Workman Arts is celebrating 25 Years of their Being Scene initiative with a landmark exhibition that runs through June 14, 2026. The show is on display at the 32 Lisgar Street building in Toronto on the second floor.
Being Scene is a platform to showcase the work of visual artists with lived experiences of mental health and addiction. This year’s juried exhibition features the work of 29 artists in a various of disciplines, including painting, photography, digital media, installations, sculpture, and video.
The participating artists were selected by a jury committee of professional curators from Toronto and Montreal, including Simon Cole (Founder and Director – Cooper Cole Gallery), Eli Kerr (Founder of Galerie Eli Kerr) and Ann MacDonald (Director and Curator – Doris McCarthy Gallery).
Along with the exhibition, the year-round Open Studio Series connects the Workman Arts artists with the broader Toronto arts community. On selected dates, guest curators and/or arts professional will meet with four or five of the Being Scene artists to talk about their practice.
The Exhibition
Being scene is a diverse and colourful exhibition of works that take various approaches to express the artist’s lived experience.
Some look at the situation with a wry sense of humour. V Vallières’ Chin-Up (2025) is a beautifully detailed ceramic dragon-ish figure, head resolutely turned to the sky. Vallières is a Toronto-based multimedia artist with a BFA from Concordia University. Their work often explores themes of memory and the subconscious, and the need for defensive and coping mechanisms.
Christopher Scott’s Mundane Monster (2025), an acrylic painting, depicts a misshapen monster at work at a computer desk. In his artist’s statement, Scott says “his work often revolves around the terrifying or whimsical”, and is largely surreal in nature.
Others take a simple and straightforward approach. Ghazaraza’s Languishing (2026) is an acrylic on canvas painting, depicting a figure in repose. Their work is influenced by Persian visual images, and the painting is both intimate and unsettling in its mood.
Also unsettling is Jace Traz’s Draw Your Brain She Said (2024). The chalk pastel drawing is intricate and mesmerizing, a kind of modern-day Hieronymus Bosch that mixes what seem to be machine parts and organic bodily innards.
Candace Cosentino’s intriguing La Cigarette (2025) is a digital short film that depicts a red rose smoking a cigarette, with various statements interwoven into the visuals, including “Aren’t they all just self harm in the end?” and “Don’t stare at me like that, it makes me anxious”. The viewer for the video is an old style block, set on a white platform strewn with moss and cigarettes, and a full ashtray. It’s an intimate meditation, according to the artist’s statement, “on vice, worth, and addiction, using the stark contrast of natural beauty and human vice to explore how we assign value to people and objects”.
Some are simply gorgeous, like Apanaki Temitayo’s Oju Olorun V: Eye of God V (2025), made with a kind of collage of African textiles, cork leather, acrylic on wood, or Mindfulness (2023), created with African textiles, coffee stains, and acrylic. According to the artist’s notes, the two works exist in a conversation with each other that explores presence, and the layered nature of existence. The pieces have a bold sense of colour and texture, with sweeping and swirling lines.
Brandon Wulff’s striking Look (2024) is created with quilted textile in a bright pink, with a black pair of sunglasses. Wulff calls it a “textile exploration of perception, inviting the viewer to reconsider the value and meaning embedded in everyday objects”. The fabric is stitched with geometric lines that add texture to the compelling piece.
Awards
Two awards were given to participating artists.
Workman Arts partnered with Gallery 44 to launch the Being Scene x G44 MAD FOCUS annual award. It’s given in recognition of excellence and artistic rigour in photography and digital media. The inaugural recipient of the award is Alino Giraldi.
Giraldi’s impressionistic photo Reverie (2024) adds layers to a natural shapes, creating a streaky surface and plains of colour. Her artist notes state that she wanted to portray the ethereal and the divine.
Being Scene honours the legacy of the late Romanian Canadian artist Ica Pas (Ecaterina Pascaluta), whose work was inspired by the Dada movement. Ica Pas’ legacy includes drawings, sculpture, paintings, and mixed media pieces which often drew on her native Romanian culture as well as Northern Ontario landscapes.
The Ica Pas Scholarship is awarded to tenant artists of Toronto Community Housing who are using visual arts to work beyond their challenges, and make it through another day. The Scholarship includes a cash prize, training at Workman Arts, and inclusion into Being Scene.
The 2026 scholarships were awarded to Leeay Aikawa and Michael Alemayehu.
Leeay Aikawa’s Bindu is a piece made of pine needles, bound and strung with cotton thread, with a suspended metal found object. Her work often uses this combination of land-based materials and found objects playfully reassembled.
Michael Alemayehu is a self taught artist. His Meskel Demera Celebration (2024), like much of his work, is rooted in his upbringing in Ethiopia, and celebrates the beauty of African culture and traditions. His drawing is wonderfully detailed, with a warm sense of light. The Meskel Demera Celebration is an Ethiopian Orthodox festival commemorating the discovery of the True Cross by Empress Helena in the 4th century.
Exhibition Details
Being Scene runs through Jun 14, 2026, on the second floor at 32 Lisgar St., Toronto. Note that, once you’re on the second floor, you’ll want to follow the signs down a long hallway to reach the exhibition space.
Hours: Wednesday to Sunday, 1:00 – 6:00 p.m.
- Find more information and a full list of all artists in the exhibition [HERE].
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