Echoing: Susan Barton-Tait, Natalie Hunter & Corine van Hoeve

Rodman Art Institute of Niagara at the Old Fire Hall

Corine van Hoeve, Brick Portrait 20 (St. Catharines Standard), 2026, oil on paper, 16″ x 20″

Echoing
An exhibition of sculpture, photography, and painting by Susan Barton-Tait, Natalie Hunter & Corine van Hoeve

Curated by Natalie Hunter

June 25 – September 13, 2026
Rodman Art Institute of Niagara, Thorold, ON

Opening Reception
Thursday, June 25, 2026, 6 – 8pm

Creative Conversation Series: Panel discussion with Susan Barton-Tait, Natalie Hunter and Corine van Hoeve
Thursday, July 9, 2026, 7pm

A Day of Exploration and Creativity with Susan Barton-Tait, Natalie Hunter and Corine van Hoeve
Saturday, July 18, 2026, 10am – 4pm | Registration required

Susan Barton-Tait, 1449 Bricks (detail), 2025–2026, cast paper from hand-made cotton fibre, 8.5″ x 4″ x 2.5″ (individual bricks), installation 10′ x 5′ x 4′.

An echo is a call and response, or a faint trace of the past. In Echoing, Thorold’s decommissioned mid-century Fire Station No. 1 is activated by three women artists at different stages of their artistic careers. Conversing with each other, the Rodman Art Institute of Niagara permanent collection, and responding to the immediate site, their gestures echo across the greater Niagara-Hamilton region and connect with heritage, memory, traces, and past experiences. Through sculpture, painting, and photography, they consider discarded sites and materials as opportunities for re-invigorating industrialized landscapes around the Golden Horseshoe with initiatives that re-frame their use; highlighting their social, cultural, and historical value. Carefully studying Rodman Art Institute of Niagara’s extensive collection of contemporary and modern art Susan Barton-Tait, Natalie Hunter, and Corine van Hoeve contemplate the transformative potential embedded within sites that we take for granted during uncertain times.

Natalie Hunter, In the Shadow of the Dust (photo detail), 2026, colour photographs on translucent polyester fabric, hand shaped steel, magnets, found bricks from St. Catharines Standard building and Hamilton Brickworks, 32″ x 48″ (each photograph), installation dimensions variable.

Susan Barton-Tait has been exploring concepts of home, impermanence, fragility, repetition, and everyday life in her fibre-based art practice since 1972. Employing weaving, knitting, batik, crocheting, felting, and paper making, she uses these processes connected to craft and women’s work to manipulate materials and create meaning. Susan studied at Queen’s University, University of Iowa, University of Manitoba, and the Banff School of Fine Arts. Her work has been presented in solo, group, and touring exhibitions, earning recognition and awards from various granting agencies including Manitoba Arts Council, City of Winnipeg, City of Hamilton, and Banff Centre for the Arts. Her work has found its place in both public and private collections, including esteemed collections such as the Manitoba Visual Art Bank, The Canada Council Art Bank, and the Massey Foundation. She currently lives in Hamilton, Ontario and calls The Cotton Factory her creative home. susanbartontait.com

Natalie Hunter is an artist and educator born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario. Over the past fourteen years she has worked across photography, installation, sculpture, and the moving image, and is mostly known for her multilayered and experiential photo-based installations on transparent film. In her work she engages with the poetics of time, memory, temporality, and the senses—with an emphasis on embodied experience, perception, materiality, and personal memory. Natalie Hunter is the recipient of many Canada Council for the Arts Research and Creation Grants, and Ontario Arts Council Visual Artists Creation Project Grants and has shown her work in public art galleries and artist-run-centres across Canada. She holds an MFA from the University of Waterloo where she is also a sessional instructor and an inaugural recipient of the Liu Shiming Distinguished Educator Award (2025). natalie-hunter.com

Corine van Hoeve is a contemporary painter in Hamilton, Ontario and calls The Cotton Factory her studio home. In her work she explores various societal themes, often painting and drawing from observation using oil paints, watercolours or handmade inks. Corine completed degrees at The University of Toronto, Western University, and University of Guelph before participating in Advanced Studio courses at the Dundas Valley School of Art. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Hamilton, Guelph, Dundas, Grimsby, and Toronto, and she has been painting since 2012. cvanhoeve.ca

The artists gratefully acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council for Exhibition Assistance.

Also on view at the Fire Hall:
Teaser: Selections from the Rodman Art Collection

Rodman Art Institute of Niagara (RAiN) is a public art gallery dedicated to the public’s appreciation and understanding of the visual arts. In partnership with the City of Thorold, RAiN is taking over a de-commissioned mid-century Fire Hall in Downtown Thorold and reinterpreting this as a temporary creative art space. RAiN’s Summer 2026 exhibitions and programs are supported by the Tourism Partnership of Niagara and the Government of Ontario.

For information and media inquiries, contact:
Angela Brayham, Director / Curator
abrayham@rodmanart.ca

Rodman Art Institute of Niagara
16 Towpath Street
Thorold, ON L2V 2P6
rodmanart.ca

Facebook @rodmanartniagara
Instagram @rodmanartniagara

Gallery Hours:
Wednesday & Thursday, 11am – 9pm
Tuesday, Friday & Saturday, 11am – 5pm

Rodman Art Institute of Niagara is partially accessible.