{"id":38126,"date":"2026-05-07T13:17:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T17:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=38126"},"modified":"2026-05-07T13:20:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T17:20:19","slug":"cultural-centre-lifts-curtain-on-new-spring-exhibitions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/cultural-centre-lifts-curtain-on-new-spring-exhibitions\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultural Centre lifts curtain on new Spring exhibitions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Local art lovers will have plenty to celebrate at the Aurora Cultural Centre this Thursday, May 7, when they invite the community to mark the launch of a series of spring exhibitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking centre-stage at the Centre\u2019s Spring Halls Soiree will be the work of Brandon Baghaee, the Aurora Cultural Centre\u2019s artist-in-residence this past winter, whose exhibition, In a Friendly Sky, will explore his Jamaican-Canadian roots through the art of portraiture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBuilding on his signature surreal, hyperrealist self-portraits, the paintings in this series move beyond the autobiographical to explore questions of diasporic identity, culture, and genealogy,\u201d says the Centre. \u201cIn this series, the artist explores his relationship to his Jamaican grandparents through self-portraiture, seamlessly weaving family history with broader cultural and historical references. Tapping into bell hooks\u2019 writings on building Black community through liberatory habits of being, Brandon connects to his grandparents by recreating their daily practices within his paintings<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlthough the artist appears alone in his compositions, he invokes his grandparents\u2019 presence through the everyday artifacts that signify their lives and habits.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ashlyn Gregory, Interim Gallery Manager for the Aurora Cultural Centre, says prior to being appointed the Winter Artist-in-Residence, Baghaee often worked with small canvasses. Taking advantage of the studio space at the Centre allowed him to think big.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese are life-sized autobiographical self-portraits he\u2019s working through as he considers his relationship to his grandparents,\u201d says Gregory. \u201cThey\u2019re very focused on ties of kinship, what we inherit from our culture, our lineage, our family members, and also just really focusing on that connection between him and his grandparents.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Centre\u2019s Artist in Residence program provides chosen artists with a paid three-month opportunity to create within its studio space within Aurora Town Square, connect with professionals, and produce a body of work that features in a gallery show at the end of the term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four of the featured works were created during Baghaee\u2019s residency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that can be a real career-launcher because Brandon is only 23, he\u2019s a recent graduate from OCAD, and it\u2019s really rare to see such a young artist have such a fulsome understanding of his craft, his practice, and just a fantastic research-based approach to his work,\u201d says Gregory. \u201cThe interesting thing about Brandon\u2019s work is it is so layered in meaning. Everything is very intentional, everything means something, so being able to do some research into the history of Jamaica, where his grandparents are from, and that culture allowed him to create these really meaningful pieces of work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following week, on May 14, the Cultural Centre will welcome artist Jing Fu with her new exhibition Unearthed \u2013 My Equilibrium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exhibition shows the two sides of Fu\u2019s work \u2013 atmospheric landscapes and abstracts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInformed by her training in \u2018shan shui<\/em>\u2019 (literally translated as \u2018mountains and water\u2019 paintings), the works on display balance Eastern aesthetics with local influences,\u201d says the Centre. \u201cSince immigrating to Canada from urban Shanghai more than twenty years ago, Fu\u2019s close observations of southern Ontario\u2019s natural environments have become central to her practice. A frequent hiker and prolific painter, she expertly translates her meditations on the natural world onto canvas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf Fu\u2019s landscapes evoke the opposing yet harmonious forces of nature on a grand scale, her <\/strong>Roots<\/em> series turns inward, offering a more intimate exploration of nature\u2019s symbolism and symmetry. Through bold brushstrokes and richly layered textures, she conveys the strength of the gnarled tree roots, while the finely rendered details reveal the delicacy of the intricate root networks beneath our feet. Together, these two bodies of work reflect her pursuit of both internal and artistic balance as she moves fluidly between Eastern and Western visual languages.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fu\u2019s exhibition is the first Gregory has curated for the Aurora Cultural Centre in her interim role and says it\u2019s been a very \u201crewarding\u201d experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt first, we were really seeing the bodies of work as separate, as two different practices, but through talking to Jing and learning more about how she works, it was very clear to me that she moves fluidly between these two theories,\u201d she says. \u201cAt first I saw them as separate, but I think it\u2019s all part of a very well-integrated arts practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnother really interesting thing I\u2019ve taken away from watching Jing work is that I think she\u2019s a little bit of a perfectionist in that she\u2019ll come back to previous paintings and add to them. She has some work that she\u2019s worked on for a period of 15-plus years. It\u2019s like she\u2019s never finished with the work and she\u2019s always coming back to it with fresh interpretations and I think that\u2019s really interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Aurora Cultural Centre\u2019s Spring Halls Soiree will take place this Thursday, May 7, from 6.30 \u2013 8.30 p.m. and all are welcome. Light refreshments will be provided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Centre will host the opening night reception for Unearthed: My Equilibrium on Thursday, May 14, from 6.30 \u2013 8.30 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Works showcase talents of Jing Fu and Brandon Baghaee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":38127,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2026-05-07-06.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-9UW","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-15 12:39:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38126"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38128,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38126\/revisions\/38128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}