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Announcing the 2026 Exhibition Line Up
As we look ahead to 2026, we’re excited to introduce the exhibitions coming to Craft Ontario’s new gallery space at 401 Richmond. From refined furniture design to immersive multimedia installations, this season showcases the depth of contemporary craft practice and the vibrant voices shaping it today. Join us as we present six dynamic exhibitions that invite audiences into fresh conversations about material, form, and community.
Heidi Earnshaw (January 14 - February 28)
Heidi Earnshaw is a Canadian furniture designer and maker whose refined approach to form, material, and proportion has positioned her among the country’s leading craft artists. Based in Lanark, Ontario, she creates meticulously constructed works that merge contemporary design with traditional joinery, achieving an elegance rooted in restraint and precision.
Earnshaw studied Visual Art at the University of Toronto and Furniture Design at Sheridan College’s School of Craft and Design, where she later served as faculty and mentor. Since founding her studio in 2000, she has produced bespoke and limited-edition furniture that bridges function and art, earning recognition from the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado. Her work is represented in major public and private collections, including the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Canada House in London, and the Ismaili Centre in Toronto.
A frequent lecturer and instructor at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Maine, Earnshaw has exhibited widely across North America, with recent presentations at Harbourfront Centre, the Gardiner Museum, and the Center for Art in Wood in Philadelphia. Her achievements have been celebrated in Canadian House & Home, Azure, Elle Décor Canada, and Fine Woodworking. Recipient of the Lily Yung Memorial Award and the MERA Award of Excellence in 2023, she continues to advance the field of contemporary craft through her artistry, mentorship, and commitment to enduring design.
Akash Inbakumar (March 11 - April 18)
Akash Inbakumar is a Tamil-Singalese Canadian artist based in Tkaronto. Their interdisciplinary practice uses installation, costumes, and performance to explore ideas of world-bulding, mythology, and kinship; entering partnerships with multiple mediums, tools, and processes, they conceive material-kin. These kin represent a world where craft objects play the role of carrying family lineage and storyteller, compared to the colonial west’s nuclear family. Queering the idea of how information can be passed down multi-generational/multi-specie networks. Inbakumar is a recent graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design University and has shown work at ArtAdress (Oakville) The Robert Mclaughlin Gallery (Oshawa), Artscape Gibraltar Point (Toronto), Patel Brown Gallery (Toronto), Xpace Cultural Center (Toronto) and Riverdale Hub (Toronto).
Gabriel George (April 29 - June 6)
Gabriel George is a creative Indo-Canadian artist inspired by heritage, culture, futurism, technology, and the beauty of nature. Born and raised in Kerala, India, he moved to Canada in 2015 to follow his passion for art. With experience as an associate art director for films and a successful art director or advertisements, Gabriel has a strong background in the creative industry. His work in installation art in India added depth and storytelling to his art, shaping his unique style. In 2025, he completed his post-graduation in Sculpture and Art Installation from OCAD University in Toronto, further refining his skills and artistic vision.
Gabriel’s art includes paintings, sculptures, installations, and video art. He has a special talent for telling universal stories through his work, connecting with people from all walks of life. He often uses found objects and unusual materials, showing his love for creativity and experimentation. Gabriel is particularly drawn to large-scale installations, as he believes their size and presence can deeply move and engage viewers. His art blends tradition and modern ideas, inviting people to think, feel, and connect.
Gabriel’s work has been featured in many exhibitions in Canada and India, earning him recognition and praise. In 2015, his powerful poetry art installation earned him a place in the Limca Book of Records. Through his art, Gabriel continues to share stories that inspire imagination, stir emotions, and encourage viewers to see the world in new ways. His focus on innovation, material exploration, and audience interaction makes his art both meaningful and memorable. As he steps into this new chapter as a full-time artist, Gabriel is excited to create more impactful and immersive experiences for his audience.
April Martin & Judy Martin (June 17 - July 25)
April Martin works primarily in sculpture, ceramics, and textiles. She sees her work as a revealer of connections, burnishing, sculpting and exposing the webs of associations amidst the ecology of materials that make up our daily shared experiences. She is drawn to sources of light, life and energy and believes that the human impetuous to create is similar to the energy of natural forces such as wind, weather and water. She lives in Toronto which brims the Great Lakes region where she was born (Kenora), grew up (Manitoulin Island) and studied (Montreal, Chicago). She considers the reflective freshwater a collaborator in her process and thinking and chooses to work with it as a mirror to document both her soft and permanent shapes. Materiality is an experience of being alive, and in her work, she draws this reality to the surface of the textile and the clay.
Canadian artist Judith E. Martin combines traditional hand stitch, local natural dyes and used domestic textiles to make poetic quilts about the interior world. These large hand-stitched textiles have garnered many awards, notably several from Quilt National, the most prestigious exhibition in her field. A long-time member of Craft Ontario, Judy Martin received the award for mid-career achievement in 2018. Her art is included in many private collections around the world as well as several public collections in Ontario, the Canada Council Art Bank and the International Quilt Museum in the USA.
Judy Martin exhibits her work internationally and holds two BA degrees in fine art; one from Canada (Lakehead 1993 chancellors medal) and one from the UK (Middlesex 2012 first class honours). The artist grew up on a large rural property in Northwestern Ontario. Long solitary summers spent in the shade of willow trees with art supplies and books nurtured an inner dreamworld that has since become her main subject. For the last thirty years, Judy and her husband have lived on Manitoulin Island in the Great Lake
Huron.
Hitoko Okada (August 26 - September 26)
Hitoko Okada is a queer, Nikkei (Japanese diaspora), interdisciplinary artist researcher, and facilitator based in Hamilton, Ontario. Their artistic research and fashion practice explores the cultural, and historical materiality of Japanese folk heritage textile crafts within the context of contemporary geopolitics and colonial histories of the global fashion supply chain. Hitoko has participated in several artist residencies nationally and internationally, and has exhibited in Canada, USA and Japan. She has curated, programmed and facilitated artistic and community-based projects in Vancouver, British Columbia and in the regions in and around Hamilton, Ontario. They are a recipient of multiple grants, and awards from Canada Council of the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and Hamilton City Enrichment Fund. Hitoko has been researching Japanese indigo since 2018, and has recently planted 1,250 seedlings in her backyard for her third season.
Craft Award Recipient Exhibition 2026 (October 9 - November 7)
See the best of contemporary craft in our annual group exhibition featuring work by Craft Award winners.
