Summer 2026 Exhibitions at Woodstock Art Gallery

July 11 – September 19, 2026
Open House: Saturday, July 18, 2026, 1 – 3pm
Woodstock Art Gallery

The Woodstock Art Gallery invites you to gather at the height of summer for an afternoon that foregrounds contemporary artistic inquiry and regional practice. Join us on July 18 to celebrate the opening of our summer exhibitions, With flowers in your hand and Visual Elements 68 alongside a jurors’ walk and talk, and the announcement of the Friends of the Woodstock Art Gallery scholarship recipient.

Chelsea Brant, Seasons, 2025, giclee print of handmade collage. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Chelsea Brant: With flowers in your hand

July 11 – September 19, 2026

With flowers in your hand brings together a multidisciplinary body of work by Brant County artist Chelsea Brant that reclaims the flower as a site of resistance and presence. Long dismissed as feminine or ornamental, floral imagery has historically been used to marginalize women’s artistic labour. Brant confronts this legacy directly, transforming bouquets into gestures of refusal and endurance.

Across installation, painting, and mixed-media, flowers become symbols of both fragility and persistence; balancing beauty and decay, memory and disappearance. These works operate as brief monuments to what we hope not to lose. Each gesture becoming an insistence on being seen, even as the materials themselves signal the inevitability of fading.

About the Artist

Chelsea Brant (she/her) is a Mohawk/German multidisciplinary artist, independent curator, and arts educator at the post-secondary level. She is currently the Curator and Events Manager at Lynnwood Arts Centre in Simcoe. Brant received a BFA degree from the University of Guelph and an MFA from the University of Saskatchewan. She has worked for numerous arts organizations including the Art Gallery of Guelph and Musagetes, served on several arts boards including her most recent appointment with Nuit Blanche YXE, and has taught courses through Brock University, Sheridan College, DVSA, and McMaster University. Brant’s artistic work has been exhibited locally, nationally, and internationally with her most recent work featured in the Artist Project’s Installation Space.

Gail Gifford, Iris Garden, 2025, oil on canvas. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Visual Elements 68: Annual Juried Exhibition

July 11 – September 19, 2026

Visual Elements: Annual Juried Exhibition is a long-running celebration of artistic talent in Oxford County and the surrounding regions. This year’s exhibition pays tribute to diverse approaches to creative practice, where each artist explores their unique artistic signature and style. Visual Elements 68 invites viewers to feel the excitement of experimental processes that inform the inner narratives of the artwork.

This year’s exhibition features 46 works by 44 artists working in a wide variety of mediums, sizes and styles. The Woodstock Art Gallery would like to thank jurors Chelsea Brant and Jen Hamilton for their crucial role in selecting the artwork for this exhibition, and all submitting and participating artists for their hard work and support of Visual Elements.

Visual Elements 68 hopes to encourage artists to continue their creative pursuits.

Related Programming

Summer Open House
Saturday, July 18, 2026, 1 – 3pm

Join the Woodstock Art Gallery to celebrate this season’s exhibitions, including Chelsea Brant: With flowers in your hand and Visual Elements 68. The afternoon will include a juror-led Walk and Talk exploring selected works from Visual Elements 68, as well as an informal opportunity to connect with participating artists in the gallery.

The event will also feature the official announcement of the Friends of the Woodstock Art Gallery scholarship recipient. This annual scholarship awards $1,000 to a graduating high school student from Oxford County pursuing post-secondary studies in visual, fine, or media arts, graphic design, film, fibre arts, or photography.

This event is free and open to the public.

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