Laura M. Hair: A Path to Take

Kent Farndale Gallery

Laura M. Hair, Land of the Shoreline, Diptych #3, 2025, acrylic on wood, 48″ x 78″. Photo: L. M. Hair

Laura M. Hair: A Path to Take

March 28 – April 30, 2026
Opening Reception: March 28, 2026, 2 – 5pm
Kent Farndale Gallery, Port Perry

A Path to Take is an exploration of the Southern Ontario Watershed System that threads through a land mired by rural, urban and industrial development. The strain upon the remaining, limited natural environment is evident.

It is in these struggling spaces, that retain a vestige of essential, organic matter, that Laura walks, where she finds a gift of solace. All the work is recently completed however, not recently started. For years, Laura has executed figurative and landscape drawings, paintings and sculpture series that receive their inspiration from the endangered environment found along stream banks, ravines and shorelines of Southern Ontario. This body of work continues that investigation and tradition: the use of the forthright power of natural form in order to convey unvarnished, truthful conditions, emotions and visions.

Laura M. Hair, To Walk the River Flow #2 (detail), 2025, acrylic on wood, 32″ x 78″. Photo: L. M. Hair

Laura M. Hair has an extensive exhibition history throughout Southern Ontario. Her artwork has also been exhibited in the United States, Mexico and China. Hair is a former life drawing and painting instructor for the Media Art and Design School of Durham College, Oshawa, The Station Gallery, Whitby and The Visual Arts Centre of Clarington. In order to reflect nature’s balance of grace and majesty, Hair employs detailed renderings and contrasting gestural markings in her organic compositions. Laura was a founding member of The IRIS Group, a 27year women’s collective of artists, educators and writers.

Laura M. Hair, What’s Left Behind #1 (detail), 2025, graphite and oil bar on Dur-a-lar, 24″ x 48″. Photo: L. M. Hair

The gallery is situated on the traditional territories of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation. May we respectfully honour the knowledge and understanding of the Indigenous stewards of these ancestral lands. We are grateful for the opportunity to meet here and we thank all the generations of people who have taken care of this land.

Kent Farndale Gallery
Scugog Public Library
231 Water Street
Port Perry, ON L9L 1A8
www.scugoglibrary.ca
swhite@scugoglibrary.ca
905-985-7686

Accessibility:
Kent Farndale is fully accessible.

Image Descriptions:
1. Large, vertical panels, positioned high on the wall, enhance the observers upward view of the erosion generated, retreating lakeshore topography.
2. Large, horizontal panels, hung low on the wall, mimic the downward view of walking the diminishing flood plain creek beds.
3. Recording of the shattered willow tree conditions within the watershed.