Open Studio

Happy Wednesday! 🙌 We would like to highlight two individuals who have been assisting us behind the scenes.

Megara Leo, currently completing a placement with OCAD University as our Collections Assistant (and who has also volunteered with us throughout the year), and Lucinda Sande, who is working with us as a Collections Research Assistant through the Master of Museum Studies program, supporting research on our storied collection.

We are grateful to have them on board this summer!

A bit more about each individual:

ℹ️Megara Leo is completing a BA Honours in Visual and Critical Studies at OCAD University, with a minor in Drawing and Painting. She plans to pursue a Master’s degree abroad, bringing together her interests in art history, curation, and painting toward a career in art restoration and conservation. A multidisciplinary artist, Megara works in oil paint, charcoal, and printmaking. Her practice explores the human body and psyche through the lens of history, symbolism, and shifting sociocultural narratives, drawing on iconographical traditions to inform contemporary visual storytelling.

ℹ️Lucinda Sande is an artist, researcher, and writer based between Halifax and Toronto. Having completed a BA in English Literature, they are currently pursuing a Master’s of Museum Studies at the University of Toronto. Their thesis focuses on Toronto’s women photographers of the 1970s. Applying a feminist and queer-affirming lens, their research interests include Toronto-based artist communities and initiatives. After graduate studies, they intend to apply their research skills to collections management and curation. As an amateur artist, they work in film photography, ceramics, and painting.

🎨🖼️📚

The print vibes are strong 💪✨

Our studio is open to independent artists looking for shared printmaking equipment, plus a space to develop ideas, connect with fellow artists, experiment, and grow creatively.

We love seeing our artist members push boundaries and discover new ways to incorporate print into their practice.

Interested in joining us?

If you’re a printmaker ➡️ check out our Studio Access webpage: https://openstudio.ca/studio/

No print experience? No problem. Our classes (starting in August!) are a great place to begin, and private instruction is also available.

We also offer free studio tours throughout the year. Come say hello 401 Richmond at 401 Richmond St. West.

💥Hot off the press💥 Visit us at 401 Richmond St. West, Suite 104, to get your FREE copy!

We are delighted to be featured in the Summer 2026 issue of 401 Update, a quarterly printed newsletter documenting the people and spaces that make 401 Richmond a unique artistic hub.

The tenant profile highlights Open Studio’s mission to promote contemporary printmaking, along with interviews with our current staff who are keeping things up and running! 🏃‍♀️

Big thanks to 401 Richmond Street West! Read the online copy here: https://401richmond.com/newsletters/

MAIN GALLERY
Defiant Memory
Sylvat Aziz

Sylvat Aziz’s work engages with the political, social, and cultural forces that shape contemporary life and social interactions. It explores how structures of illegitimate power influence cultural memory and identity, and lay waste to the continuity of ways of life. Rather than presenting singular or dogmatic images, the work remains open to multiple interpretations, holding ambiguity and nuance at its center.

Through layered visual strategies, fragmentation, and narrative allusion, the images reflect on the fragile spaces where generational memory persists despite deliberate and systemic oppression. The work concerns itself with the erosion of cultural capital and the destabilization of traditions and knowledge systems under conditions of domination, extraction, and displacement.

By foregrounding vulnerability, resilience, and shared humanity, ‘Defiant Memory’ invites reflection on the ethical and human consequences of unchecked power and its absence of accountability.

The exhibition is on display at Open Studio, Suite 104 at 401 Richmond Street West until August 1, 2026.

❌ Last chance to see Vera Frenkel’s ‘Big X Window’, a four-part stone lithograph from our archive, on loan to Koffler Arts for ‘As If by Chance...”, closing June 14.

The exhibition centres on Frenkel’s two-channel video and photographic installation exploring the loss of a beloved Toronto arts centre and the community it fostered. Read more: https://www.kofflerarts.org/whatson/exhibitions/exhibition/as-if-by-chance-vera-frenkel

‘Big X Window’ was commissioned by the Art Bank in 1976 and printed on BFK Rives, a specialty printmaking paper manufactured at the Arches paper mill, one of the oldest in France. Each of the four panels measures 29 x 42 inches, and together they form a striking 5 x 7 foot window.

The print suite is also available for purchase in support of both organizations. Thank you to Vera Frenkel for her continued generosity.

Images:
1) Big X Window installed
2) Vera Frenkel signing the first quadrant of the stone lithograph suite with master printer Otis Tamasauskas at Open Studio, 1976.
3) Vera Frenkel at the opening reception

We were saddened to learn of the passing of Dan Olsen. Dan Olsen, born Dan Bogh Olsen (22 March, 1955 – 29 May, 2026), was a printmaker and a longstanding presence in Toronto’s print community. He earned his BFA (Spec. Hons.) from York University’s Visual Arts Department in 1979 and spent many years there as a Studio Technician, supporting generations of students in their practice. He was also an exhibiting artist in his own right, contributing work to group exhibitions alongside fellow York alumni as recently as 2010. He was known as a gentle soul who lived a full and fruitful life, and is survived by his sister Penny.

We recently received some of his tools, and one in particular stands out: the mezzotint rocker featured here, engraved with his name. It is a quiet testament to a dedicated career and a genuine love of the craft.

We will be passing this tool on to the Artist Studio, which held its inaugural opening on June 4th in the very space where Dan worked. His memory lives on in the press that remains there, and we are glad to see the Artist Studio carry forward the spirit of supporting artists in that place.

Dan is in our thoughts 🫶. If you would like to share a message or memory, please visit: https://www.dignitymemorial.com/en-ca/obituaries/thornhill-on/dan-olsen-12908675

Join Open Studio’s Board!

Open Studio is seeking two Associate Board Members to help shape the future of contemporary print in Toronto!

We’re looking for passionate community members with experience in areas like philanthropy, marketing, or other specialized fields.

Board members may serve up to two consecutive two-year terms and meet 8 to 10 times per year. In this role, you'll play a key part in guiding Open Studio's strategic direction and supporting our mission to make printmaking accessible to all.

🔗 Full details here: https://openstudio.ca/call-for-board-members/
⏰ Deadline: June 22, 11:59pm ET
📩 Questions? Email [email protected]

What a wonderful night! Thank you to everyone who came out to our opening reception yesterday, May 29. It was a pleasure to experience such insightful artwork and share many meaningful conversations. The exhibitions will remain on view until August 1, 2026. 🎉 Congrats to the artists!

MAIN GALLERY
Defiant Memory
Sylvat Aziz

PROJECT SPACE
Refraction: Translations of Japanese Landscape
Fumiko Goto, Fuki Hamada, and Yoshie Uchida
Guest Curated by Derek Michael Besant

PROOFS & PROCESS VITRINES
Jenn Law
Mohammad Tabesh

📍Open Studio, Suite 104 at 401 Richmond Street West

✨Join us for an opening reception this Friday, May 29, 6-8pm! We have multiple exhibitions opening. Suite 104, at 401 Richmond Street West.

MAIN GALLERY
Sylvat Aziz
Defiant Memory

In ‘Defiant Memory’, Sylvat Aziz uses printmaking and other media to explore how illegitimate power erodes cultural memory, identity, and tradition. Through layered visual storytelling, the work foregrounds the resilience and shared humanity that persist in the face of oppression and displacement.

PROJECT SPACE
Refraction: Translations of Japanese Landscape
Fumiko Goto, Fuki Hamada, and Yoshie Uchida

Three Japanese printmakers, Fumiko Goto, Fuki Hamada, and Yoshie Uchida, each bring a distinct visual language to ‘Refraction: Translations of Japanese Landscape’. From Goto’s meditative forest stillness to Hamada’s perception-bending flora and Uchida’s colour-driven elemental fragments, the exhibition asks how urban life in Japan shapes an artist’s relationship with the natural world. Curated by Derek Michael Besant, RCA, and supported by Open Studio, it is an intimate and poetic journey through landscape as translation.

PROOFS & PROCESS VITRINES
Jenn Law and Mohammad Tabesh

The Proofs & Process vitrines present new work by Jenn Law and Mohammad Tabesh, focusing on the often-unseen stages of printmaking, from testing and revision to material and colour decisions. The display frames process as a visible part of making, with works shown as they develop over time.

Jenn Law is a Toronto-based artist and writer who uses letterpress printing to inscribe poetic language into plants. In her ivy-based works, the plant gradually alters and erases printed text, turning the work into a changing collaboration between language and living material.

Mohammad Tabesh is a Toronto-based interdisciplinary artist working across print, sculpture, and writing. His project ‘The Book of Roaring Memories’ transforms oral histories from the Iranian diaspora into colour-based prints, shaped by systems of translation, memory, and his red-green colour blindness.

📸 Images in order of artists presented