• Latcham Art Centre’s 2025 Juried Exhibition features 34 works by Ontario artists, selected from over 200 submissions by a panel of three expert jurors.
  • The jurors awarded three artists: Kristy Blackwell for Reflection, Sara Cristina González for Whispers of Stillness, and Zhan Zhang for Pieces of My Mind.
  • A visitor favourite is Enter the Fray by Stouffville artist Dawn Connor, a felted wool sculpture of two boxing hares.
  • Visitors can vote for a people’s choice award winner, to be announced on April 19.
  • Latcham’s next exhibition, Celebrations 2025, opens April 25 and will showcase artwork by local students.

 

Latcham Art Centre’s 2025 Juried Exhibition is now open to the public in the Leisure Centre gallery at 2 Park Drive. The mixed-media showcase features 34 works by artists from across Ontario, all selected by a panel of three expert jurors.

This year’s jurors included Toronto-based Nigerian-Canadian artist and curator Liz Ikiriko, Toronto curator and art program manager Lee Petrie, and Orillia artist and curator Tanya Cunnington. The panel carefully reviewed more than 200 submissions before making their final selections.

Three pieces were chosen as 2025 Juror’s Award winners, including Reflection by Kristy Blackwell. The painted portrait captures a woman dressing before a closet mirror, positioning the viewer just outside the subject’s own perspective.

“Even standing so close, we realize we don’t have the same view she has. She is lost in her reflection in a moment of quiet contemplation,” Blackwell’s artist statement explains. “For us, the shabby mirrored doors fracture her reflection, and we know we can’t see what she sees. No matter how exposed a person is, we just see pieces.”

Another Juror’s Award recipient, Sara Cristina González, takes a more abstract approach with Whispers of Stillness. The layered brushstrokes and tonal shifts pull the viewer into what González describes as “the feeling of a breath held between thoughts, a fleeting pause before movement resumes.”

“This piece is a meditation on stillness—not as emptiness, but as a space where clarity emerges,” she adds. “It captures the quiet energy that exists in moments of solitude, when the world hushes just enough for whispers to be heard.”

The third Juror’s Award went to Zhan Zhang for Pieces of My Mind, a striking paper sculpture installation. Free-flowing paper structures extend from the ceiling to the floor in the corner of the gallery, their “fragile, thin spikes embodying the contradictions that emerge from within the self,” Zhang’s statement notes.

Among visitor favourites is Enter the Fray, a dynamic felted wool sculpture by Stouffville artist Dawn Connor. Placed on a stand at the centre of the exhibition, the piece depicts two wild hares engaged in a spirited boxing match.

“A frisky and persistent buck has his eye on a petulant doe,” Connor says of the work. “He realizes too late that she is much more than he bargained for, and the match begins…”

For those unable to visit in person, Latcham has compiled a PDF catalogue featuring images of each exhibited piece, along with artist statements and background information.

Gallery visitors can also cast their own ballot for their favourite artwork. The winner of this people’s choice award will be announced at the close of the Juried Exhibition on April 19, with a prize awarded to the artist.

Up next at Latcham is Celebrations 2025, featuring artwork by students from Stouffville elementary schools and Stouffville District Secondary School. The exhibition opens Friday, April 25, with a reception from 4–8 p.m.