Department of Fine Arts, University of Waterloo

Fine Arts Alum Anders Oinonen (MFA '04) has a new show,"Unknownun", opening on June 5th at Hunt Gallery in Toronto.

Across more than two decades, Oinonen has developed a singular language of abstraction, figuration, landscape, and psychological portraiture. His paintings often appear first as arrangements of colour, and form, before resolving into faces, figures, or sentient landscapes. They look back, but not directly. As Gary Michael Dault wrote in The Globe and Mail, Oinonen’s paintings “develop the idea of the sentient landscape: You gaze at the paintings and the paintings gaze back at you.”

For his exhibition "Unknownun" at Hunt Gallery, Oinonen presents a new body of work that continues his long investigation into facial geometry, emotional projection, the instability of looking and the gestural sensibilities of painting. In these paintings, forms hover between apparition and structure: eyes, noses, mouths, hills, masks, lips and shadows emerge through soft washes and luminous colour. The face is never simply a face. It is a place, a weather system, a monument, a joke, a wound, and sometimes a landscape under pressure.

Anders Oinonen was born in 1977 in Kenora, Ontario. He received an MFA from the University of Waterloo and graduated from the Ontario College of Art & Design. His solo and two-person exhibitions include Days at The Hole, New York; Family Practice and Phiz at Cooper Cole Gallery, Toronto; Eyebrow Haircut at The Hole, New York; People People at Cooper Cole Gallery, Toronto; and Sundogs at CTRL Gallery, Houston. His work has been included in exhibitions at Deitch Projects, New York; V1 Gallery, Copenhagen; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; MOCCA, Toronto; The Hole, New York and Los Angeles; and other institutions and galleries internationally. His work is held in public collections including the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, St. Michael’s Hospital, and the Canada Council Art Bank. He is currently represented by The Hole, New York.

Hunt Gallery
1278 St. Clair Ave West, Unit 8
Toronto

Opening Reception
Friday, June 5, 2026 6–9 PM

Exhibition Dates
June 5–July 11, 2026

https://huntgallery.info

Thanks to all who joined us on May 14 for the opening reception of the MFA2 Thesis exhibition featuring the work of James Malzahn and Elise Popa. The show can be viewed at the University of Waterloo Art Gallery (UWAG), Wednesday through Saturday from 12 - 5 PM, until May 30.

Life drawing sessions for Spring 2026 begin on Monday, May 11 and run until August 10.
There will be no sessions on the holiday Mondays (May 18 or August 3).

Open to students and the public but please register at https://calendly.com/uwfinearts/finearts_open_drawing

⦁ Bring your own drawing supplies (chairs and easels provided)
⦁ No late-comers, doors close at 6:30 pm
⦁ Sessions are free, supervised and non-instructional
⦁ Models will be unclothed for all sessions

for more information email [email protected]

On May 14, 5-8 pm, everyone is invited to the opening reception in UWAG for the second thesis exhibition of this year's Master of Fine Arts (MFA) candidates.

This exhibition runs from May 2 to 30.

James Malzahn
The Victory Box

The Victory Box examines how powerful systems enter everyday life by appearing useful, convenient, entertaining, and reassuring. Presented as a modern domestic device for safety and public information, it carries the appeal of something new: a media object families could watch, gather around, and feel proud to own. While rooted in a mid-century setting, the exhibition speaks to contemporary concerns around artificial intelligence, networked surveillance, and persuasive media: tools with the potential to benefit society, but also to manipulate, misinform, observe, and control when placed in the wrong hands. Through documentary material, archival traces, domestic space, and electronic installation, the work asks how belief is created and how authority becomes part of ordinary life. Rather than treating innovation as inherently dangerous, The Victory Box encourages awareness and critical discussion, inviting viewers to consider how technology, trust, comfort, and convenience shape both private life and public belief.

James Malzahn is an interdisciplinary artist and MFA candidate at the University of Waterloo whose background in technology shapes a practice rooted in the belief that technological systems should benefit humanity. Working across traditional and digital media, installation, custom-built electronics, and code, he creates immersive environments that generate critical conversation about the real and potential misuses of technology and the ways these systems can harm society, perception, and public trust.

On May 14, 5-8 pm, everyone is invited to the opening reception in UWAG for the second thesis exhibition of this year's Master of Fine Arts (MFA) candidates.

This exhibition runs from May 2 to 30.

Elise Popa
A Fallow Year

A Fallow Year tells the story of Popa’s own fallow season, encapsulated  through an intuitive skating practice and the building of an ice rink on a farm just outside Stratford, Ontario. The documentation that follows the process of making the rink explores how the physical labour and repetitive maintenance tasks mirror the efforts needed to support the artist’s recovery and self-determination post heartbreak. The performance-for-camera works, in which a first-person body-mounted camera is worn, explores drawing and intuitive movement as a form of embodied agency. Through using the analogy of an agricultural fallow season, the exhibition portrays a regenerative year of self-healing and renewal after loss.

Elise Popa is an interdisciplinary artist and long-time figure skater from southern Ontario. She graduated from Brock University’s Bachelor of Arts Studio Art program in 2022, where she began exploring kinetic art practices. As a Master of Fine Arts candidate at University of Waterloo, Popa has developed her intuitive movement practice while embracing failure as a methodology: creating work that articulates movement on skates (inline or figure) as a form of becoming.

Thanks to all who joined us on April 16 for the opening reception of the MFA1 Thesis exhibition featuring the work of Sandra Jabbour and Maddie Lychek. The show can be viewed at the University of Waterloo Art Gallery (UWAG), Wednesday through Saturday from 12 - 5 PM, until May 2.

Brush with Art is a Fine Arts initiative for undergraduate students which has a selection committee choose works which are installed for one year in each of the President’s Office, the Dean of Arts Office, and the Tatham Centre (Co-operative Education and Experiential Learning). Each student artist receives a $500 award.

Thank you to the University of Waterloo’s President’s Office, the Dean of Arts’s Office, and Co-operative Education and Experiential Learning for their generous support.

This year's selection is as follow:

Maggie Willsie
"Vermin’s Illusion of Choice", 2026, paper collage
Dean’s Office

Hayley Hill
"eyedawaya"ii (on both sides)", 2026, acrylic and beading on fabric
Office of the Associate Provost Co-operative and Experiential Education

Youngseo Kwon
"Between Korea and Canada", 2026, digital drawing printed on matte paper
Co-operative and Experiential Education

Jewel Hankey-Telesford
"Us", 2026, acrylic and oil on canvas
Office of the President

On April 16, 5-8 pm, everyone is invited to the opening reception in UWAG for the first thesis exhibition of this year's Master of Fine Arts (MFA) candidates.

This exhibition runs from April 16 to May 2.

Maddie Lychek
Could Be a Person or Multiple Hotdogs

"Could Be a Person or Multiple Hotdogs" subverts dominant narratives surrounding racialization, diaspora, and queerness by a refusal to flatten the artist’s multiple identities (Filipino, Slovak, masculine, le***an) in ways that align with broader institutional narratives of inclusion. This crude multiple projection installation peels back the layers of identity but does not settle them, instead you witness the entire anxious, calm, shameful, prideful, solitary, collective, familial, and vulgar—whole.

The exhibition culminates with D**e Clothing Swap a collective gathering to exchange used clothes and facilitate inter-generational connection during the last day of the exhibition on Saturday, May 2 from 3–5 pm.

On April 16, 5-8 pm, everyone is invited to the opening reception in UWAG for the first thesis exhibition of this year's Master of Fine Arts (MFA) candidates.

This exhibition runs from April 16 to May 2.

Sandra Jabbour
Ahsan Hdeyeh 3ana

"Ahsan Hdeyeh 3ana" explores themes of memory, family dynamics, multilingualism, diaspora, and Jabbour’s relationship to her Syrian and Lebanese cultures. Notably, her paintings are infused with her personal interpretations of imagery drawn from her familial archive of VHS tapes from the late 90s and early 2000s. Despite having grown up in Canada and never visiting her countries of origin, Jabbour is deeply connected to both her cultures. She speaks about her childhood being documented on VHS tapes and sent to family members abroad. This delayed communication method became a way for her family to remain connected despite geographical distance prior to social media, fostering a relationship between her and her brother and their family members abroad that they have yet to meet face-to-face. By transforming imagery from these tapes into paintings, she creates a third space between the past and the present and different geographic locations by resurrecting the family stories and memories contained in this forgotten medium.

Digital Echoes is an online exhibition of student projects from FINE 247 Expanded Media: Interaction. The exhibition can be viewed at https://newart.city/show/digital-echoes from April 1 – May 27, 2026

Featured Artists: Albert Wood, Amin Mojtahed, Blythe Krajaefski, Ella Brennan, Emily Chan, Janice Li, Kathy Chen, Keith Tsirkot, Micheal Glazyrin, Muxian Li, Simaran Malhi, Stephanie Daly, Toni Liang, Toral Vaghela, Victory Okusanya, Wilbur Zhang, Youngeun Cho

Exhibition Visual Identity: Janice Li
Instructor & Curator: Xuan Ye
Teaching Assistant: Shaikh Shawon Arefin Shimon

Digital Echoes is an exhibition of student projects from FINE 247 Expanded Media: Interaction offered at the University of Waterloo in winter 2026. Using visual programming software TouchDesigner, students explore interaction by integrating sounds and moving images, and working with real-time data feeds through projects such as an audio-reactive visual system, motion tracking, and other human-computer interactions.

Within the world of Digital Echoes, every space resonates with questions: how does technology mediate, alter, or extend our experience of reality? Here, projects unravel the threads of online identity, transform climate anxiety into swirling digital landscapes, and give voice and colour to the hidden rhythms of our virtual lives.

ECHO00_convergence gathers fleeting sketches from a semester’s collective imagination. ECHO001 to ECHO009 emerged as interactive installations, first envisioned for a CAVE (computer-assisted virtual environment), a room alive with XY motion-tracking. When the physical walls refused to hold us, we bounced, and we became echoes ourselves, seeking new resonance in virtual chambers. In New Art City, the ethos of the WWW reverberates: attention and willingness to wander become the echo, a digital ripple long after the window closes.