The Bentway and Exhibition Place is unveiling Petal and Stone, a new public mural by Canadian artist Rebecca Munce, which will transform a 10,000 sq. ft. concrete wall located below the Gardiner Expressway. The mural will be available to view from October 24, 2025, coinciding with Art Toronto.
The mural represents the first commission in a rotating series of works that will be displayed in The Bentway dubbed the Gardiner Wallworks series.
The Bentway is that space that opens up underneath the Gardiner Expressway as it winds into the city. It’s a public space that connects many different areas from the GO and VIA train tracks to Fort York, Exhibition Place, and the neighbourhoods around it. It’s become a social hub, a place for events, and exhibitions like Petal and Stone. You can check out the 2024/25 annual report here for more information about programming.
With Petal and Stone, the concrete wall becomes a transition between The Bentway area and the historic gates of Exhibition Place. The mural includes architectural as well as natural flora motifs.
It’ll be visible from the Strachan Avenue bridge, facing north, and the surrounding area, for a two-year period from October 24, 2025 through 2027.
We talked to artist Rebecca Munce about the project.
Rebecca Munce, artist
A native of Toronto, artist Rebecca Munce makes her home in Montréal these days. She studied visual arts at York University, where she earned a BFA in Painting and Drawing, and subsequently at Concordia University, where she earned an MFA.
Rebecca has held residencies in Québec, Toronto, and in Italy, and was the recipient of the 2015 Tom Hopkins Memorial Award, 2016 Dora and Avi Morrow Fellowship, and 2017 Lillian Vineberg Graduate Scholarship.
Her work has been exhibited in a variety of solo and group exhibitions in Montréal, Toronto, and New York City since 2015. Her work has also been shown at various international art exhibitions and shows. She is represented by the McBride Contemporain gallery in Montréal.
Rebecca Munce: The Interview
“I was contacted by The Bentway,” Munce recalls.
The Bentway, perhaps impressed with her work at Art Toronto or another exhibition the previous year, invited her to apply for the inaugural Gardiner Wallworks commision.
She had not taken on a project of the dimensions required before; 10,000 square feet is a lot of painting. “It’s not something that was on my radar.”
Just north of Exhibition Place, the concrete wall stretches horizontally, with the mural facing north.
“You can see it from the Strachan bridge,” she says. The wall, as she explains, was already standing in the right location, in the space where the Bentway opens to Exhibition Place gates. The location suggested the approach.
“I wanted it to be this meeting point between softness and structure,” Munce says. It’s about the potential for change and growth. “The mural is hopefully able to embody both of those things.”
Images and Motifs
Rebecca’s work often examines alternative worlds and spiritual universes.
“I do it through a lens of mythology,” Rebecca explains.
She says she often uses architecture for inspiration, and architectural elements as motifs, along with the idea of portals or transition points between one world and another. The scope of the project fit with her concepts.
“It was really great to work on this.”
The collaborative nature of putting together the large-scale project is another bonus of the public project.
“I’m used to working alone on these panels,” she says. Her works are typically conceived at that scale; small and intimate, and designed in a way that people can get up close to it to view.
Putting her ideas on 10,000 square feet of concrete that many people would see from a distance was a different sort of proposal. How could she get her drawing across on the media and scale? How to show brush strokes and other textural detail?
“It was a really, really interesting experience,” Munce relates.
Public art projects by their nature require a different approach. “It’s time to do different ideas. The space dictates the work.” That comes in contrast with her usual practises.
She developed a symbology related to native plants and animals, tapestry and architectural elements, and the idea of transition. “It’s sort of a veil.” The mural beckons viewers to walk through the space. “In all this, it’s an invitation to explore.”
While it’s visible from above to commuters, the perspective is based on the view from the pedestrian paths in the area.
“It’s a journey of exploration, and finding new things. That’s very much what it’s like navigating through the city and its neighbourhoods.”
You can find out more details about the project here.
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