Necessary Arts Collective

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Necessary Arts Collective Necessary Arts Collective is a space dedicated to supporting artists. It is a shared work space for designers, artists, writers and the like.

Rates
Co-Working Membership: $125/per month

Full Studio Membership: $250/$325/$400/$500/per month

✨ NEW SHOW ✨Parameters of Spooning 🥄Heather Rattray | Heather Rattray “Parameters of Spooning expands on work produced d...
10/08/2026

✨ NEW SHOW ✨

Parameters of Spooning 🥄

Heather Rattray | Heather Rattray

“Parameters of Spooning expands on work produced during my MFA degree, situating the spoon as a symbolic and speculative form. For me, spoons represent q***r life, transformation, and the possibility of q***r futurity. I repeatedly ask the question: if a genderq***r spoon existed, what would it look like? Through a variety of materials with a focus on ceramics, I continually push the form of the spoon, extending further and further into ‘uselessness.’ These objects explore what it means to q***r an object and how learning new skills, embracing failure, and working through material resistance can become pathways to self-discovery.

Each spoon is a site of experimentation and becoming. By exaggerating curves, disrupting function, and allowing forms to dance, bend, and fail, I challenge traditional ideas of utility and success. Failure becomes a q***r possibility and an opening for transformation, growth, and joy. Bright colours and playful forms, especially in my ceramic work, celebrate q***r and trans joy through a ubiquitous, everyday object.

Parameters of Spooning imagines objects that retreat from their expected roles and, in doing so, point toward new directions. Through repair, reimagining, and refusal of function, I seek to gesture toward a trans and non-binary future grounded in hope, freedom, and embodied joy.”

View the show in person & online! Exhibiting Oct 6 to 20, 2026 ⭐

✨ NEW SHOW ✨Parameters of Spooning 🥄Heather Rattray | .rattray "Parameters of Spooning expands on work produced during m...
10/08/2026

✨ NEW SHOW ✨

Parameters of Spooning 🥄

Heather Rattray | .rattray

"Parameters of Spooning expands on work produced during my MFA degree, situating the spoon as a symbolic and speculative form. For me, spoons represent q***r life, transformation, and the possibility of q***r futurity. I repeatedly ask the question: if a genderq***r spoon existed, what would it look like? Through a variety of materials with a focus on ceramics, I continually push the form of the spoon, extending further and further into ‘uselessness.’ These objects explore what it means to q***r an object and how learning new skills, embracing failure, and working through material resistance can become pathways to self-discovery.

Each spoon is a site of experimentation and becoming. By exaggerating curves, disrupting function, and allowing forms to dance, bend, and fail, I challenge traditional ideas of utility and success. Failure becomes a q***r possibility and an opening for transformation, growth, and joy. Bright colours and playful forms, especially in my ceramic work, celebrate q***r and trans joy through a ubiquitous, everyday object.

Parameters of Spooning imagines objects that retreat from their expected roles and, in doing so, point toward new directions. Through repair, reimagining, and refusal of function, I seek to gesture toward a trans and non-binary future grounded in hope, freedom, and embodied joy."

View the show in person & online! Exhibiting Oct 6 to 20, 2026 ⭐

Laurel McLeod is an interdisciplinary artist based in Ontario. Working across drawing and painting, she gravitates towar...
10/01/2026

Laurel McLeod is an interdisciplinary artist based in Ontario. Working across drawing and painting, she gravitates towards using a combination of traditional drawing media and found natural materials. Her interest in environmental sustainability drives her practice, resulting in work that explores the different ways in which nature and its processes can be experienced and made visible. McLeod earned her MFA from OCAD University in the Interdisciplinary Master’s in Art, Media & Design program in 2020. She previously received her Bachelor of Arts at the University of Guelph in 2018. McLeod has exhibited her work in Guelph, Toronto, and Oakville.

Pine Galleries, #1-12
12” x 12”
Graphite on Paper
2026

View the show in person until October 6, 2026 ⚡️🏃⭐️



✨ NEW SHOW ✨Pine Galleries | Laurel McLeod “I find myself creating artwork in one of two ways. The first; trying to unde...
09/22/2026

✨ NEW SHOW ✨

Pine Galleries | Laurel McLeod



“I find myself creating artwork in one of two ways. The first; trying to understand what it is that I’m looking at (often a plant, flower or tree that has caught my eye) by capturing this subject through detailed observation. The second; through a pre-determined process involving this subject and an action where a combination of movement, time and materials come into play. This body of work focuses on the latter.

In graphite on paper, this series of drawings articulates the path that bark beetles made as they bore their way through a pine tree. These distinct tunnel patterns, called galleries, are visually striking in their calligraphic nature yet just as destructive, having cut off the flow of nutrients and water to the tree. As the galleries are recorded, the tree can be seen as taking on a new kind of existence.

Interested as I am in process, the series itself becomes the means to recording moments that are unique to each action. In this way, each drawing is singular. Using process as a tool for seeing is a method I’m continually drawn to for the many possibilities that can be uncovered in moments of chance.”

View the show in person from Sept 22 to Oct 6, 2026 ⚡️⭐️🏃👀🌿

Only a few days left to catch Heaven // On Earth ☁️Isabella “Issy” De Tullio 🍉 Isabella “Issy” De Tullio (she/they) is a...
09/19/2026

Only a few days left to catch Heaven // On Earth ☁️

Isabella “Issy” De Tullio 🍉

Isabella “Issy” De Tullio (she/they) is a q***r multi-disciplinary artist based in Guelph, Ontario. Working across drawing, printmaking, painting, and beyond, Issy invites viewers to reconsider where we assign value and how we define worth. Much of Issy’s work is influenced by the legacy of their Italian grandparents, who are figures rich in culture, friendship, food, gardens, and willful creativity.  Exploring tensions between what is intrinsic, inherited, and imposed, Issy offers radical love and q***rs frameworks built to be demanding and repressive. Using humble materials and layered storytelling, their work honours lives made abundant through resourcefulness, resilience, and reverence for simple blessings.

Issy’s practice gestures towards connection across generations, cultures, and silences.

View the work in person until the morning of Sept 22 ✨🧚⭐️🏃

✨ APPLY FOR A SHOW IN 2027 ✨Our Call for Submissions opens Sept 15, 2026 at 12pm 👀⭐️💻Each year, we invite artists from G...
09/10/2026

✨ APPLY FOR A SHOW IN 2027 ✨

Our Call for Submissions opens Sept 15, 2026 at 12pm 👀⭐️💻

Each year, we invite artists from Guelph and the surrounding area to submit proposals for exhibitions. We are now looking for our 2027 lineup ⚡️ Submissions are open to both artists and curators for solo, two-person, and group shows.

This is your chance to pitch an idea and share your practice. We’d love to learn about what you’re working on ✨🤍

The submission form will go live in our bio on Sept 15 (and we’ll remind you closer to launch day!)

👉 Please note: there are small fees to submit proposals and sign up for exhibitions. As a sole-proprietor space, we do not qualify for funding opportunities. These fees help us cover overhead and keep our exhibition program running. In return, we do our best to provide artists with a supportive, well-rounded, and approachable exhibition experience.

Next Slides: Featured Artists from 2026 💫
⭐️ Tuesday Troup
⭐ Annie Metaxas Morrison
⭐️ Olivia de Fleuriot Perry

✨ NEW SHOW ✨Heaven // On EarthIsabella De Tullio | Isabella “Issy” De Tullio 🍉 “I often think about faith, what it means...
09/09/2026

✨ NEW SHOW ✨

Heaven // On Earth

Isabella De Tullio | Isabella “Issy” De Tullio 🍉

“I often think about faith, what it means to have faith, and the comforts that come with believing in something beyond ourselves. Faith is inherently uncertain and varies from person to person. Love and loss, on the other hand, are ubiquitous. Maybe believing in something is a way we can self-soothe through grief. Or maybe an afterlife does exist, and it is even more spectacular than anyone can imagine. 

This body of work imagines a version of the afterlife where beliefs are realized, joy is honoured, and love is rewarded. Filtered through a lens limited by my humanity, this paradise is rich with earthly delight. Food, botanicals, light, and spirits all convene in limitless splendour. It is a state of peace and fulfillment where I imagine my late loved ones to be, and it is the place where I – regardless of any contrasting faith – hope to reunite with them in many, many years.”

View the show in person & online now! 🧚⭐️🏃

Exhibiting Sept 8 to 22, 2026

Cynthia Waldow is a Guelph-based, self-taught artist whose practice explores feminism, politics, memory and transformati...
08/31/2026

Cynthia Waldow is a Guelph-based, self-taught artist whose practice explores feminism, politics, memory and transformation through the lens of the everyday. Working primarily in acrylic and, more recently, photography, she reclaims overlooked objects and fragments of daily life, reframing them to invite observers to pause, look more closely and find meaning in the ordinary.

Drawing on a background in nursing, psychology, community arts and design, Waldow is interested in the emotional lives of familiar spaces and objects. Her work often explores themes of connection, loss, resilience and the hidden stories embedded in our shared environments.

Whether through painting or photography, her practice seeks to create moments of quiet reflection, encouraging viewers to reconsider what they have stopped noticing and to rediscover the extraordinary within the seemingly ordinary.
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Works are available for purchase. 100% of sales are given to the artist ⭐️⚡️✨

View the show in person until Sept 8!

✨ NEW SHOW ✨Waiting… | Cynthia WaldowFork in the Road 📞“I photographed these payphones with an eye toward the forgotten ...
08/25/2026

✨ NEW SHOW ✨

Waiting… | Cynthia Waldow

Fork in the Road 📞

“I photographed these payphones with an eye toward the forgotten but still necessary. Over the years, I have watched some of the most interesting booths and hoods disappear—some overgrown by trees yet still working, others hidden behind a store’s outdoor display, or simply gone. They are among the last of their kind.

Payphones are the neighbour you wave to occasionally but rarely stop to talk to, and sometimes forget altogether. Yet when you’re locked out of your house in the middle of a snowstorm, they can still provide refuge. They are still valuable to someone.

As I photograph them, I find myself anthropomorphizing them. They feel neglected, overlooked, and quietly waiting as the world moves around them. They are hidden in plain sight, lingering at the edge of our consciousness. Yet for some people, they remain an essential means of connection.

Who gets to decide what is still useful or relevant?”

View the show online now and in person until Sept 8, 2026 🏃🏃🏃

Annie Metaxas Morrison (she/they) is a q***r, Guelph-based artist, activist, and independent parent currently reconvenin...
08/19/2026

Annie Metaxas Morrison (she/they) is a q***r, Guelph-based artist, activist, and independent parent currently reconvening her formal artistic practice after many years focused on raising her kids. Using print making, textile-based sculpture, and ephemeral photo and video projects, Annie's ongoing body of work examines how prescribed notions of gender, trauma, recovery, labour, resistance, language and media all function as quiet infrastructures that support what she calls “Domesticated Violence”.

View "Wife Pleaser" in person until August 25th 🏃🏃🏃



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84 Wyndham Street N
Guelph, ON
N1H4E8

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