Summer 2025 Exhibitions at Art Windsor-Essex

Join us for a wild summer at AWE!

You’ll find ceramic birds, bronze coywolves, and trail cam footage at Art Windsor-Essex this summer—all collectively demonstrating what we can learn from the land and the many creatures that inhabit it.

Mary Anne Barkhouse, Currency, 2025, bronze, glass/neon, acrylic housing. Photo: Frank Piccolo

Mary Anne Barkhouse: Ndishnikaaz/Nugwa’a̱m/My name is

June 19, 2025 – March 29, 2026
Reception at AWE at Night: June 19, 5-9pm
Curated by Mary Anne Barkhouse and Emily McKibbon

The demise of the storied Hudson’s Bay Company provides a moment to not merely reflect upon what constitutes a deep discount sale, but also how we have collectively arrived at this moment in history. Through twists and turns of empirical economic endeavour, personal circumstance and good old fashioned fate, we find ourselves at yet another critical juncture … for some it holds optimism for restitution and growth, with the return of species and communities to familiar territories, while for others there is the uncertainty wrought by uncontrollable and wildly erratic external forces.

Told through the viewpoint of the eyes, ears and whiskers of some of the species that have called north of 49 home, the works in Ndishnikaaz/Nugwa’a̱m/My name is are an invitation to explore these histories and consider what lies in the road ahead.

—Mary Anne Barkhouse

About the Artist

Mary Anne Barkhouse was born in Vancouver, BC but has strong ties to both coasts as her mother is from the ‘Namgis band, Kwakwaka’wakw First Nation of Alert Bay, BC and her father is of German and British descent from Nova Scotia. She is a descendant of a long line of internationally recognized Northwest Coast artists that includes Ellen Neel, Mungo Martin and Charlie James. She graduated with Honours from the Ontario College of Art in Toronto and has exhibited widely across Canada and the United States.

Soheila Esfahani, Portable Culture: Mallards & Reeds, acrylic and laser etching on collected wooden objects, approx. 70″ x 87″, 2021. Photo: Canadian Cultural Centre Paris

Soheila Esfahani: ARE WE T[HERE] YET?

July 17 – September 21, 2025
Reception at AWE at Night: July 17, 5-9pm
Workshop with the artist: AWE at Night, August 21, 5-9pm
Curated by Niku Koochak, 2023-2024 TD Curatorial Fellow

ARE WE T[HERE] YET? asks whether stories can ever truly be finished, or if they are always in a process of retelling, reinventing, and reinterpretation. This exhibition doesn’t ask the viewer to identify what is “real,” but instead invites reflection: How does meaning form? Is it in the object? The touch? The story? Or simply the gaze?

Images (left to right): Emilio Portal, untitled, 2025; Samuel Choisy, Contre Feu, 2022; Lise Beaudry, Douze mois d’observation / Twelve months of observation, 2025. Image courtesy of Le Labo.

Distance: Lise Beaudry, Samuel Choisy, Emilio Portal

July 17 – October 19, 2025
Reception at AWE at Night: July 17, 5-9pm
Curated by Dyana Ouvrard and Marc Audette
English description follows.

Art Windsor-Essex, en collaboration avec Le Labo d’art de Toronto, a le plaisir de présenter Distance, une exposition collective co-commissariée par Dyana Ouvrard et Marc Audette. À travers le prisme du paysage, l’exposition explore les notions de solitude, de contemplation et de proximité. Réunissant les artistes franco-ontariens Lise Beaudry, Emilio Portal et Samuel Choisy, Distance interroge la distance en tant que matière et questionnement, qu’elle soit émotionnelle, culturelle ou sociale. Les œuvres présentées offrent un regard sensible sur nos perceptions transformées à l’ère post-pandémique, invitant à une réflexion sur les liens, l’émerveillement et l’introspection dans ces espaces « entre-deux » qui façonnent notre monde.

Art Windsor-Essex, in collaboration with Le Labo d’art Toronto, is pleased to present Distance a collective exhibition co-curated by Dyana Ouvrard and Marc Audette, exploring themes of solitude, contemplation, and proximity through the lens of the landscape. Featuring Franco-Ontarian artists Lise Beaudry, Emilio Portal, and Samuel Choisy, the exhibition examines distance as material and inquiry, encompassing emotional, cultural, and social separations. The works reflect on our evolving post-pandemic perspectives , offering unique insights into connections, wonder, and introspection within the “in-between” spaces of our world.

About Art Windsor-Essex

Art Windsor-Essex respectfully acknowledges that we are located on Anishinaabe Territory – the traditional territory of the Three Fires Confederacy of First Nations, comprised of the Ojibway, the Odawa, and the Potawatomi. Today the Anishinaabe of the Three Fires Confederacy are represented by Bkejwanong. We want to state our respect for the ancestral and ongoing authority of Walpole Island First Nation over its Territory.

Art Windsor-Essex
401 Riverside Drive West
Windsor, Ontario N9A 7J1
artwindsoressex.ca
visit@artwindsoressex.ca
519-977-0013

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Accessibility: Art Windsor-Essex is a fully accessible venue. For more information, visit here.

Image Descriptions:
1. A bronze badger and a bronze coywolf look upwards at a neon sign reading “Gifts, Guns, Snack Bar” in this installation by Kwakiutl artist Mary Anne Barkhouse.
2. A wall work in laser-etched wood features mallards and reeds, overlaid by complex patterning in gilt in this artwork by Soheila Esfahani.
3. A long horizontal image collaging three artworks by artists Emilio Portal, Samuel Choisy, and Lise Beaudry, showing rippling water, a mysterious fireball, and night footage taken from a trail cam in a wooded property.