Daniella Williams: Origin at Black Rabbit Gallery

Black Rabbit Gallery presents Origin, a solo exhibition by Toronto-based Canadian figurative painter Daniella Williams, on view September 10 through October 8, 2026. The exhibition marks Black Rabbit’s first solo artist presentation following its inaugural summer group exhibition, No Paths, Just Moves.

Daniella Williams, Lunging Trees, 2026. Oil on canvas, 48 x 36 in. Courtesy of the artist and Black Rabbit Gallery.

Daniella Williams: Origin

September 10 – October 8, 2026
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 10, 7–10pm
Black Rabbit Gallery, Toronto

Origin marks a shift in Daniella Williams’ ongoing exploration of observation, intimacy, and the act of looking—expanding her inquiry into how we experience ourselves through our relationships to others and to the world around us.

Turning toward the natural world, the exhibition considers what might emerge when the body is released from the pressures of being seen, and when the figure is no longer defined in isolation from its surroundings.

Across the works, figures move through open spaces, shared moments, and natural environments, becoming increasingly immersed in the landscapes they inhabit. The result is a quieter examination of presence—one shaped less by performance and more by movement, connection, and physical experience.

Daniella Williams, And For Those Few Months, We Were In Unison With All, 2026. Oil on canvas, 55 x 45.3 in. Courtesy of the artist and Black Rabbit Gallery.

In Origin, Williams moves away from the contained intimacy of portraiture and toward a wider field of experience. The figure remains central, but no longer as an isolated subject positioned primarily for observation.

Instead, figures move through landscape, encounter one another, and occupy space with an ease that shifts the relationship between viewer, subject, and environment. Nature becomes more than a setting; it becomes an active part of the figure’s experience, reflecting an inherent connection between the body and the natural world.

The exhibition considers how our sense of self is experienced through proximity, embodiment, and our relationship to the environments we inhabit. In doing so, Origin asks what becomes possible when the subject is allowed to exist beyond the expectations placed upon the image, and instead understood as part of a larger living world.

Daniella Williams in her studio. Photo: Hailey York.

About Daniella Williams

Daniella Williams is a Canadian figurative painter based in Toronto. Her practice explores intimacy, observation, and the relationship between the body and its surroundings. Working primarily in oil, Williams draws from lived experience and everyday gestures to construct scenes that move between the familiar and the psychologically unresolved, asking the viewer to consider their role as a voyeur within a private moment.

Williams holds a BFA in Studio Art and Art History from the University of Guelph. She has further developed her practice through residencies at the New York Academy of Art in New York, The Pouch Cove Foundation in Newfoundland, Casa Lü Parque in Mexico City, and The Church in Sag Harbor, New York.

In 2025, Williams received a grant from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation in recognition of her work in representational painting.

Her work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions including Time and Place at Sixteen Eleven Studios, People’s Paintings at She Said Gallery, Daniella Williams at The Drake Hotel, and Invisible String at Gagné Contemporary. She has also exhibited at The Artist Project in Toronto.

Williams lives and works in Toronto.

Daniella Williams, Tall Grass, 2026. Oil on canvas, 40 x 30 in. Courtesy of the artist and Black Rabbit Gallery.

Black Rabbit Gallery
35 Tubman Avenue
Toronto, ON M5A 0T1
blackrabbitgallery.ca
info@blackrabbitgallery.ca
Instagram @blackrabbit.to

Gallery Hours:
Wednesday–Friday, 12–5pm
Thursday, 12–7pm
Saturday, 11am–5pm

Image Descriptions:
1. An oil painting of five women moving through a sunlit wooded landscape. A woman in a white tank top and yellow shorts runs across the foreground beside two light-coloured dogs, while four other women move among the trees behind her.
2. An oil painting of three women sharing a bathroom interior rendered in vivid yellow-green tones. One woman stands at left, another sits on a toilet at centre brushing her teeth, and a third bends forward at right.
3. Artist Daniella Williams stands in her bright studio holding a paintbrush. Figurative paintings hang on the white walls behind her and another painting rests against a worktable in the foreground.
4. An oil painting of a woman in a white dress lying on her side in a grassy landscape. Her eyes are closed and one arm rests above her head amid loose green, orange, and pink.