemount

Image Credit: Lesley Loksi Chan

Image Credit: Felicia Byron Photography

Image Credit: Lesley Loksi Chan

"Soft-Spoken (a conversation with Eric Bourgeois)"

Olivia Brouwer, 2021

Mixed Media, 72" x 20"

 NFS

Sameena Anis

Sam is a Queer, Brown and Disabled artist. They use many mediums, such as illustration, comics, printmaking, fabric and textiles, ceramics, resin and other sculptural work, and digital such as film and animation. They love playing with colors, characters and conceptual visuals to share stories.

Website: dairysam.format.com

Image Courtesy of the Artist

"disabled comic"

Sameena Anis, 2021

Illustration, 8.5 x 11"

$150

Ben Benedict

Ben Benedict is a recognized independent professional visual artist & curator, writer, cultural leader, and social justice activist within London and area with a growing career. As a Bricoleur (mixed-media artist) working in the London Regionalist Tradition, my artistry, experiences, and creativity is informed by Memory, Object Relations Theories, Semiotics, and Structural Linguistics including the use of deconstructed materials and narratives.

In 2020, I received Research & Creation Grant funding from the Canada Council for the Arts for my solo exhibition, Faggot & Other LGBTQ2+ Stories, and was awarded the Canada Pride Citation from the Chief of Defence, National Defence Canada for my sacrifice and service to Canada making me a decorated veteran. Reflective of these efforts, I was the Keynote Speaker at Forest City Gallery’s 50Th Anniversary Celebration in 2023. I have received London Arts Council grants, as well as numerous Exhibition Assistance grants from the Ontario Arts Council.

In 2026, Ben Benedict is releasing Variations in Landscape (Art Catalogue, ISBN 978-1-0697976-0-5) as part of a touring exhibition., to positive reviews: “I admire how hard you work to get all your images licensed and of top quality,” Marcia Lea, Executive Director, COVA-DAAV (Copyright Visual Arts); and, “I finally had the time to read your wonderful essay. It's so comprehensive and illuminates the Regionalists in the context of landscape so well. It's full of tidbits I didn't know and it was a pleasure to learn from you through this paper!” Esther Vincent, daughter and copyright holder for Bernice Vincent. The exhibit has travelled to the Homer Watson House & Gallery, Kitchener, May 27-July 12; the King Heritage & Cultural Centre, King City, July14-26; and the TAP Centre for Creativity, London September 1-12, 2026.

Visit BenBenedict.ca for details and additional images and Thank you for this opportunity to introduce myself. 

Website: benbenedict.ca

Image Courtesy of the Artist

"Proud - Series of 5"

Ben Benedict, 2021

Acrylic on 6 Hand-Hewn Logs, Stainless Steel

 on Oak Base, 18"w x 12"d x 47"h with Plinth

$900

Jim Hillis

For 38 years James George Hillis worked at the Homewood Health Centre in Guelph. During those years he provided the hospital with a variety of drawings for a variety of purposes. However, on his own time he made paintings. Some were portraits, most were works of fantasy, and none were seen by the public until February of 2024 when a retrospective of his work was shown at the 3rd Floor Gallery (above Wyndham Art Supplies). His gentle and deliberate application of paint gives Jim's work a distinctive similarity and the subject matter continues to be drawn primarily from his imagination. As he's done since childhood, Jim simply sketches up an idea and colours it in. The inspiration for his 'Anthropocene Nightmare' painting is conveyed in his accompanying limerick:

My thoughts on the Anthropocene
Have followed me into a dream
Where pained human faces
Peer from verdant places
And I can't escape from their screams."

Website: artbyjimhillis.com

Image Courtesy of the Artist

"Anthropocene Nightmare"

Jim Hillis, 2026

Oil on Canvas, 2' X 3'

NFS

Jaime Miszczak

Jaime Miszczak’s work explores boundaries between intimacy and exposure, placing viewers in close proximity to experiences often hidden or stigmatized. Working across painting, printmaking, photography, and zine-making, her practise examines how images reveal and distort, functioning as sites of projection, judgment, and vulnerability.

Instagram: @pbandjaimesandwich

Image Courtesy of the Artist

"Untitled (a letter to a friend)"

Jaime Miszczak, 2025

Mixed Media Textile Piece, 20” x 86”

NFS

Marijke Murray

Originally from the Ottawa Valley, Marijke Murray is currently pursuing a PhD in biochemistry at the University of Guelph. Inspired by the ways that animals engage in acts of resistance, Marijke uses a mix of fiber craft, sculpting, and printmaking in their work. They embrace slowness in their craft and are drawn to long-term projects, whether that be through knitting a sweater or creating a miniature diorama.

Images Courtesy of the Artist

"Ontario Animals Against Roads"

Marijke Murray, 2026

Mixed Media, 15" x 15" x 10"

NFS

Kayla Pryce

Kayla Pryce (she/her) is an emerging multidisciplinary artist based in Guelph, ON. She works across mediums, primarily in experimental media, drawing and painting. Her work often addresses themes of identity, family, rupture and reconstruction. Her aim is to capture the beauty and discomfort that come with being human. Pryce’s work has recently been shown at the Zavitz Gallery at the University of Guelph, Neilson Park Creative Centre in Toronto and 10C downtown Guelph. She is currently completing a BA Honours in Studio Art with a minor in Black Canadian Studies at the University of Guelph.

Instagram: @prycekaylaa

Audio Courtesy of the Artist

"White and Pure"

Kayla Pryce, 2025

Poetry and Accompanying Video

NFS

Shan Seahra

Black-capped chickadees are emblematic of Resistance. Chickadees have resisted colonisation and rampant destruction and degradation of their native habitats by taking advantage of forest edges, bird feeders, and constructed nest boxes. They resist the harsh conditions of winter in colonial landscapes by caching and remembering the locations of thousands of seeds and insects.

Pileated woodpeckers build community by excavating cavities in trees for their nests. For years later, these cavities may be used by multispecies communities for shelter and raising a family, including chickadees, owls, bats, ducks, and squirrels. They are important keystone species in forests ecosystems.

Mourning doves are widely recognised as symbols of liberation in ancestral beliefs. Their mourning calls can help to release us from grief, and their ability to fly across habitats, from urban areas, agricultural fields, woodlands, and grasslands, inspire liberatory futures. The birds are accompanied by olive branches, as a symbol for Palestinian resistance and liberation.

Shan Seahra (she/they) is an ecologist, printmaker, and settler based in what is now called Guelph, Ontario, on the occupied Treaty Lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit. Decades of working in connection with the land and its diverse beings inspire her handprinted linocut pieces, rooted in a commitment to total liberation, and a punk ethos. A descendant of racialized indentured labourers, Shan aims to reclaim narratives often erased by colonialism, celebrating the beauty of those marginalized. She is particularly drawn to nocturnal and exploited beings.

Instagram: @setaeshan

Website: setaeshanart.wordpress.com

Image Courtesy of the Artist

"Resist · Build · Liberate"

Shan Seahra, 2026

Linocut on Himalayan Lokta paper, 26x36"

$600 (framed)

Jasper Sparrow

Jasper Sparrow (they/them) is a queer, disabled visual artist and trauma-informed psychotherapist living and working in Dish with One Spoon Wampum Covenant Territory. Their dual practice,  rooted in empathy, curiosity, and care, bridges the therapeutic and the artistic, offering layered reflections on humanity, decay, justice, and humility. Jasper works with watercolour, pastel, ink, pencil crayon, and found materials to explore the tension between patience and urgency in  personal, environmental and collective healing.

Instragram: @birdsongwitchery

Video Courtesy of the Artist

"How to build a go-bag"

Jasper Sparrow

Stop-motion video, dimensions variable

NFS

Sunniva Vann

Sunniva Vann is an emerging self-taught artist based in Guelph. Merging folk aesthetics, Fauvist colour play, and a Pop Art graphic sensibility, she is currently developing a body of work that explores the metamorphic aspect of the mothering self—with this protest sign marking the second piece in this unfolding series. Drawing from the concept of "maternal humanism," she employs symbolic imagery to advocate for a world inherently worthy of care, curiosity, and delight.

Instagram: @themoonisababe

Image Courtesy of the Artist

"Mamas Against The Machine"

Sunniva Vann

Acrylic on Wood Panel, 26" x 11.5"

NFS

Carol Walthers

Carol Walthers is a multidisciplinary artist focusing on painting, drawing and surface applications such as wax resist and mono-printing. Throughout her practice, she has explored watercolour, pastel, oil, and photography. She employs a range of themes mostly focusing on humanity; relationships with our environment and each other. Much of her work involves a narrative where the viewer is invited to contemplate their own perspective. Exploration and experimentation are important elements of her art practice.

Website: carolwalthers.com

Instagram: @carol_walthers

Image Courtesy of the Artist

"Turtle Space"

Carol Walthers

Acrylic on Canvas mounted to board, 20"h x 32"w

$1200

Michelle Wilson

Michelle Wilson is a queer, neurodivergent artist and mother living as an uninvited guest in Guelph, Ontario. Her practice approaches artistic collaboration as a form of anti-colonial care work. Rather than centring the myth of the individual artist, she works through enmeshed networks—creating conditions for many hands, stories, and ways of knowing to gather through shared creation.

She is a founding member of the Coves Collective and the Unsettling Conservation Collective. Working across textile, ceramics, and new media, her projects explore relationality, land, memory, and collective responsibility. She is currently an Assistant Professor teaching in the School of Fine Art and Music and in the Bachelor of Creative Arts, Health & Wellness program at the University of Guelph.

Website: michelle-wilson.ca

Instagram: @the_coves_collective

Image Courtesy of the Artist

"Warden’s Watch"

Michelle Wilson, 2024

Felted wool blanket, archival maps, embroidery thread, wool roving, glass eye, 24"x36"

NFS

Maryn Work

Maryn Work is a Guelph based visual artist who works with oil paints as well as a variety of textile and fibre art techniques. Inspired by land, water and skies, she is deeply moved by light, colour, and rhythm in the natural world, aiming to bring these feelings into her art.

Her current work portrays the natural and agricultural areas of Southwestern Ontario that are vital for wildlife, food production, and human mental health. In the face of the increasing threat of development, especially in and around Canada's urban centres, Maryn strives to express the intrinsic beauty and spiritual value that make these landscapes crucial to preserve.

Website: marynterraart.com

Instagram: @marynterraart

Image Courtesy of the Artist

"Ignatius Jesuit Centre Trail"

Maryn Work, 2025

Oil on Canvas, 30"x30"

NFS