Saturday, October 4, 2025
Oakville Galleries in Gairloch Gardens and Centennial Square
Centennial Square | 2:00–5:00 PM
Exhibition Opening
Gairloch Gardens | 2:00–5:00 PM
Exhibition Opening Reception
All are welcome
Refreshments served
Both artists will be in attendance in Gairloch Gardens.
Shuttle bus will run between galleries every 20-30 minutes.
Andreia Santana: A Door Handle, A Handshake
Oakville Galleries in Gairloch Gardens | October 4, 2025–February 7, 2026
A Door Handle, A Handshake is Andreia Santana's first solo exhibition in North America. Developed during her residency at Oakville Galleries, the exhibition features a new series of sculptures that engage directly with the gallery architecture and its surrounding environment.
The exhibition title quotes Juhani Pallasmaa's expression from the book The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses, as a metaphorical comparison emphasizing the first tactile impression a person has with a building. Just as a handshake can portray a sense of someone's character, a door handle communicates and reinforces its connection to the user, and the architectural experience through touch, material, and design.
Hugo Canoilas: Hold Your Breath
Oakville Galleries at Centennial Square | October 4, 2025–February 7, 2026
Hold Your Breath is Hugo Canoilas’ first solo exhibition in Canada.
The exhibition presents an enormous, amorphous painting covering the entire Centennial Gallery space. Visitors are guided throughout this installation, encouraged to explore and walk over the artwork. The material, arrangement and mise en scene of Hold Your Breath was initially developed as an operatic set for Kunsthaus Bregenz and the Bregenzer Festspielhaus in Austria.
This new presentation at Oakville Galleries reflects Canoilas's practice of revising and recontextualizing large-scale works to adapt to and challenge the architecture of each exhibition space. Canoilas' immersive work features deep-sea imagery, including a microscopic view of an octopus's skin, a seashell, and a large siphonophore, symbolizing symbiosis and mutualism. The painting installation also uses ROV spotlights, contrasting the celestial light of historical painting with the pure white of modern art. Images emerge from the darkness through process-driven techniques that mimic nature.
LOCATIONS:
Gairloch Gardens
1306 Lakeshore Road East
Oakville, ON L6J 1L6
Centennial Square
120 Navy Street
Oakville, ON L6J 2Z4
