The Toronto Outdoor Art Fair (TOAF) returns to Nathan Phillips Square from July 11 to 13, featuring more than 400 artists hailing from coast to coast, including OCAD University students, faculty members, staff and alums.
The TOAF is one of Canada’s largest and longest-running annual contemporary art fairs. Since 1961, the fair has helped launch the careers of thousands of artists and designers, introducing the public to the creative talents of Canadians. More than 400 visual artists and makers participate in the TOAF each year.
TOAF Career Launcher awards
This year, 10 emerging artists from OCAD U are participating in the fair as part of a partnership between the TOAF and the RBC Centre for Emerging Artists & Designers (CEAD), including current students and recent grads. The Toronto Outdoor Art Fair Career Launchers awards are available to students in the Drawing & Painting, Illustration, Photography and Material Art & Design programs. These awards allow students to participate in the fair both in person and online.
This year’s recipients include Grace Darakjian, who uses the basic principles of acrylic paint to create digital-like fields of space; Haley Meyer, whose practice draws upon her lived experiences with memory loss; Supriya James, a contemporary landscape artist who graduated from OCAD U’s Drawing & Painting program following a 25-year career as a communications consultant; Jenelle Smith, who is delving into the intricate concepts of the mind through her dreamlike work; and MinSeo Whee, a Korean metalsmith whose recent work incorporates vibrant colours, symbolic forms and collected objects to tell personal and imaginative stories.
OCAD U alum part of the TOAF 2025 Jury
Callum Schuster, a 2011 graduate of OCAD U’s Drawing & Painting program, is a member of the TOAF’s 2025 Jury. The four jurors reviewed more than 1,000 applications to select the 400 artists participating in this year’s fair, which includes more than 155 first-time participants.
Alum recognized with Jurors’ Picks
Several artworks by OCAD U alum are among the stand-outs selected as Jurors’ Picks by the TOAF 2025 Jury. The artists include Ellee SY Lee, who creates imaginary paintings that oscillate between abstraction and representation, and Alex Hall, who specializes in photography and alternative processes.
GradEx 110 at the TOAF
OCAD U’s annual graduate exhibition, GradEx, is one of Toronto’s most highly anticipated events of the year. GradEx 110 attracted over 42,000 guests, the largest crowd since the COVID-19 pandemic. Those who missed it have the opportunity to experience the creative energy of the exhibition at this year’s TOAF.
Interwoven Currents is a multidisciplinary exhibition presenting a curated selection of work by five talented emerging artists whose unique visions and creativity were featured at GradEx 110. The exhibition challenges the rigid definitions of form, interpretation, adornment and functionality. It encourages visitors to celebrate the interplay of materials, processes and relationships.
The five participating artists are Tia Babbar, Judy Chen, Alana D’Agostino, Leah Fernandes and Maja Rudnicki.
Interwoven Currents is supported by the RBC CEAD and a student curatorial collective that includes Arina Kalantar Hormozi, Kieran Keenan, Alexa Beattie and Khalid Dilmamode.
Visit Zone A, Booths 14 – 16, to explore the exhibition.
Additional participating artists
Visitors will find more OCAD U students, faculty members, staff and alums presenting their artwork at the TOAF as part of their independent projects and practices.
The following are a few of the OCAD U-affiliated artists who are exhibiting at the fair:
Maureen O'Connor is a fine-art photographer and animal lover whose photography of animals in crumbling domestic architecture raises questions about how the natural world and the human-created environment intersect.
Keight MacLean’s work celebrates the named and unnamed women featured in historical portraits. The focus of her current work was born from reading male-driven European histories.
Julia McNeely’s evocative Life Moments series encapsulates the complex emotions stemming from motherhood, loss and abandonment and the realities of caring for older individuals. The acrylic on canvas series is a contemplation of the intricacies of life.
