What is art for?  More than 80 artworks created in the pandemic summer of 2020 by artists worldwide respond to this question, posed by Montreal artist and educator Kathleen Vaughan.  Employing her kits of special papers, textiles, and embroidery floss, collaborators created material and digital works revealing their fears and hopes for art and us all.  Now, almost 6 years later during our present moment of upheaval, strife, uncertainty, and fear, Vaughan’s display in the gallery re-asks the question, inviting visitors to take to the materials in the gallery’s maker space to offer their own answer to this question, however it resonates.

Step into a showcase of vision, experimentation, and emerging artistic identity at Invisia, the annual Professional Photography  graduate exhibition.  Featuring the work of students ready to graduate in the spring of 2026, this collection highlights the diverse perspectives and technical growth developed throughout their journey. 

From striking portraiture and atmospheric landscapes to conceptual explorations and bold documentary work, the exhibition presents a wide spectrum of photographic styles. 

Consumed Consequences is a multimedia art exhibition examining the human and environmental costs of overconsumption and fast fashion. Self-portrait oil paintings styled like fashion magazine editorials subvert logos and transform the seductive language of fashion in a reflection on desire, consumption, and disposability.  A mock fashion campaign video exposes the gap between glamour and exploitation, while digital illustration light boxes give clothing presence and ask viewers to reconsider their relationship with what they wear.

LifeBoat: An Unnatural History presents viewers with allegorical depictions of transitional precariousness and migratory flight.  Inspired by natural history museum displays as well as historical and current events, it invokes complex and overlapping social, political, ethical, and cultural issues.

The project began, in part, while researching my family genealogy and discovering an ancestor, Anne Dodin, who came to Québec in 1669 along with dozens of other young French girls. 

The Warren G. Flowers Art Gallery proudly presents the graduating work of the AEC Commercial Photography students. Glimpse Redux shows the work of 13 students, given the freedom to show the breadth and experimentation nurtured at Dawson. Organized by student Jean Fred Bédard with Faculty member Denis Gendron.

Featuring the work of:  Flore Michèle Boubila, Florence Boulianne, Kabil Bala Krishna, Jennifer Carmelo, Marina Afansiev, Pantea Pezeshkan, Jennifer Ann Dick, Serena Wolfe, Sara Elkady, Alma Perreault, Ana Isabel Duque, Noushin Bahraini, and Jean Fred Bédard,

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A catalyst is a force beyond reckoning. It embodies strength, power, and an unwavering will to move forward — to push ahead and reach for something beyond the present.

A catalyst is confident, energizing the world with vitality, purpose, and assertive direction. It does not accept ‘no’ for an answer.

A catalyst sparks something new with determination, following its intuition wherever it leads.

It is only fitting that the second year Visual Arts students at Dawson College have chosen Catalyst 25 as the title of their graduating exhibition.

In this exhibition, Sarah-Mecca Abdourahman explores the complexities of memory and nostalgia in her everlasting search for a connection to her parent’s homelands, Somalia and India.  A longing for home that can bring grief and joy.  Delving into these contrasting emotions, Abdourahman’s work moves between themes of haunting and healing, evoking the bittersweet.  Her yearning is woven into the fabric of multimedia-painted blankets and installations which allude to both the innocence of childhood, and its nightmares.

Since its inception in1992, the Faculty of Fine Arts Biennial has showcased the varied practices of teachers from the Department of Fine Arts, offering students and the community the opportunity to glimpse their work outside of the classroom.

Their contributions to this exhibition span a variety of media—painting, sculpture, photography, mixed media, and the written word, among others—illustrating a profound engagement with both traditional practices and new technologies.   At the core of the many explorations that this exhibition offers are complexities surrounding the environment (both natural and built);

NOW EXTENDED UNTIL JANUARY 17th!  

Featuring the work of: Lucas Berry, Joshua Bubis, Zikai Chen, Dean Daltirus, Ashley Dumas, Renaud Duplessis, Jhosua Farid Pinzon Euan, Manekha Gadiano-Dimaano, Carol Hallak, Zhichao Huang, Xenia Jeffery-Off, Jasmeen Kaur, Dua Khan, Zachary LeMenn, Adèle L’Heureux-Hubert, Jordan Markle, Benjamin McAuley, Zachary Mercier, Cody Neglia, Michael Picardo, Hugo Santamaria and Trevon Shand.

Dawson College’s Department of Professional Photography presents Continuum, an exhibition featuring the work of students approaching the end of their three-year program. 

This exhibition brings together the work of 11 of Dawson’s most recognized Visual Arts Alumni with that of their former teacher—artist, writer, and curator Giuseppe (Joe) Di Leo.

Celebrating the reciprocal and circular journey between mentor and mentees, the exhibition will focus on the multi-faceted forms of drawing: abbreviated gestures, sketches schematics, faithfully rendered recordings, executed in a range of treatment and approaches on any surface.  Revealing the multiplicities and meanderings of human existence, these artists present drawing as a means to  probe, record, and conger vivid expressions of imagined and complex realities.