Convergence - Juried Art Exhibition / 2025

October 18, 2025 - January 17, 2026

Sabrina Leeder,This IS a Place that We Call Home, 2025. Digital photography, 57.2 x 47 cm. Courtesy of the artist.

The Tom Thomson Art Gallery is pleased to present Convergence, a juried exhibition showcasing contemporary artwork from across Ontario that explores environmental themes including ecology, climate change, sustainability, and our evolving relationship with the natural world. Presented every two years, Convergence celebrates artistic innovation and excellence across a wide range of mediums, fostering dialogue around one of the most urgent topics of our time.

Rooted in the Gallery’s vision as “an open landscape for exploring art,” the exhibition invites reflection, discovery, and meaningful exchange, supporting a vibrant community of artists engaged with environmental concerns. Featured artists include Susan Barton-Tait, nicholas x bent, Becky Comber, Chih-ling Chang, Liz Rae Dalton, Naomi Dodds, Paul Drysdale, Richelle Forsey, Sylvia Galbraith, Nicole Graham, Deborah Hatanaka, Marlene Kawalez, Rachel Kochistry, Che Ree Kwon, Sabrina Leeder, Elizabeth M. Lopez, Judy Martin, Ann Pappert, Sherry Park, Anton Pickard, Robert Potvin, Julie Sando, Matthew Varey, Mike Yuhasz, Tanya Zaryski, and Zhan Zhang.

Opening Reception: Saturday October 18, 2025 from 2:00pm to 4:00pm

The Jurors

Kristine Moran, Artist - Kristine Moran is a Canadian artist whose work explores emotional and psychological landscapes through abstraction, drawing, and large-scale painting. Her practice is rooted in a long-standing interest in spaces that carry utopian ideals—gardens, experimental communities, and wild places that suggest a better way of living, however imperfect. Her recent series, Drawing While Walking, begins with fast, intuitive sketches made while moving through these kinds of spaces. These drawings later evolve into paintings that are layered, ambiguous, and open-ended—part memory, part imagination.

Originally from Montreal, Kristine has lived and worked in New York, Toronto, France, and across the U.S., with each place bringing a different kind of influence. Now based in Owen Sound, she’s found new inspiration in the local landscape, particularly the terrain around Georgian Bay, which has quietly become central to her ongoing work. Her paintings often reflect a longing for connection, care, and transformation, blurring abstraction and representation in ways that remain open to emotional interpretation.

Kristine’s work has been exhibited widely across North America and Europe, including recent exhibitions at Daniel Faria Gallery (Not as it was but as it might be, 2025) and Art Windsor-Essex (Sports Sports Sports, 2025). Her work is held in the collections of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Glenbow Museum, University of Toronto Doris McCarthy Gallery, and the Tom Thomson Art Gallery, among many other corporate and private collections.

Jennifer Norman, Executive Director at the Durham Art Gallery - Jennifer Norman is a cross-disciplinary artist, educator, and arts administrator from Northern Ontario. She is currently the Executive Director of the Durham Art Gallery in West Grey, ON and she is a member of the Faculty of Art at OCAD University, where she teaches a range of painting and drawing courses. She has also taught at Sheridan College and Centennial College in recent years.

Jennifer received her BFA from OCAD University, her MFA from the University of Ottawa and has been awarded multiple artist grants in support of her creative work. Her studio practice combines ecology and art theory through a site-responsive, experimental approach to traditional drawing methodologies. She has participated in a number of national and international artist residencies, including the Banff Centre for the Arts and MASS MoCA.

Norman has exhibited her work both nationally and internationally, from Seoul, Korea, to Dawson City, Yukon. Her work is included in several private and public collections, including the National Art Bank of Canada, the University of Ottawa, and the City of Ottawa.

Martin Pearce, Associate Professor, Studio Art at the University of Guelph - Martin Pearce has been making paintings and drawings for 35 years and has exhibited widely over that time. He teaches Painting and Drawing at the University of Guelph and has been a regular reviewer for Border Crossings magazine since 2008.