Current Exhibitions
With flowers in your hand
July 11, 2026 – September 19, 2026
With flowers in your hand brings together a multidisciplinary body of work by Brant County artist Chelsea Brant that reclaims the flower as a site of resistance and presence. Long dismissed as feminine or ornamental, floral imagery has historically been used to marginalize women’s artistic labour. Brant confronts this legacy directly, transforming bouquets into gestures of refusal and endurance.
Across installation, painting, and mixed-media, flowers become symbols of both fragility and persistence; balancing beauty and decay, memory and disappearance. These works operate as brief monuments to what we hope not to lose. Each gesture becoming an insistence on being seen, even as the materials themselves signal the inevitability of fading.
Visual Elements 68: Annual Juried Exhibition
July 11, 2026 – September 19, 2026
Jurors: Chelsea Brant and Jen Hamilton
Visual Elements: Annual Juried Exhibition is a long-running celebration of artistic talent in Oxford County and the surrounding regions. The beginnings of this exhibition date back to 1959, when an open-call art show was organized for artists in Oxford County. The success of the show led to the formation of the Oxford County Art Association which, in turn, helped to form the Woodstock Art Gallery as a centennial project in 1966. Visual Elements continues to be an annual tradition that showcases the exceptional talent and creativity of artists in our community.
This year’s exhibition pays tribute to diverse approaches to creative practice, where each artist explores their unique artistic signature and style, inviting viewers to feel the excitement of experimental processes that inform the inner narratives of the artwork. Visual Elements 68 features 46 works by 44 artists working in a wide variety of mediums, sizes and styles. The Woodstock Art Gallery would like to thank jurors Chelsea Brant and Jen Hamilton for their crucial role in selecting the artwork for this exhibition, and all submitting and participating artists for their hard work and support of Visual Elements.
About the Jurors
Chelsea Brant
Chelsea Brant (she/her) is a Mohawk/German multidisciplinary artist, independent curator, and arts educator at the post-secondary level. Brant received a BFA degree from the University of Guelph, and an MFA from the University of Saskatchewan. She has worked for numerous arts organizations including the Art Gallery of Guelph and Musagetes, served on several arts boards including her most recent appointment with Nuit Blanche YXE, and has taught courses through Brock University, Sheridan College, DVSA and McMaster University. Brant’s artistic work has been exhibited locally, nationally, and internationally with her most recent work featured in the Artist Project’s Installation Space. Brant is currently based in Norfolk County, with two upcoming solo exhibitions at the Grimsby Public Art Gallery, and the Woodstock Art Gallery (Summer 2026).
Jen Hamilton
Jen Hamilton is a visual artist and arts educator living and working in London, Ontario. An award-winning printmaker, her practice embraces interdisciplinary modes, spanning printmaking, painting, drawing, and textiles. Hamilton’s work explores themes of motherhood, grief, and autobiographical collecting. She holds a BFA from NSCAD University and is currently an MFA candidate at Western University.
Hamilton is a member of the Fine Art faculty at Fanshawe College, where she teaches printmaking and drawing. In the past she has served as President of Forest City Gallery, and as Youth Council Coordinator at Museum London. She is currently the Community Engagement Coordinator for Print London.
Woodstock Collects
July 14 – September 12, 2026
How do you want to see the permanent collection grow? Engage with this interactive display to provide your feedback and help guide WAG’s collecting practices for the future.
The Woodstock Art Gallery cares for Oxford County’s largest municipal public art collection of more than 1900 artworks. The WAG aims to build and maintain a collection that is representative of, and relevant to, the community of Woodstock and Oxford County, including work by both regional and national artists.
Friends of the Woodstock Art Gallery Scholarship
July 11, 2026 – August 15, 2026
Juror: Bob Phillips
The Visual Arts Scholarship was established in 1990 as a project of the Friends of the Woodstock Art Gallery. A reserve fund was created in 2018 with the retirement of the Friends of the WAG, renaming it the Friends of the Woodstock Art Gallery Legacy Scholarship.
Each year $1,000 is awarded to a graduating high school student from Oxford County who has received proof of acceptance and confirmation to attend an accredited post-secondary institution in the field of Visual/Fine/Media arts such as (but not limited to) graphic design, film, photography, electronic media, computer-generated arts, painting, printmaking, sculpture and fibre arts.
Great Small Things: 60 Years of Collecting
February 14, 2026 – January 10, 2027
Curator: Danielle Hoevenaars
Great Small Things: 60 Years of Collecting explores the history of WAG’s Permanent Collection through curator- and community-selected works.
The Woodstock Art Gallery (WAG) was conceived of by the Oxford County Art Association as a centennial project in 1966. The Gallery began collecting artwork that same year, and over the decades has built a Collection that aims tell our shared story: one of local art, culture, history and creativity. Today, the WAG cares for Oxford County’s largest municipal public art collection of more than 1900 artworks. On their own, each artwork just one piece and one moment in time, but together the Collection forms a treasure trove of small but mighty things that chronical the history of art and visual culture in our region. The Permanent Collection connects us to the past, invites us to explore the contemporary and builds intergenerational connections. It reflects the people and stories that shape who we are – yesterday, today and tomorrow.
As part of this exhibition visitors can explore WAG’s past exhibition catalogues and publications in the Reading Nook, sponsored by Commonplace Books.
Florence's Woodstock
February 14 – August 29, 2026
Curator: Danielle Hoevenaars
Canadian artist Florence Carlyle (1864-1923) moved to Woodstock, Ontario at the age of seven with her family. Carlyle lived in the city until 1890, when she travelled to Paris, France to study art. Carlyle returned periodically to Woodstock throughout her adult life, while also living in France, England and the United States. In 1913, she moved permanently to Crowborough, England, where she lived until her death in 1923.
This exhibition explores what Florence’s everyday life in Woodstock would have been like, in the late 19th and early 20th century. The works in this exhibition explore topics including Carlyle’s home and family, popular hobbies, and Woodstock’s Tuesday and Saturday Reading Clubs.