2024 featured artist:
Alivia Goetz
Alivia has always loved art and all forms of creation. Over time, she’s grown especially attached to visual art. While assemblage art is her favourite, she also enjoys exploring a variety of other mediums, including gouache, acrylic paint, and relief sculpture. For Alivia, art is a powerful outlet—a way to process and understand emotions that words often can’t express. She hopes her work conveys those feelings and resonates with others who feel the same. Art Is… is a showcase of the pieces Alivia created, with a focus on mental health and the evolving definition of art. At the heart of the show is a piece titled Art Is…, a frame that invites viewers to question and challenge what art can be. The materials used aren’t traditionally associated with visual art, and through this, Alivia hopes to inspire others to rethink their perceptions and expectations of artistic expression.
Artist in Residence Program
the CO. Artist in Residence Program supports local beginning to mid-career artists who have had a lived experience with mental health. The residency provides a supportive and inclusive space for self-directed production of new work, working towards a final show. The residency is an opportunity for local artists to work within a creative environment, in partnership with community organizations, and includes studio space and equipment. Please contact us by clicking the button below for more information or to apply.
2025 featured artist:
Genevieve Champagne
Born in Guelph and now rooted in Chatham, Genevieve is a mother, artist, and landscape architecture grad with a deep love of nature and creativity. After stepping away from art during early motherhood, she’s rediscovered her passion—now expressed through delicate watercolours and handcrafted sun catchers. Her work is a reflection of quiet moments, resilience, and the belief that it’s never too late to follow your dreams.
2025 featured artist:
Dani Devereux
Dani is an artist from the UK, now based in Chatham and working remotely in feature animation. Her credits include the Oscar-winning Pinocchio and Spider-man: Across the Spiderverse. A former instructor at OCAD University, Dani explores themes of distance, memory, and connection in her collection Pocket Ghosts. Using polaroid emulsion and sculpture, the work reflects on the fragility of memory and the longing that comes with being remote or fractured from loved ones.
2024 featured artist:
Alivia Goetz
Alivia has always loved art and all forms of creation. Over time, she’s grown especially attached to visual art. While assemblage art is her favourite, she also enjoys exploring a variety of other mediums, including gouache, acrylic paint, and relief sculpture. For Alivia, art is a powerful outlet—a way to process and understand emotions that words often can’t express. She hopes her work conveys those feelings and resonates with others who feel the same. Art Is… is a showcase of the pieces Alivia created, with a focus on mental health and the evolving definition of art. At the heart of the show is a piece titled Art Is…, a frame that invites viewers to question and challenge what art can be. The materials used aren’t traditionally associated with visual art, and through this, Alivia hopes to inspire others to rethink their perceptions and expectations of artistic expression.
2024 featured artist:
Joanessie Campbell
For Joanessie, art isn’t just something pretty to look at—it’s a way to express who she is. “Smearing colours on a canvas and seeing how they mix calms me in a way nothing else can. Even when I have nothing to say, I always have something to draw.” A Pigmented Adventure is a collection of pieces Joanessie created during her time at the CO. As a young adult, she is discovering herself and learning where she fits in this wild and wonderful world. With each brushstroke, she’s realizing that all the stress over drawing perfect lines gets hidden in the marker anyway—so she might as well have a little fun with it.
2024 featured artist:
Lauren Graham
Lauren is a mixed media artist who mainly works with acrylic, oil pastels, graphite, and ink. Emotional expression, spirituality, and interpersonal connections are the heart of her artistic identity. Playing with themes of decay; life within death, art formed into her passion, aiding her journey to share truth in ways words could not express.
2023 featured artist:
Thomas Martin
Thomas is an aspiring artist and designer. Thomas hopes to one day use his artistic eye to shape ideas and concepts for fashion, visual art, architecture, and many other forms of visual media. He communicates his expression primarily through drawing, painting, and fashion.
2022 featured artist:
Iain Rice
Iain is a local photographer who specializes in fine art photography and digital art. He brought a refreshing and unique style of art into the CO. He possesses incredible artistic talent, capable of turning ordinary art into stunning masterpieces. He has a knack for inspiring others, encouraging them to be bold, brave, and embrace their unique qualities.
2022 featured artist:
Tina Naemsch
What started as a coping method turned into a passion. Tina is a multi-talented artist on a self-journey discovering all aspects of creativity. Her work is immersed in vibrancy, freedom, and colour. The abstract nature of her technique invites her to examine the intricacy of process and healing. Tina’s residency goal was to create an upcycled fashion line, and finish with a fashion show to present the clothing.
2021 featured artist:
Michael Pickard
Michael went through a spiritual awakening but was ungrounded in his experience, leading to him being hospitalized and medicated. When he realized the system of care he was being given wasn’t working, he set out to find new ways to heal and understand his experience. After much suffering and a big change in perspective, he was able to discover new tools, insights, and wisdom that have helped him not only heal, but thrive. Michael uses art to express his inner world and hopes it can inspire others to see the magic of life.
