Born in Montreal and now based in Oshawa, Michael Drolet is a sculptor and public artist whose practice explores balance, structure, and abstraction. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Ottawa in 2014, specializing in sculpture, and upon graduation received the Suzanne Rivard-Le Moyne Award (Second Prize) for excellence in the year-end exhibition. Drolet has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions, including at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, the Canadian Sculpture Centre, the Art Gallery of Northumberland, and the Orillia Museum of Art & History. Committed to expanding his practice, Michael has pursued continuing education in exhibition design, typography, digital media, and welding.
Culture Counts Awards
The Oshawa Culture Counts Awards celebrate and honour the creative and cultural achievements of the community in three categories:
- Oshawa Culture Counts Professional Artist
- Oshawa Culture Counts Emerging Artist
- Innovation and Creation Champion Award
Work sample submission criteria
- Visual, Fine Craft, Multimedia: Include up to five images. All images must be in JPEG format, no larger than 2 MB each. Please include an image list containing the title, dimensions, and date of the artwork.
- Music – performances, technical, or production (all genres): Include up to two songs as a web link to YouTube videos, Soundcloud files, etc.; if an album is submitted, please note two songs you would like the Jury to listen to and for all include appropriate production credits, such as the publisher and performance dates.
- Theatre, Performance, Dance: Include five minutes of a recent work via web link. Please cue media to the starting time, and include appropriate production credits such as the director, writer, and performance dates.
- Writing: Include up to two samples of current work (Word/PDF), no more than ten pages. Please include appropriate production credits, such as the date, publisher, and editor. Please note any passages you would like the Jury to read.
- For an organization or collective, please provide work samples that support the nomination. This could be a web link to the website with notes on the areas you would like the Jury to focus on or PDF/Word files of brochures or other marketing materials explaining the organization's impact.
Eligibility
- Applicants and nominees must be current or former residents of the City of Oshawa, work in the City of Oshawa, or collaborate with an Oshawa-based organization.
- An applicant or nominee may be the recipient of only one award per year.
- City of Oshawa staff are not eligible for an award, but may nominate individuals.
- An individual cannot be nominated posthumously.
Review process
A sub-committee of the Cultural Leadership Council (C.L.C.) will review and evaluate the nominations received and make a recommendation for each award to the Economic Development Services Committee (E.D.S.C.). The E.D.S.C. will review the recommendations by the C.L.C. and make a recommendation to City Council for approval of the award winners.
For each category noted above, City staff will develop an evaluation matrix and guidelines for assessing the recipient of the awards.
Applicants will be required to demonstrate artistic merit, critical acknowledgement of the work/initiative, evidence of recognition by the local community, and describe their career path/ organizational background and association to the arts discipline/initiative.
Nomination Forms
Nominations for the 2026 Culture Counts Awards are now closed.
Oshawa Culture Counts Award Professional Artist
This award recognizes an established artist of any arts discipline (including performing, visual, cinematic, design, architecture and literary arts) who has demonstrated creativity, originality, professional maturity and artistic leadership in the community.
The following criteria will be used to select the award recipient:
- Artistic merit/interest
- Critical acknowledgments of the artist's work (e.g. exhibition/performance opportunities, publications, reviews, articles, etc.)
- Recognition by local arts community
2026 Recipient - Michael Drolet
- Keisha “Keysha Freshh” Fanfair (2025)
- Amy Shackleton (2024)
- Susan Campbell (2023)
- Margaret Rodgers (2022)
- Marissa Sweet (2021)
- Dani Crosby (2020)
- Grant Cole (2019)
- Ron Lambert (2018)
Oshawa Culture Counts Award Emerging Artist
This award recognizes an artist in the early stages of their career in any arts discipline (including performing, visual, cinematic, design, architecture and literary arts) who is skilled and determined to advance their artistic capabilities. This individual understands the value of their gift within the community, and leverages these skills to inspire and enrich the lives of fellow citizens.
The individual must be between 12 to 30 years old or have begun their artistic practice within the past five years.
The following criteria will be used to select the award recipient:
- Artistic merit/interest
- Evidence of commitment to artistic practice
- Career path in an artistic discipline
- Critical acknowledgments of the artist's work (i.e., exhibition/performance opportunities, publications, reviews, articles, etc.)
- Recognition by the local arts community
Yongzhen Li is an emerging artist based in Oshawa. Trained at Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts and self-taught in contemporary practices, he merges traditional Chinese ink and mugwort dye with a modern sensibility to examine identity, memory, and resistance. His work has been exhibited at Art Shopping Paris (Louvre, 2024), McKay Art Centre (Unionville, 2025), and the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery (Vancouver, 2026). Li has an upcoming residency at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, with a solo exhibition planned for 2027. He also received a recommendation from renowned curator Michel Kahn-Ackermann. Li is committed to public engagement through community-based art and educational initiatives.
- Danielle Alexander (2025)
- Emily Rocha (2024)
- Kalista Wilson (2024)
- Diana Nadia Lawryshyn (2023)
- Bolu Adefemi (2022)
- Leequette Santiago (2021)
- Meaghan Kehoe (2020)
- Joaquin Manay (2019)
- Crown Lands (Cody Bowles and Kevin Comeau) (2018)
Innovation and Creation Champion
This award honours an individual, collective and/or organization in the creative and cultural industries who has created or enhanced an event, product, program or partnership in the past year. In addition, the award recognizes work that is unique, transformative, and positive in its impact on arts, culture and heritage in Oshawa.
The following criteria will be used to select the award recipient:
- The level of creativity and innovation of the event, product, program or partnership
- The community impact of the event, product, program or partnership
- Notable achievements relevant to event, product, program or partnership
2026 Recipient - Oshawa Public Libraries
Oshawa Public Libraries launched the Memory Lab in 2024, and the program continued to grow and thrive throughout 2025, its first full year of operation. The Memory Lab is funded primarily by the Friends of the Oshawa Public Library and is a self-serve digital conversion workstation that allows community members to transform aging analog media into accessible digital formats. This initiative directly supports Oshawa Public Libraries’ strategic priorities of connecting people to the past, fostering cultural experiences, and promoting digital inclusion. As technology evolves, many legacy media formats are rapidly becoming obsolete, placing decades of memories and historical records at risk of being lost. The Memory Lab addresses this challenge by providing community members with the tools and guidance needed to digitize aging media.
- Oshawa Museum (2025)
- Oshawa Tourism (2024)
- Anushka and Arushi Bhattacharjee (2023)
- Oshawa Museum (2022)
- Bawaajigewin (2021)
- Oshawa Public Libraries (2020)
- Laura Suchan (2019)
- Mary Krohnert and the LivingRoom Community Art Studio (2018)
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