Our Students

MFA candidate Alessandra Abballe is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Tkaronto/Toronto, the traditional and ancestral territory of the Anishinaabe, including Mississaugas of the Credit, Chippewa, Haudenosaunee, and Wendat peoples. Their work explores notions of identity and belonging, specifically in relation to queer and feminist perspectives, and often investigates hegemonic structures through the process of research and making. Rooted in photography, Abballe’s practice includes archival and vernacular imagery, video, text, textiles and needlework. They hold a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography Studies from Toronto Metropolitan University and have exhibited nationally, including in Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival and Capture Photography Festival.

MFA candidate Andria Keen (she/her) is a graduate of OCAD University’s Cross-Disciplinary Life Studies program and the recipient of their 2023 Bluma Appel Award.Consumed by how and why we exist, Andria’s often labour-intensive work engages themes of temporality, cyclicality, and inclusion of the natural world by utilizing abstraction, figuration, and narrative to question our perspectives and place in relation to nature, ourselves and how we inhabit deep-time, both past and future.

Chanel DesRoches received her BA Honours in Studio Art from the University of Guelph in 2019 primarily working in painting, drawing and printmaking. Chanel explores themes of emotional complexities, mental health, and microaggressions through her visual mode of abstraction. In 2020, Chanel took ownership of a co-working studio space "Necessary Arts Collective" located in Downtown Guelph. The space provides 12 to 15 artists an inclusive, accessible and safe space to work creatively. Through this project, Chanel also developed a community-based exhibiting program called N/A Gallery for local artists to show their work.

Heather Rattray is a queer, neurodivergent photographer born in Vancouver, British Columbia. They live and work between Vancouver and Toronto, Ontario, and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Ryerson University School of Image Arts in 2019. Their work is primarily lens-based, blending image with text to create multidimensional pieces involving themes of identity, childhood, self-exploration and connection to the natural world. They have exhibited work in both group and solo shows on a local and international scale, and won an Honourable Mention for the Burtynsky Grant in 2019 for their self published book “98 Ways to Say ‘Very Good’”.

MFA candidate Jasmine Yangqingqing Yu is an artist and writer based in Nanjing and Toronto. Through reiteration, digression and obfuscation, her works inspect the designation of functionality in the built environment, and anticipates its improper interactions, leakages, and glitches, evoking underlying links and alternative modes of cohabitation.

Jules D. Mills (they/them/theirs) is a practicing interdisciplinary artist and arts organizer of settler decent raised on Treaty 6 territories in Saskatchewan. In 2016 they received their BFA from Emily Carr University of Art and Design in ‘Vancouver’.

Their work investigates and invents new takes on historical and mythical gendered performance through parody, movement, costume, sculpture, and video. Mills has exhibited work within Canada and internationally. In 2018 they were an artist in residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity. Mills is co-organizer of the mobile curatorial project Number 3 Gallery.

MFA candidate Paria Shahverdi was born in Tehran, Iran. She graduated from the Fine Art University in Tehran and immigrated to Canada in 2004. Her drawings have been shown in the Annual Drawing Exhibition, John B. Aird Gallery in Toronto. Her mixed-media works have been exhibited in solo shows in 2016 and 218, and she was honored to receive a grant from the Ontario Art Council in 2017. Her exhibitions received recognition through CBC radio and CBC television interviews. Her artwork has shown in Canada and Iran. She graduated with her second degree—a BFA from York University last year.

Rachael Grad is a Toronto artist, mom of three, and former lawyer who has studied and worked in the US, France, Italy, and Hong Kong. She left practicing law to study painting full-time at the New York Studio School and New York University before transferring to OCAD University. Grad graduated OCAD as the Governor General Academic Medal and Mrs. W.O. Forsyth Award Winner. Trained to paint and draw from life, Grad’s current art practice incorporates digital painting and collage to assist her observational drawing and painting. Grad combines her experience as a mother, former lawyer, and traveler into her artwork. Creating work based on parenting moments, current series include “Motherhood Hit Me Like A Train” works on paper that use trains as paintbrushes and “Mommy Mayhem” digital collages and abstract expressionist paintings. See her fine art portfolio at rachaelgradart.com or find her on social media @RachaelGradArt

Sade Alexis is a Black Woman artist, writer and educator born and raised on the stolen lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, səlil̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ nations. She understands these lands as the only home she has ever known, and in knowing this she sees it as her duty to fight alongside Indigenous land defenders who actively protect and love these lands. Sade uses her practice to celebrate and uplift the lives and experiences of Black people, by actively choosing not to tell stories of suffering her work centres joy and stories of survivance and ingenuity. Sade also uses her practice to understand what it means to be stolen people on stolen land, her work questions homelands and our ties to them, or lack thereof. Sade received her BFA from Emily Carr University, and has been working as a freelance illustrator and workshop facilitator since graduating in 2020.

Samantha Newton has an interest in the act of repetition and the structure of the body. Currently, the techniques she employs in her practice include print making, manipulation of textiles and the photographic process. Born in Ottawa and raised in Calgary, Newton is a recent graduate of the University of Lethbridge undergraduate studio art program.

Doctoral candidate Sara Mozafari-Lorestani is an interdisciplinary artist and designer born and raised in Tehran, Iran. With a BA in Architectural Design from the University of Toronto and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art, Media, and Design, her art is intricately woven into the country’s narrative, shaped by the consequences of the Islamic Revolution, encompassing women and ethnic and religious minorities’ struggles, political oppression, and the shadow of the Iran-Iraq War. Guided by an autobiographical and research-creation approach, and as an immigrant woman, her artistic work and research delve into the correlations of traumatic memories, body politics, and socio-spatial relations in a diasporic feminist context.

Shannon Garden-Smith (she/her) is an uninvited settler of Scottish, Irish, and British heritage and an artist based in Tkaronto/Toronto, Canada. She is a PhD student in Visual Art and previously earned an MFA at the University of Guelph (2017) and Honours BA at the University of Toronto (2012). Working in sculpture, installation and expanded photo practice, Garden-Smith has exhibited nationally and internationally and is an artist collaborator with Patel Brown (Tkaronto/Toronto, ON).  Her work has been exhibited at the Art Museum, University of Toronto (Tkaronto/Toronto, ON), The Bows (Mohkínstsis/Calgary, AB), Franz Kaka (Tkaronto/Toronto, ON), Gallery TPW (Tkaronto/Toronto, ON), Pumice Raft (Tkaronto/Toronto, ON), TIER: The Institute for Endotic Research (Berlin) and more.

Shannyn Reid is an artist from Newfoundland. Reid graduated with a BFA at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Grenfell Campus (2021), and received several scholarships and awards during her studies. Reid’s research creation focuses on combining found objects, textiles and accessibility.

Torin Craig is an oil painter and musician working in Toronto. His practice explores themes of mental health, spirituality, psychedelia, and counter-narratives. He has experimented with installation, sound, and animation and intends to continue to develop a cross-disciplinary practice. He completed studies at OCAD University in early 2020, receiving a BFA with Distinction in the Drawing and Painting program and has displayed paintings in 14 exhibitions from 2015 onwards.

Veronica Spiljak (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Mississauga. She completed her BFA at the University of Toronto Mississauga and Sheridan College’s joint Art & Art History program in 2021. Spiljak combines text, drawing, sculpture, writing, video, installation, and performance to create artworks that facilitate collaborative, tactile and immersive experiences. She borrows found footage, photos, audio clips, archives, words or phrases of certain moments and actions that cause her discomfort, anxiety, or passing thought that reflects and connects her experience as a first-generation Polish-Canadian woman. Spiljak has exhibited locally, including shows at the Blackwood Gallery, U of T Art Museum, Women’s Art Association of Canada, Erindale Studio Theatre, the Tiny Fist Gallery and was a previous artist resident for the Visual Arts Mississauga Creative Residency program.

MFA candidate Vladimir Kanic is the creator of living algae sculptures that use spectators’ breath as food and convert it into oxygen while mitigating the effects of climate change. His worldbuilding practice imagines living algae sculptures as beacons of decarbonised future, where social and climate justice are collaborative public acts as essential as breathing.Vladimir’s living sculptures have been exhibited throughout Canada and featured on TED talk platform. Vladimir graduated OCAD University as the Governor General’s Academic Medal and Sir Edmund Walker Award recipient along with Newcomer Arts Award, Artist Project Emerging Artist Award, and InterAccess Media Prize. See his portfolio at www.VladimirKanic.com or on Instagram @VladdKanic