Name: OPENING: Sarah Tompkins - Roman Candle
Start: 2025-11-14T18:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-11-14T21:00:00-05:00
Location: 858 Bank Street, Suite 101, Ottawa, ON, Canada, Ontario K1S 3W3

𝐉𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐮𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐡 𝐓𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐬 - 𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐂𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐥𝐞

𝐓𝐨 𝐑𝐒𝐕𝐏 𝐨𝐫 𝐑𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐚 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐞𝐭 𝐓𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤
𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓
A roman candle is a paradox. It is a celebration of beauty with a fuse. It is an invitation and a threat. It is both a blinding festival and a funeral. Its name carries a history of fire and cruelty. It echoes pain disguised as pleasure.
Sarah Tompkins lives in a similar tension that ignites and smoulders a squall of emotions, ranging from tender and soft to cataclysmic and hard. Continuing from her previous solo exhibition, Blue Shift, she exists between anarchic play and a sensual inquiry into the uncertainty of the broader forces that shape existence, such as space, time, and the delicate balance between chaos and order.
Roman Candle is an exploration of Tompkins’ acceptance of the allure of danger. She is chasing moments that burn brightly and briefly. Tompkins is prophetically capturing beauty that cannot last as just one thing because it is forever in motion and forever becoming.
Tompkins holds an MFA from the University of Ottawa, where she was awarded the Michel Goulet Prize for Outstanding Thesis Exhibition (2023), and a BFA in painting and printmaking from Queen’s University. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include Now the air is so filled with ghosts / that no one knows how to escape them at the University of Ottawa, Rotting Fig, Empty Stomach at Lalani-Jennings Contemporary Art in Guelph, ON (2023), and Sarah Tompkins & Katie McDonald at Galerie Z Art Space in Montreal, QC (2022). She has exhibited at Olga Korper Gallery (Toronto), SAW Gallery (Ottawa), Agnes Etherington Art Centre (Kingston), Union Gallery (Kingston), AXENÉO7 (Gatineau), and numerous group shows in London (UK), Barcelona (ES), and New York City (NY). Her work has been placed in several major collections including Google Canada and the Global Affairs Visual Arts Collection.