A bird’s eye view.
The week leading up to Halloween is a busy time for the Toronto art scene. Being home this year it’s been an experience of total immersion at every level; art suppliers and trades, installation, making, and of course, appreciating.
With the arrival of Art Toronto, Canada’s premier art fair, things ratcheted up at the woodshop I work at part time. They produce a significant amount of the panels, stretchers, frames, and crates used in the local community. There was plenty of rolled work arriving in need of stretching and plinths to be built in addition to the steady flow of panel construction and framing. I’ve learned a ton about this side of the art world and the repetitions have been great to get (extremely) comfortable with assembling my own surfaces and working with tools.
An unusually quiet moment in the shop.
Another bonus is getting to meet so many artists and gallerists I admire, and see their work come through the shop. The novelty of seeing brilliant paintings get stretched or framed hasn’t faded, and it’s a thrill to then see the finished product at an opening. With the exception of other artists inspecting the way a piece is made, installed, or stretched with a fine-tooth comb, most people viewing art are taking in the work itself, rather than the surface it arrived on. It’s a largely hidden corner of the art world, but I’ve seen first-hand how those working in the shops producing the surfaces and handling the work for the makers take great pride in being a foundational part of the process. If you can support an independent shop, please do. They’re supporting artists (whether the artists realize it or not) and their labor and attention deserves the same respect so many of them treat the work in their care with.
Crybaby’s showing at Art Toronto, a colourful mixture of paintings and sculptures.
The fair itself was an overwhelming experience that took a few days to fully absorb (as most fairs do). There were a few notable observations I made; one concerning the perceived resilience of the market-side, another regarding exciting trends I feel personally invested in.
Anders Oinonen, Mento, 2026, oil on canvas, 24 x 30 in. Hunt Gallery.
Through conversation with various galleries, I understood the fair to be smaller this year than in recent iterations - somewhere just over 100 galleries from across Canada and the United States, as well as a large contingent from Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Europe. Interestingly, during install I heard gallerists catching up and chatting about the state of the market and many seemed optimistic in the face of a downturn. While in NYC, all I heard about was the shambles the market was in. Journals, websites, and lectures were dominated by headlines and mentions of major gallery closures and controversies, institutional struggles, and plummeting sales.
David Stewart, Syncopation After Supper, oil on canvas, 24 x 36 in./61 x 91.4 cm, and Red Nap, oil on canvas, 24 x 36 in./61 x 91.4 cm, both 2026. Corkin Gallery.
I admit it was somewhat refreshing to repeatedly overhear the refrain “people are always going to buy art” and soak in the general sense of hope gleaned from talking with galleries who had successful weekends. Outside the bubble of NYC, as I’ve been learning this past summer, there is reason to be optimistic about other hubs and communities. As I mentioned in an earlier post, boots on the ground in Toronto there’s a real sense of a blossoming and thriving scene waking up from a dormant period brought on by the rampant gentrification and development. There are so many pockets of creativity operating at every strata of the art world here and this seemed to be on full display in both the galleries represented at the fair and the variety of attendees.
Ben Reeves, Moon Watchers, oil and acrylic on canvas with acrylic on canvas collaged elements, 60.5 x 47.75 in. Equinox Gallery.
This brings me to my second observation - the lowbrow and ‘outsider’ wave is taking over!! While there was ample representation from the traditional corners of the Canadian art world - contemporary indigenous galleries, the modern and post-modern standard-bearers, and of course various takes on the great Canadian landscape - there was a strong showing from upstart galleries fueled by artists from non-traditional and more applied backgrounds.
Matthew Walton, Click/Snap, Acrylic & coloured pencil on wood panel, 42 x 48 x 1.5 in., 2026. The New Other.
Anyone who knows me will understand my excitement at seeing such a strong showing from artists with backgrounds in animation, illustration, graffiti, design, and other applied arts who were spreading their expressive wings and being rewarded for it. I’ve reflected a lot on why this feels so important to me. On the one hand I think the simplest explanation lies in recognition and support for voices that have long played an integral role in the development of culture while being selectively relegated to the sidelines. There are crucial stories to tell, and in many cases, I think these artists are trained in a manner that allows them to create more accessible paths into the deeper waters of the art world for audiences anxious about dipping their toes in. And that’s not to say this work doesn’t possess a depth all its own. There’s a pathway here to help break down some of the walls the traditionally obstinate contemporary art world erects.
Kellen Hatanaka, Ed’s Nisei, Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 24 in., 2026. The New Other.
On the other hand, I just personally love the work. It feels like home. It resonates with me on a different level, and it’s wonderful to see artists who have historically felt like outsiders to this space able to support their practices. Friends at Crybaby and Abbozzo Gallery brought artists working across disciplines like Ken Yau, Emily Pope, Adrienna Matzeg, Giorgio Cecatto, Tamara Solem AI-Issa, Julia Monson, and Joshua Advincula. These artists come to the contemporary art fair world from outside traditional fine arts backgrounds; illustrators, designers, and even further afield as chefs and physiologists. In my eyes, the work more than holds its own next to the more conventional fare and has a bit more tooth as a result of bringing fresh ingredients and perspectives to the space. I wasn’t alone in this opinion either, as these booths were aboslutely poppin’ every time I swung by.
Monoprints by Elicsir Elliot at Smokestack’s booth.
Other wonderful examples were the vibrant offerings from The New Other and Smokestack. The former brought a playful selection of work by Matthew Walton, Miakoda Ohki, Steven Schmid, and Kellen Hatanaka; the latter a selection of prints from the expansive variety of print-making equipment the Hamilton studio maintains. Among the prints on display, I was particularly struck by Elicsir Elliot’s recent 1/1 monoprints, which continue to demonstrate the constant evolution the Toronto legend brings to portraiture in his practice.
Audie Murray, We Are Always Love, mirror and glass seed beads, dimensions variable. Fazakas Gallery.
In other areas of the festival I was excited to see the variety of contemporary indigenous work on show. Growing up in Canada exposes many of us to the work of first peoples in a very distant, arm’s length manner; the work often presented as artifact rather than that of a living, breathing community of artists. Feheley Fine Arts and Fazakas Gallery both brought an exciting selection of work that deftly infuses new work with a long lineage of tradition through pieces by Darcy Bernhardt, Don Yeomans, Audie Murray, and Shuvinai Ashoona.
Getting handsy with Ken Yau’s gorgeous sculptures at Crybaby Gallery’s booth.
All of this to say nothing of strong showings from other Canadian fixtures and the Arte Sur section which highlighted a wide breadth of work from Latin America. While I didn’t attend any of the programming and can’t in fairness be critical of something I didn’t experience, I would say that it was a result of it not quite aligning with the things I felt were truly exciting at the fair. I’d love to see more space given to upstarts and outsiders alongside the traditional collector audience and Canadian art topic fixtures in the discussions. The on-ramp for young collectors was lit up and shining, but I feel like the fair could grow as a platform to connect some of these orbiting spaces in a more direct way.
All in all, despite a smaller footprint, the fair reinforced my feelings that the scene in Toronto and Canada at large is alive and hungry. I hope all who attended and were represented had as great a time as I did, and left with some new work, new artists on their radar, or just a healthy dose of inspiration to keep making and building. Let’s keep it moving!