Guardians & Elementals, solo exhibit by Melanie Isis Tinken, Oct 22- Nov 9

                                                 

Artist Statement

When I started working with embroidery on photographs I was exploring a psychic terrain. Embroidery is a fine, slow, and gentle skill. I offer it as a healing to an object untethered from its origin story; the analog photograph. The stranger within the photograph, is also the stranger within me. The landscape is the environment we exist within, it too has a soul. When I hold a photograph in my hand I become a medium to channel the ineffable. My process is intuitive, I only follow my needle and thread dictated via the photograph as both personal artifact and an object that has moved through the last two centuries. Each stitch asks in a repetition, “What is the medicine? What is necessary? What do you need? What do I need?”

Guardians and Elementals was created with an intention to meet the soul of magic (k). I am exploring what is spiritual as an art process. I crave a spirituality that is human sized and soul specific. That is gentle, kind and personal. That is not about scripture and wars in heaven. The spirituality I am interested in channeling, via my needle and thread, is about the beauty and wisdom in the subtle consciousness of nature and the inherent worth of our shared humanity. There’s a current of consciousness that is subtle and softly intelligent and this is what came through for me in the creation of these pieces.

Guardians are protectors looking out for the best interests of one another. Elementals are unseen nature spirits that correspond to earth, air, water and fire, they live within the etheric energy of the natural world, they hold our physical world in place. We need them.

My wish, always, for the strangers in the photographs is; that their medicine, is my medicine and my medicine is our medicine. My artwork is an offering that gentleness is worthy and softness is powerful. We are sacred. Earth is sacred. We need each other.

Melanie Isis Tinken

Please see photos from the reception Saturday October 25 celebrating member Melanie Isis Tinken and her stunning show. Many works have sold. Check it out before they are all gone!

                                                  

                                                       Artist Melanie Isis Tinken ( right) 

The Forest: Stix & Stones, Solo exhibit by Jyne Greenley

What a wonderful afternoon celebrating Jyne Greenley and her new works.

Please find below artist statement and photos from reception.

For as long as I can remember, the forest has been my refuge — a place of healing, strength, and renewal. It has carried me through life, offering serenity in the hardest times, reminding me of resilience when I felt none of my own, and revealing beauty when I could not see it for myself.

This body of work presents new and recent mixed media pieces on wood and stone, created with mineral paints, charcoals, and plant materials. Some are framed with branches salvaged from recent storms, carrying within them the memory of nature’s cycles. These portraits of trees, landscapes, and elemental forces are meditations on presence and belonging, reflections of the deep connection and enduring beauty found in the natural world.

Jyne Greenley, 2025

 

Inside My Garden Gate, solo exhibit by Joanne Filletti, Spet 10 - 28

 Personal stories belong to the person who inhabits that story and is their’s alone to tell. At this time in history, it seems stories that are deemed inconvenient or unpopular by the status quo are being rewritten by those in power who hold the microphone, stealing the narrative and thereby controlling it. A dangerous, shocking and maddening set of circumstances to find oneself living through. 

Artisti Joanne Filletti &

friends

 

As fluid and seemingly changing the status quo appears to be, it still exists and is difficult for some to live outside these prescribed norms.

This is the environment that has inspired me to tell my own story, taking a page from the long history of female artists who have turned to the art of self portraiture to tell their stories and lay claim to their own narrative.

 

Despite settings that were at times discouraging and often dangerous, these courageous artists authored their own stories through painting, drawing, sculpture, photography and performance art.

 

I am encouraged by these women, forever grateful that are part of the canon of art history. Their determination and perseverance, as they found a way to make their art and to live a life created on their own terms (some more successful than others), is nothing short of heroic. I am forever indebted and they remain a guiding light as I continue to forge ahead in my own way and continue to write my own story.

 

 

For this project I found particular inspiration in the loves/ work of the following artists: Sofonisba Anguissola, 1532- 1625; Artemisia Gentileschi, 1593- 1653; Ann Dorothea Therbush, 1721- 1782; Kathe Kollwitz, 1867-1945; Camille Claudel, 1864- 1943; Paula Modersohn-Becker, 1876- 1907; Frida Kahlo, 1907-1954; Marisol, 1930- 2016; Hannah Wilde, 1940-1993 & Cindy Sherman, 1954.

 

The garden setting was inspired by the back courtyard here at 1475 Gerrard, the creation of which has been a great source of joy for me and a constant reminder that fertility and creation materializes in many shapes and forms.

 

Map of Misfortune, solo exhibit by Asma Sultana July 16 - Aug 3

Map of Misfortune explores the devolution of Bangladesh’s democracy through artworks created between 2012 and 2025. As a diasporic artist, my identity is deeply tied to my homeland, where I was taught to cherish our hard-won independence. Yet, political forces have jeopardised that freedom. Today, citizens face “identity paralysis” amid political turmoil, trapped in a cycle of historical missteps. Born in bloodshed, Bangladesh struggles for political and personal freedom. While Bengal’s history shapes the Global South, the world ignores the growing religious colonial power. We cannot let darkness consume our map and liberty; we must reclaim our history and identity.

Asma Sultana, 2025 www.asmasultana.co

Please see photos from reception below.

Asma Sultana, artist

 

December sixteenth, nineteen seventy-one

December sixteenth, nineteen seventy-one— 

We broke free, united as one

Monsters fled, their shadows undone

We rise, we rise, together, again                                                                                              

Like dust swirling on a stormy spring day

Monsoon whispers—it’s only May

Rain will fall, fierce and untamed

Washing stains of anguish, erasing pain

Monsters drowned, for they could not swim

Water is our soul; rivers pulse in our veins

Blood is no longer blood—it becomes flesh

They craved our ruin— and came for us

We screamed, that was our only weapon to fight

That’s the time we could see daylight

Carved our breasts, tore hearts in two

Drank our blood, branded us whore

Hooked us like fish, one by one—

Artists, writers, and singers are gone

Blindfolded with a Gamcha and led to the killing fields

They slaughtered our bodies, but could not ruin our souls

We do not weep anymore

Our tears turned into blood, soaked into the soil—

The soil was stained with our brothers’ blood

Underneath our fathers’ bones

Who fought for our dignity

And, for a future free from chains

Brave souls need no land to be free

July, two thousand twenty-four—

The soil has turned to barren sand

They call us whore, erase our stand

Our fathers’ graves, wiped clean, defiled 

Covered by a mercury-green shroud of hate 

Like a twisted tale from Arabian Nights Deluded bodies, soulless, roam— 

Worshipping monsters, forsaking home Denying heroes sows seeds of terror

A map of misfortune unfolds-

All martyrs are forgotten, and the nation’s sorrow

Gardens are abandoned as wastelands grow

Monsters forget their souls, their past, their kin

Bowing to a foreign land’s false hymn Hating self, they worship the other—

A strange darkness consumes the map of misfortune...

Asma Sultana, Toronto, June 2025.