WAG Upcoming Exhibitions

Exhibition Run: Opens May 11, 2025

A collaboration between the Oxford County Archives and the Woodstock Art Gallery, The Diary of Ella Youmans Project, began when a local resident brought a diary to Oxford County Archives in hopes that staff could determine the diary’s provenance and decipher the text. Staff discovered that the diary belonged to a young woman named Ella Youmans, who would later become the mother of Woodstock artist Florence Carlyle.

Upon the diary’s formal donation to the Woodstock Art Gallery, staff at the Gallery and Archives began working on bringing her diary to life. This exhibit is an opportunity to come to know Ella through her own thoughts and words on the sociocultural aspects of life for women in 1860, and covers a variety of subjects such as education, religion, politics, relationship and marriage. The diary also includes her travels between her family home in Picton, Ontario and North Carolina and her views on the American South, enslaved persons and the impending civil war.

Image: Social Media image created by Stephan Cam

Design by Stephan Cam

Juror’s Walk and Talk: Saturday September 6th, 2025

Visual Elements: Annual Juried Exhibition is a long-running celebration of artistic talent in Oxford County and the surrounding regions. This year’s exhibition is juried by Janet Jones, Matthew Ryan Smith, and Nicholas Crombach.

Exhibition Run: July 12^th – January 24, 2026

The year 2025 represents a significant chapter in Oxford County’s history, celebrating its 175th anniversary since incorporation and its 50th anniversary since restructuring. This exhibit, explores the history of some of the County’s iconic administrative buildings, including the Court Houses, Jail, Registry Offices, and House of Refuge and highlights some of the architectural drawings, photographs, and artwork maintained by the Oxford County Archives.

Image: Court House Square photograph, 1865, Oxford County Archives

Exhibition Run: July 26, 2025 – Jan 24, 2026

Reception with the Artist: Saturday October 25, 2025
This retrospective exhibition of work by Jaquie Poole includes selections from the permanent collection and the private collection of the artist. Jaquie Poole is a Woodstock-based artist who has a long-standing history with the Woodstock Art Gallery. She has worked at WAG as an art educator and guest curator and has exhibited her work in both solo and group exhibitions. Poole graduated with honours from the Department of Experimental Arts at the Ontario College of Art in 1981 and, the following year, continued on at OCA in her studies in Sound Concepts. Working in a variety of media in her own artistic practice, she has constantly been inspired by themes of nature and water. Poole’s work can be found in collections across Canada, including the WAG’s permanent collection.

Jaquie Poole
Flat Rock, 2009
Acrylic on board
91.5 cm x 122.3 cm
Woodstock Art Gallery Permanent Collection 
Gift of Jaquie Poole

Exhibition Run: July 26, 2025 – Jan 24, 2026 

Presented as 6 digital screens with looped animations, The Pinks reflect aspects of ourselves and our bodily existence in the world. The individual animated antics of each Pink elicit an empathetic connection with the human being standing before them. They are fluid in their identity, encouraging slippage between supposedly opposite realms: male/female, human/animal, digital/physical. They speak to the stage in our lives when, as very young children, we did not see ourselves as separate from the world around us. They are coming into consciousness, sensually determining the world they find themselves in: forging their place in it with primal force.

Thank you to the Canada Council of the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for their support of this project.

Lyn Carter
Pink 5, 2025