Name: Ontario Juried Exhibition
Start: 2025-12-31T11:00:00-05:00
End: 2026-01-04T16:00:00-05:00
Location: 75 William Street North, Chatham, ON, Canada, Ontario N7M 4L4

2025 Ontario Juried Exhibition
Exhibition Dates: October 15, 2025 – January 4, 2026
Opening Reception: Friday, October 17, 2025 from 7-9pm
Juror Talk and Tour: October 18, 2025 | 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Art & Wine Juried Exhibition Favorites: October 22, 2025 | 6:30 - 8:30 pm
Family Friendly Collage Party: Every Saturday and Sunday from 11:00 am - 4:00 pm from October 15 2025 - January 4, 2026
This exhibition invites new generation, emerging and mid career artists living and working in Ontario to submit up to three works for jurying and exhibition. This exhibition will identify and offer a survey of new works by new generation artists with a particular focus on emerging artists living in the Southwest Ontario region.
Matt Bahen’s primary influence is literature. Using an impasto technique of thick oil paint, he strives to interpret the power of metaphor and allegory with paint. The textured surfaces of the works and stark compositions are at once unsettling and highly engaging. Using various including water, fire and animals, Bahen constructs individual narratives that remain in a state of perpetual tension. Most recently Bahen has been working on series of landscape paintings utilizing the literary device of the enchanted forest as metaphor for our changing climate.
Matt Bahen was born in 1979 in Toronto. He received his BFA from the Ontario College of Art and Design University in 2002. In 2013 his exhibition Gravity’s Faith was held at the MacLaren Art Centre in Barrie, In 2022 his exhibition There is Something Happening in the Valley was held at the Glenhyrst Art Gallery in Brantford Ontario, in 2024 his exhibition Coming Down the Mountain was held at the MacIntosh Gallery at Western University London Ontario. Bahen is represented in Toronto by Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Edmonton by Peter Robertson Gallery and by Claire Oliver Gallery in New York.
The Thames Art Gallery is located at 75 William St. N. Chatham, in the Chatham Cultural Centre. The Thames Art Gallery is open on Wednesday to Sunday from 10:00 am – 4:00 pm and 10:00 am – 6:00 pm on Saturdays. For more information visit our website at www.tagartspace.com.