Arts Events and Activities

Danielle Alexander is an emerging artist who explores memories and stories from her past. Her pieces depict a sense of nostalgia and play, with influences from history and pop culture. Working across a variety of mediums, she transforms her memories into relatable, universal scenes. These artworks depict new characters, settings and themes, which capture a piece of the artist’s life and personality.

A major focus in Danielle’s practice is creating art that is integrated into daily life. Experimenting with art objects, zines, stickers and clothing, she aims to create affordable and accessible art. Her practice pushes the boundary between fine art and illustration, inviting viewers to think about the relationship between art, comics and merchandise. Working in drawing, painting, printmaking and digital art, Danielle’s mixed-media pieces incorporate modern technology with analogue techniques. 

Jamaica Bridgett

For artist, writer and facilitator Jamaica Bridgett everything is and has spirit, and spirit is characterized by its freedom, movement and colour. Jamaica's work seeks to capture the spirit, or the unseen essence, of whatever it is they're painting, drawing or bringing to life through the curation of community arts spaces. Primarily working in acrylic painting and digital art, Jamaica's work is often abstract in nature and is infused with a language of symbols, dots and lines of their own creation.

Jamaica has been creating since they could hold a pencil, using multiple mediums to express the questions, musings and spiritual machinations that pulse within them on a daily basis. They've been publishing writings about identity, intergenerational healing and anti-oppression since 2018. At the root of everything they create is a fundamental belief that the act of human creativity is deserving of celebration and akin to divinity.

Vicky the Real Artist

Victoria (Grant) Rozentals is an Indigenous artist with mixed ancestry of Anishinaabe, Metis, Mi'kmaq, Scottish and French. Star Feather Woman is her spirit name. Known for her art as Vicky the Real Artist, she practices healing through creating visual art. The mother of four has spent her life formally and informally training and creating art through various mediums, finally settling on pyrography as her specialty.

As an avid outdoor enthusiast who spends as much time in nature as possible, she enjoys painting and woodburning designs of the flora and fauna indigenous to Turtle Island. As a founding member of ishkode.ca - Indigenous Art Collective and Workshops, she teaches painting and pyrography for beginners in school boards, local galleries and community groups. Vicky is an Indigenous program facilitator, running programs for families with children aged 0-6 through the Family and Community Action Program in Oshawa and across the GTA.

Vidhya Surijesh

Through her art, Vidhya seeks to transform spaces and minds with the vibrant energy of the natural world. Each painting is a celebration of life, colour and texture—an invitation to experience joy and wonder in the everyday. Her process is guided by a love for both the majestic and the minute: from the grandeur of elephants to the delicate beauty of birds.

Vidhya works with acrylics and mixed media, often incorporating unconventional materials to create tactile, layered surfaces that echo the complexity and vitality of nature. Her palette is intentionally bold, reflecting the kaleidoscopic beauty of coral reefs, autumnal forests, and the intricate patterns of the animal kingdom. Vidhya believes that art has the power not only to captivate but also to inspire meaningful conversations about our responsibility to the environment. Ultimately, her goal is to create works that uplift, inspire and remind us of the beauty and fragility of the world we share.

Ally Wang

Yan Wang, also known as Ally, moved to Oshawa in 2012. Since moving to Oshawa, Ally has witnessed the city’s changes every year, population growth, development of communities and public facilities and increasingly diverse cultural traditions. Her own life has also changed over the course of her time living in Oshawa.

In 2017, Ally was able to reconnect with painting, which was once her childhood hobby. Painting has gradually become an indispensable part of her life. Since 2020, Ally has participated in the Oshawa Art Association’s juried exhibitions and art festivals. Through continuous learning and development, Ally has been able to turn her hobby into a career.

As an immigrant with a Chinese cultural background, Ally is influenced by traditional Chinese culture – especially calligraphy and ancient poetry. Ally’s wish is to create opportunities for people to feel the beauty of nature, humanity and integration together.

Theresa Wyatt

As an artist and educator, Theresa’s work bridges public art, youth empowerment and community dialogue. She has spent the majority of her career teaching visual arts at R.S. McLaughlin C.V.I. in Oshawa, where she founded Urban Art for Social Change (U.A.S.C.)—a program that reframes graffiti and street art as tools for creative expression and social connection.

Theresa’s artistic practice is rooted in advocacy for art in public spaces, aiming to democratize creativity and challenge perceptions of graffiti as vandalism. Through murals, exhibitions and collaborative projects, she explores how art can foster youth agency and community belonging. The U.A.S.C. program provides students with safe, legal avenues to develop their voices.

As an educator, Theresa strives to honour Oshawa’s creative history while empowering the next generation to redefine it. Through this project and her ongoing work, she aims to amplify the idea that art thrives when it belongs to everyone.