ABSTRACTS 2025
Juried Online Exhibition and Catalogue
JUROR: LYLA RYE
DESIGNER: ELIZA TRENT RENNICK
FOREWORD BY ARNIE GUHA
Abstraction is not an absence. It is a decision.
To abstract is to strip away the familiar scaffolding of representation and ask a more difficult question: what remains when narrative recedes? What persists when image is released from obligation to describe?
The works gathered in ABSTRACTS, curated and juried by Lyla Rye, demonstrate that abstraction is not a single language but a constellation of methods. Across painting, digital media, photography, drawing, sculpture, and mixed media, the artists in this exhibition approach abstraction not as retreat, but as inquiry. Form becomes structure. Colour becomes an event. Gesture becomes argument.
Some works carve space. Some map pattern. Some lean into material process; others into digital construction. Some are quiet. Others declare themselves boldly. What binds them is not style, but intention, a commitment to exploring what visual language can do when it is freed from depiction.
In a moment saturated with image and immediacy, abstraction asks us to slow down. It resists instant readability. It rewards attention. It invites the viewer into a more active role: not decoding a message but participating in meaning.
Lyla Rye’s curatorial vision has brought together an expansive and diverse group of artists, each working from a distinct vantage point. The result is not a unified aesthetic, but a dynamic field of approaches; evidence that abstraction remains a vital and evolving force within contemporary practice.
This catalogue, designed with clarity and care by Eliza Trent-Rennick, extends the life of the exhibition beyond the gallery walls. It documents not only the works themselves, but the range of conversations that abstraction continues to generate.
The Aird Gallery exists to provide a platform for artists across Ontario to present rigorous, thoughtful work. ABSTRACTS reflect that mandate fully. It demonstrates that abstraction is not a historical chapter closed in the twentieth century, but an ongoing experiment — one that continues to expand, fracture, and renew itself.
On behalf of the Aird Board and our partner societies, I extend sincere thanks to Lyla Rye for her discernment and generosity in shaping this exhibition, and to all participating artists for the strength and depth of their contributions.
Abstraction endures because it asks us not simply to look, but to engage. Thank you for engaging with the Aird and with our shared commitment to the arts in Ontario.
Arnie Guha
Executive Chair
ABSTRACTS 2025 ARTIST LIST
Doug Adams, Maria-Bida Albulet, Sandra Altwerger, Hadeel Alzoubi, Jarrod Barker, Peter Barron, Peggy Bell, Leslie Bertin, Ioana Bertrand, Ilija Blanusa, Monica Burnside, Mike Callaghan, Jeannie Catchpole, Emily Conlon, Anne-Marie Cosgrove, Damon Couto-Hill, Edward Donald, Holy Dunlop, Agata Dworzak-Subocz, Azar Ebrahimi, Jill Finney, Saremifar Firouzeh, Julie Florio, Elissa Gallander, Monica Gewurz, Kathy Granger Tucker, Arnie Guha, Diana Hamer, Katherine Hartel, Katharine Harvey, Janet Hendershot, Leighton Hern, Ted Karkut, Hyunryoung Kim, Rupen Kungus, Em LeightonHern, Maureen Lowry, Dimitrije Martinovic, Lisa Mason, Claudia McKnight, Carole Milon, Leah Oates, Ovidiu Petca, Ann Piche, Fraser Radford, Leena Raudvee, Dale M Reid, Heather Rigby, Liz Ruest, Colleen Schindler, Pearl Sequeira, Sara Shields, Nancy Simmons Smith, Shawn Skeir, Alayne Spafford, Marisa Swangha, Karen Taylor, Sarah Thompson, Lorraine Thorarinson Bretts, Terry Torra, Margaret Wasiuta, Holly Winters, and Anna Yuschuk.
