2024 Exhibitions
The Blue Afar: Amanda McCavour
January 26, 2024 - March 24, 2024
Opening Reception: January 26 | 7:00 - 9:00 PM | during Winter ARTcrawl
Artist Amanda McCavour uses thread to create sublime installations of embroidered objects in space. Her fantastical, dreamlike environments consider the play of light on matter and the peculiarities of the natural world. In Far Away Blue Fields, McCavour permeates our visual field with a cloudburst of blooming flowers hung from the gallery’s ceiling by tiny thread. Affixed to the wall, The Horizon, the Ocean, the Sky features a gathering of leaves, weeds, birds, and bees that read like an immense biological archive. Both installations speculate on the colour blue. Not only is our physical environment composed of blue things like water, gemstones, minerals, and flora but blue is also associated with the textures of the human condition. In McCavour’s work, it is used to express the infinitesimal breadth of our emotions and shapes our relationship to the earth and sky above.
Fragile: Handle with Care
January 26, 2024 - March 24, 2024
Opening Reception: January 26 | 7:00 - 9:00 PM | during Winter ARTcrawl
This exhibition explores issues of fragility and preservation in the artworks of the Thames Art Gallery’s Permanent Collection. From there, however, it also delves into how historical and contemporary artists alike explore the experience of fragility in their practice. Fragile: Handle with Care showcases works ranging from delicate pieces on paper to robust material presentations, all concerned with what is most tenuous, immediate, and ephemeral within manifestations of the artist’s imagination.
The Banquet Years:
Ted Fullerton, Will Gorlitz, John Kissick, Stu Oxley, Martin Pearce, Cheryl Ruddock
April 5, 2024 - June 2, 2024
Opening Reception: Friday, April 5, 2024 @ 7:00 pm
Six prominent artists and art educators from the Guelph area bring their distinct painting approaches to the table. Brought together over dinner party discussions that invariably included studio visits, this assembly of artists serve up a full spread of paintings that range from representational and figurative works to compositions of atmospheric and poetic abstraction.
Chapters Now Through Four: Tracy Root
April 5, 2024 - June 2, 2024
Opening Reception: Friday, April 5, 2024 @ 7:00 pm
Born in Shrewsbury, England, Tracy Root arrived in Chatham-Kent just before the COVID pandemic. Impacted by the isolation she was experiencing, she quickly adapted to the area’s surroundings, instinctively painting its fields and fauna. With her trademark use of expressive symbolism, she creates images resonant with personal iconography and psychology.
This retrospective suggests the incredible commitment and production this artist has achieved throughout her career. Now living with Stage 4 cancer, “Chapters Now Through Four” reflects a life fully committed to the pursuit of painting, and an artistic trajectory that lands firmly in the present.
Kelly Richardson: Odyssey
June 14, 2024 - August 11, 2024
Artist Talk: Friday, June 21, 2024 @ 6:00 pm
Opening Reception: Friday, June 21, 2024 @ 7:00 pm
Weaving myth and metaphor with scientific research and digital technologies, Kelly Richardson: Odyssey invites visitors on a journey through time and space in order to reflect on the present—through three large-scale video works. Origin Stories (2023) visualises the current extinction crisis through a seemingly endless field of diamond-like crystals, each of which represents a species lost to resource extraction and climate change. The HALO trilogy (2021) looks to a fiery moon for signs of the conditions we now face after decades of insufficient action. Finally, Pillars of Dawn (2019) brings viewers back to Earth—now hundreds of years in the future, as crystals blanket the planet in a beautiful but chilling representation of cumulative loss of complex life. Together, these three works ask visitors to consider what we truly value, raising an urgent call for humanity to responsibly reconnect with our living planet while time remains.
HERE I AM: Student Exhibition 2024
June 14, 2024 - August 11, 2024
Opening Reception: Friday, June 21, 2024 @ 7:00 pm
The Thames Art Gallery is thrilled to announce that the annual Here I Am Student Exhibition will be transforming from a virtual exhibition to an in-person exhibition on display at the Thames Art Gallery’s Mezzanine Gallery.
As part of this exhibition we are pleased to announce that for the 4th annual year, a one-thousand-dollar scholarship award is being offered to a graduating student attending a secondary school in Chatham-Kent who intends to further their education in the visual arts. This scholarship is graciously donated by Cathy Van Raay-Myers.
There is also several People’s Choice Awards that will be given out during the opening reception so be sure to come in for the first week of the exhibition to vote for your favorite student artwork.
August 23, 2024 - October 20, 2024
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 14, 2024 from 1:00 - 3:00 pm
Join us for a local river clean-up, sponsored by the Lower Thames Valley Conservation Authority, September 14, 10:30 am – 12:00 pm.
Click here for more information about the river clean up
This exhibition brings together 21 artists and writers who engage in decolonial critique, environmental activism, and twenty-first century artistic practices to address what is arguably the problem of our times: environmental catastrophe. It asks how we can work together and create together as a global community to restore the planet – while respecting differences and seeking to repair divisions and address injustices brought about by colonialism. Co-curated by Jeff Thomas and Patrick Mahon, the exhibition features a vast array of works, many produced over a two-year period and originally shown at Museum London in 2021-22. The results of conversations between the artists and writers, as well as oftentimes with members of local communities, those exciting artworks are being presented at the Thames Art Gallery alongside new and updated projects. For this version of GardenShip and State, important environmental projects by artists and activists from the Chatham-Kent region are being highlighted on the mezzanine, as well.
GardenShip and State
Eye 4 Art 2024
November 1, 2024 - January 12, 2025
Opening Reception: Friday, November 1 from 7:00 - 9:00 pm
Eye for Art is a juried exhibition, sale and celebration of the visual arts community in Chatham-Kent. The original Eye for Art was held in 1983. Through the years, it has evolved into the much-loved event we know today. The exhibition is open to all past and present residents of Chatham-Kent. This year, all proceeds from sales, tickets, and associated events will be directed to ARTspace, our downtown community art gallery.