throughlines artists

Alexandra Box

Alexandra Box (b. 1997) is a transdisciplinary artist and art administrator. Alexandra serves on the Board of London, Ontario's artist-run centre, Forest City Gallery as the Chair of Policy & Governance. Currently, Alexandra is completing a CGS-M SSHRC-supported project on Claude Cahun in the department of Art History at the University of Toronto. On a volunteer basis, she writes alt-text for other artists and artist-led projects. Alexandra’s writing has been published by Hearth, Painwise Press, Peripheral Review, and The Capilano Review. Recently Alexandra has completed several residencies, including Medalta Potteries, (Treaty 7) in Medicine Hat, Alberta.

Self-Identification & Personal Background

I am a settler (of Scots-Irish, British, and Germanic heritage) who is multiply disabled and neurodivergent. As a lesbian I understand myself to be within and alongside trans* modalities and research the imbrication of Lesbianisms and trans* histories through my current graduate work. I was raised near Carolinian forests in a rural community that is situated on land that was stolen by way of 18th and 19th-century treaties and appropriated for industrial agriculture. This is near what is now known as London also known as Deshkan Ziibing (Antler River) or colloquially, the forest city.

Samantha Chiusolo

Samantha Chiusolo is an artist, illustrator, designer and muralist living in Peterborough, Ontario. She is a graduate of the illustration program of OCAD University and four time honouree for the archives of American Illustration. Samantha’s work reflects her surroundings, her history and her memories. She is currently expanding her portfolio to include children's book stories and illustrations. Besides her love for creating pictures, she relishes in hunting for antiques and creating imaginary worlds with her little one.

She is also currently exhibiting at the Sadleir House and her illustration, “The Night Kitchen” will be on display at The Society of Illustrators Museum in New York City this winter and spring of 2024.

Some previous clients include Mary Young, Collective Arts Brewing, L'Express, CareWear, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Hostel Oasis, Makers Festival, Street Art Toronto, and The Newspaper. Prints of her work are available through Etsy and locally at Waston and Lou, 383 Water St., Peterborough.

Marta Chudolinska

Marta Chudolinska(she/her) is a multidsciplinary artist born in Poland and currently based in Nogojiwanong/Peterborough, ON. She makes zines, comics, and artist books using woodcut & linocut prints, papercuts and a variety of drawing materials. Her graphic novel, Back + Forth: A novel in 90 linocuts, was published by the Porcupine’s Quill in 2009. Since then, she has continued to produce comics that incorporate her interests in personal narratives, fantastical stories and the handmade. Her papercut comic, Babcia, a historical memoir which aims to rebuild her connection to her late grandmother, cut short by immigration and illness, has been serialized in Broken Pencil Magazine since 2013.

Brad Copping

Working from his home on the edge of the Canadian Shield, traditional Lands and Waters of the Chippewa and Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg that are a part of Treaty 20 and the Williams Treaty, Brad acknowledges that these are living treaties in which we are all participants. He has found both muse and foil in this transitional landscape of stone, wood and water, making work that accepts that we are not separate from the natural world. And it is here that Brad maintains a practice as both sculptor and functional glass blower – often traversing the line between.

Garrett Gilbart

Originally trained as a welder in Peterborough, Garrett completed their BFA at NSCAD University and briefly studied in the "Messy Arts" department of the Rietveld Acadmie in Amsterdam.

Lesley Givens

I am a graduate of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, BFA Sculpture, Trent University, BA Cultural Studies and Queen’s University, B. Ed, Artist in Community Education. Art education has been my primary focus for over twenty-five years, firstly as the Education and Program Coordinator at the Art Gallery of Peterborough and now as a high school art teacher for the past two decades.

Reviving my personal art practice after repeatedly facilitating the creative process for others all the time is long overdue. My work honours a tradition of remembrance and directly respond to the surrounding environment using my everyday experiences including loss, motherhood, and family traditions.

Site specific installations are my current focus – literally taking up space whilst honouring female experience, wisdom, and power. I make and hold space to honour, amplify, and counter feelings of what is to be silenced by diminishing oneself. I strive to give a sense of how each person’s unique experience of these feelings is also the starting point for shared experience in community.

Theresa Godin

Theresa Godin is an award-winning artist based in Nogojiwanong (Peterborough) Ontario. Her work explores the relationship between humans and the natural world, which is articulated as much through her choices in materials as it is in her subject matter. She works with mixed media and has recently shifted her practice to include only natural and earth friendly materials.

Her most recent work draws upon techniques acquired during her BFA (hon) from York University. This involves mixing pure oil with raw pigments and painting in thin layers the way that artists throughout history worked before mass manufactured paint became available. She combines this technique with a variety of media to create a unique blend of traditional meets contemporary.

Christopher Green

Mumblethief Christopher Green is a cartoonist and musician who comes from the Alaskan wilderness and currently resides in Peterborough, Ontario. He is currently working on opening a portal into the world of the Turtle Library at www.theturtlelibrary.com.

His classic newspaper strip-inspired comic about a strange little bird and her wondrous bowel movements can be read at www.thatlittlebird.com (available in both Japanese and English).

His professional work includes comics, illustration, graphic design, and animation for the likes of Story Planet, Carousel Magazine, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Take Action Films, and the band Black Kids. He currently serves as an advisor for the wonderful Canada Comics Open Library, and as head librarian of, you guessed it, the Turtle Library (branch #2).

Laura Honsberger

Laura Honsberger is a visual artist who works with textiles, photography, and found items. Her practice is heavily influenced by working in the garment manufacturing industry and its labour-intensive methods of production. Honsberger’s current work studies how a body adapts to, and is formed by constriction and pain. Queerness is a common theme through her projects' concepts and use of materials.

Ann Jaeger

Ann Jaeger is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work intersects literary, theatre and visual arts.

She has presented solo exhibitions of painting and sculpture in the Peterborough area, most recently at Polite Society, Evans Contemporary, and at the Arts and Culture Centre of Warkworth. Ann has also co-curated several art exhibitions, notably the Salon des Refusés for the 2017 Precarious Festival in Peterborough and William Joel Davenport: Clams on the 1/2 Shell & Roller Skates Roller Skates at Evans Contemporary with gallerist Paolo Fortin. She has created set designs for The Theatre on King, installations for Erring on the Mount and the ReFrame Film Festival, and in 2023 was selected for the City of Peterborough's Change Makers Artist Residency Program.

In addition to writing articles on regional arts and culture for her blog Trout in Plaid and for local media, she has published poetry in the League of Canadian Poets, Cornell University's Epoch Magazine, and the Capilano Review. She has written catalogue essays for Victoria Ward and Jane LowBeer for their exhibitions at the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington. Her textile art was featured in the 1982 Visual Arts Ontario publication Art in Architecture.