May 23 | 2026 Summer Exhibitions Opening Reception
Saturday, May 23, 2026
2 PM to 4 PM
Free | Registration not required
About the Program
Celebrate the opening of the Varley Art Gallery’s 2026 Summer Exhibitions with an afternoon of art and conversation. Meet exhibiting artists Par Nair, Scott Sawtell, and Vicky Talwar, along with curator Anik Glaude; enjoy a sound-healing performance by Buddhist monk Lama Jam; and take part in interactive activities. Light refreshments will be served.
About “What holds us together”
The artists in this exhibition work within states of in‑betweenness, using painting to assemble the memories, relationships, and events that shape their identities. Through layered processes and intuitive construction, they build worlds that hold them together—worlds offering coherence amid shifting selves and unstable histories. Par Nair reframes gender roles through intimate engagements with personal archives and memory; Scott Sawtell probes psychological tension through gestural contradictions and unconscious imagery; and Vicky Talwar evokes spiritual reflection through natural elements and symbolic layering.
While their approaches differ, all three artists treat painting as an act of care, one that nurtures resilience, reveals buried narratives, and creates room for freedom from social and cultural expectations. Their works become spaces of reflection and restoration, creating openings for connection, comfort, or possibility. Together, their practices unfold within the shared context of living and working in York Region, a place shaped by cultural plurality and continual transformation. This geographical backdrop echoes the fluidity and complexity of their individual production, grounding each abstract language within the here and now.
Curated by Anik Gluade.
About “Emerging Artist Spotlight”
Hayley Chi Hay Chiu is a Markham-based, second-generation Chinese Canadian painter. Working primarily in oil, she holds a BFA in Drawing and Painting from OCAD University (2023). Her practice traces an ongoing journey of becoming and a search for “home,” reimagining personal narratives through fable and fantasy.
Chiu’s work features surreal depictions of the body and its environment, exploring themes of in-betweenness, desire, and inherited cultural imagery. By layering realism with fragmented and overlaid elements, she disrupts the illusion of direct representation, instead creating painterly worlds that reflect the mythologies we construct to find meaning within the everyday.
Curated by Anik Gluade.
