Current and Upcoming ARTspace 2025 Exhibitions
Blue Balloon
A collaborative project with the Alzheimer Society of Chatham-Kent and Krista Schneider
May 14 - August 1, 2025
Opening Reception: Friday July 18, 2025 at 5:00 pm as part of Summer ARTcrawl
Blue Balloon celebrates artists living with dementia, highlighting their significant and meaningful contributions through art. Interwoven with reflective elements surrounding the theme of the "blue balloon"—a symbol of hope—Blue Balloon showcases the uplifting power of creative expression, life reflection, storytelling, and engagement.
Storybook Realism - Jodi Edwards Wright
August 6 - November 15, 2025
Opening Reception: Friday September 19, 2025 | 7:00 - 9:00 pm
Self-described, storybook realism blends the charm of children’s book illustrations with realistic, three-dimensional embroidered animal masks in Jodi Edwards Wright’s work. Using only thread and water-soluble stabilizer, she builds intricate, textured sculptures that combine machine and hand embroidery techniques to mimic fur, feathers, and facial expressions. Inspired by illustrators like Beatrix Potter and her father’s love of nature, Wright’s work humanizes animals to foster empathy and environmental awareness. Her art not only honors the tradition of textile work but also aims to captivate audiences—through its detail, whimsy, and emotional resonance.
Past 2025 ARTspace Exhibitions
I Wander to Wonder Lorie Thibault
January 8 - May 3, 2025
Opening Reception: Friday January 31, 2025 6:00 - 7:00 pm
While wandering one can see so much, but by wondering one can see so much more!
Lorie Thibault’s I Wander to Wonder uses black ink drawing to explore the dream world that often exists beneath the reality of nature’s surface, reflecting on the stories that may be the foundation that holds it in place. Wander and wonder with Lorie across the world to discover the clues that help unfold the passage of the past to the present and discover line by line a wonderous world!
Collected Works: A Sense of Place Hortense Gordon
Thames Art Gallery Permanent Collection on View
January 8 - May 3, 2025
Opening Reception: Friday January 31, 2025
6:00 - 7:00 pm
Hortense Gordon (1887 - 1961) showed great talent early, exhibiting with the Ontario Society of Artists while still in her teens. In 1916 she began work at the Hamilton Technical School as an assistant to John Gordon whom she married in 1920. She continued teaching at the HTS until 1951, the last twenty years as head of the Art Department, succeeding her husband. In the 1930’s she began experimenting with abstract painting, becoming one of the first abstract artists in Hamilton and probably in Canada. She was a member of the Canadian Society of Graphic Artists, the Royal Canadian Academy of Art and Painters Eleven. Julius LeBow, a local art gallery owner said of Hortense Gordon. “Totally involved with all aspects of art in Hamilton, she profoundly affected everyone who came into contact with her.” She was a trail blazer of the popularization of modern art in Canada.
The Thames Art Gallery’s Permanent Collection is a documentation of the Municipality of Chatham-Kent’s art history from the late 1800’s to the present and contains over 700 works.