This autumn, several Fine Arts alumni have solo exhibitions in area galleries.
Behnaz Fatemi (MFA '24)
Sumâq / Sumac / سماق
September 13, 2025 - December 7, 2025
Preston Gallery
The sumac tree first appeared to me in Canada with its twisting red branches and vibrant leaves—a quiet yet striking presence. In Iran, I knew sumac only as a spice: crimson, ever-present, and above all, sour. That sharp, sour taste carries memory—of food, family, healing, and home.
On Persian tables, sumac is a symbol of hospitality and health. During Nowruz, it marks the triumph of light over darkness. Encountering the living tree in Canada felt both unfamiliar and deeply intimate.
I began collecting its fallen branches, searching for something familiar. In my studio, they took on new life—bridging a poetic relationship between myself and the environment, between memory and material, grief and growth.
Sumâq / Sumac / سماق traces a path between places. It reflects on how cultural memory endures and takes root in new soil. Like the tree itself, the work carries the taste of survival—sharp, persistent, and quietly alive.
- Behnaz Fatemi, artist.
More information can be found on the Cambridge Art Galleries website.
Ashley Guenette (MFA '22)
If a Tree Falls
September 11 — October 25, 2025
Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario
Through an intuitive weaving of painting, drawing, and soft sculpture, Guenette explores the forest as refuge — a place where feelings, memories, and truths unfold in solitude.
Rooted in her journey through the soulful, magnetic landscape of Northern Ontario, each piece grows slowly, layered and organic, echoing the textures and colors of the North.
“ If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it; does it make a sound? ” In the hush beyond witness, does the expression still echo? In this stillness, she invites you to witness what remains unspoken, yet deeply felt.
Guenette is a Franco-Ontarian multidisciplinary artist from the serene landscapes of Northern Ontario currently working towards her PhD at Nipissing University. Her work combines academic rigor with a deep connection to nature.
More information can be found on the Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario website.
Natalie Hunter (MFA '13)
You might as well try and hold the sun
Site-specific installation in the Queen’s Square lobby
August 29, 2025 - August 29, 2026
Cambridge Art Galleries is excited to present a new site-specific installation in the Queen’s Square lobby by Hamilton-based artist Natalie Hunter. Working across photography, installation, sculpture, and the moving image, Hunter is mainly known for her multilayered and experiential photo-based installations on transparent film. Her intricately layered installations study the complexities of time, space, memory, and the senses in our digitally saturated culture through an interplay between image, material, and form.
Natalie Hunter’s You might as well try and hold the sun captures the banks of the Grand River and Cambridge Pollinator Preserve in a meditation on the cyclical synergies of nature and elemental forces of light and time that govern much of our daily lives and the principles of photography. Activating the Queen’s Square South-facing windows, along with a collection of vitrines and windows scattered throughout The Queen’s Square building, Hunter evokes sensations of memory and the passage of time. Unfolding slowly according to the rhythms of the sun, You might as well try and hold the sun, which becomes a kind of slow-moving cinema, casting latent images and soft, colourful light on the surrounding architecture. The Grand River flowing through Cambridge behaves like a mirror for the sky, and the foliage canopy that runs along its banks acts like a filter, sheltering pollinating plants from harsh rays while illuminating the cells in leaves. Both mirrors and filters are elements of photography and tools Hunter uses both sculpturally and pictorially to study memory, landscape, and how the cultivation of gardens and our relationship with both the volatile and nourishing qualities of light enriches our lives.
The artist would like to acknowledge the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.
More information can be found on the Cambridge Art Galleries website.
Russna Kaur (BA '13)
Been there twice, haven’t got there yet (the space behind a thin screen, and prying eyes)
Lee-Chin Family Gallery, Art Gallery Burlington
September 20, 2025 – January 4, 2026
Russna Kaur’s paintings engulf and disorient. They extend beyond the canvas—cascading across walls, slicing through corners, and redefining space with sculptural urgency. In Been there twice, haven’t got there yet (the space behind a thin screen, and prying eyes), Kaur builds an immersive environment that invites visitors to move around and through her work, rethinking painting as both surface and structure.
The exhibition spans works from 2019 to her latest pieces created at the Annandale Artist Residency in PEI. Here, Kaur introduces new movement into her practice, offering angled views and sculptural constructions that expose the back of the painting—inviting us to witness the labour of making. She layers wood panels, bridal mesh, canvas, and aluminum into compositions that, in her words, “shift, swap, and grow—like puzzle pieces that never fully click into place.” They revel in imperfection and material play, embracing the messy realities of identity, memory, and connection.
More information can be found on the Art Gallery Burlington website.
Wen Li (BA '22)
Impression
September 11 – November 9
Ferrie Gallery, Homer Watson House & Gallery
The Impression series artworks offer an interpretation of landscapes that are recognizable, yet less detail oriented, merely an “impression”. The title for the series also echoes the embossing procedure and the texture on the paper. The subtlety of the artwork enhances the sense of tranquility that nature provides.
This series includes distinguished embossment prints both blind and tinted with wood burning residues from the laser etching process. The residues are gradually reduced during the process; hence, each tinted print is unique and non-repeatable with different colour intensity and contrast.
This exhibition was awarded the Exhibition Assistance Grant by the Ontario Art Council, with the recommendation from the Art Gallery of Guelph and the City of Woodstock Art Gallery.
More information can be found on the Homer Watson House & Gallery website.
Behnaz Fatemi, video still from Sumâq / Sumac / سماق, courtesy of the artist
Ashley Guenette, If a tree falls / Si un arbre tombe, 2025, acrylic on canvas, 48″ x 60″
Natalie Hunter, You might as well try and hold the sun, 2025
Russna Kaur, The delicate boundary between the past and the willow, 2025, acrylic, sawdust, coloured sand, and bridal mesh on linen and canvas. 48” x 54” courtesy of the artist
Wen Li, Marsh Impression-Point Peele, 2025, embossment on paper with wood burning residue, courtesy of the artist
Also, one of the exhibitions currently at the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery, Beyond the Threshold, was curated by a team including Fine Arts Alum Cheyenne Mapplebeck (BA '21) and includes the work of another Alum, Raegan Little (BA '22). Beyond the Threshold runs from September 20, 2025 to January 11, 2026.
This exhibition, its catalogue, and special programming grew from a spirit of community and collaboration between A Better Tent City and the Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery.
Now more than ever, housing in Canada is in crisis. In 2021, more than one in ten Canadians reported experiencing homelessness in their lifetime, but homelessness isn’t always visible. With rising costs of living, inflation, and widening inequality, hidden homelessness—like couch-surfing, overcrowded housing, or forced evictions—is on the rise. In Waterloo Region alone, chronic homelessness increased by 129% between 2020 and 2024.
This is only part of the story, however. For many, home is complicated by food insecurity, social isolation, and systemic barriers. The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights states that the global crisis of forced displacement is at a scale not seen since the Second World War and many arriving in Canada are met with inadequate support.
Beyond the Threshold brings together the work of 18 artists from across the country who confront these realities through deeply personal and intersectional lenses. Their work speaks to the complex, and often painful, relationship between identity, place, and survival. These stories are rooted in lived experience. Together, these artists offer a glance at what home can look like in the face of instability, change, and hope.
More information is available on the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery website.