The Tom Thomson Art Gallery Announces Three Powerful Summer Exhibitions Exploring Creativity, Crisis, and the Digital Frontier

This summer, the Tom Thomson Art Gallery invites the public to experience three thought-provoking exhibitions that examine the evolving intersections of art, technology, history, and humanity. Opening June 21 and June 28, these exhibitions offer urgent and poetic perspectives on the nature of creation in uncertain times.

All the Calm and Calamity
Open: June 21, 2025 – January 10, 2026

Set against the backdrop of the First World War, this exhibition traces a quiet divergence between Tom Thomson and fellow artists A.Y. Jackson, Arthur Lismer, and Frederick Varley. While the others depicted the war, Thomson remained in the wilderness, painting luminous landscapes that convey serenity amid global unrest. Juxtaposing these sketches with wartime works on loan from the Canadian War Museum and McMichael Canadian Art Collection, the show explores how calm and calamity coexist in moments of profound change and conflict. 

Elly MacKay: Only Human
Open: June 28 – October 4, 2025

Owen Sound paper artist Elly MacKay unveils a haunting and immersive solo exhibition confronting the ethical dilemmas artists face amid the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence. Through delicately constructed dioramas based on her dreams, MacKay addresses the disappearance of creative autonomy in an era when human-made work is harvested, mimicked, and altered by machine learning systems. Upon entry, visitors will be asked to lock away their cellphones—an act that underscores the exhibition’s core questions: What remains uniquely human? And how do we protect it?

Ctrl + Alt + Delete
Open: June 28 – October 4, 2025

Artists Laura Moore and Geoffrey Pugen examine the mirrored fragility of digital systems and ecological networks in this compelling exhibition. Working across media including stone sculpture, video, textile, and collage, they explore themes of collapse, consumer culture, and obsolescence, in environments both synthetic and organic. Their work provokes urgent questions about our desire to control the systems we’ve built—and how that same impulse can lead to their unravelling.

To celebrate the new exhibitions, residents and visitors are invited to a Panel Discussion on Saturday, June 28, from 1 to 2 p.m. with artists Elly MacKay, Laura Moore, and Geoffrey Pugen, followed by an Opening Reception from 2 to 4 p.m. Admission is free, and all are welcome.

For more information, please contact Aidan Ware, Director and Chief Curator, at 519-376-1932 ext. 5001 or email aware@tomthomson.org

Quick Facts:

• Three new exhibitions are opening this month at the Tom Thomson Art Gallery, with an opening reception on Saturday, June 28 from beginning at 1 p.m.
• The TOM and Owen Sound Tourism’s hours are Monday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. Admission by donation.

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