Ron Shuebrook and Frances Thomas have each undertaken a serious engagement with abstraction. Both artists are highly skilled at manipulating paint to highlight wonderful connections between line, form, colour and scale. The intent of this exhibition is to highlight the avenues of abstraction unique to each artist, while finding commonalities and celebrating the differences.
This exhibition and the accompanying publication were co-produced with the Woodstock Art Gallery where the exhibition was on view during the fall of 2023. The exhibition will continue on tour to the Art Gallery of Northumberland and the Art Gallery of Algoma in 2025.
The Woodstock Art Gallery and MacLaren Art Centre extend their sincere thanks to the Olga Korper Gallery, the Peter Robertson Gallery, and all the private individuals who contributed to this important project.
Ron Shuebrook is an artist, educator, and Professor Emeritus at OCAD University in Toronto, where he was president from 2000 to 2005 and Vice President Academic, from 1998 to 2002. In June 2005, the Ron Shuebrook Award in painting and drawing was endowed by faculty, staff, and friends of OCAD University. In 2008, he was awarded a Doctor of Fine Arts, Honoris Causa for his contributions to art and education.
Shuebrook holds a B.Sc. in Art Education, an M.Ed. in Art Education from Kutztown University, PA, and an MFA in Visual Art from Kent State University, OH. As well, he studied at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, ME, during the Summers of 1965 and 1967, and received a Fellowship in Painting from the Fine Arts Work Centre, Provincetown, MA, for 1969-1970.
Shuebrook has been on faculty and an administrator at six other Canadian educational institutions, including the University of Guelph, 1988-98, where he served as Professor and Chair of the Department of Fine Art, helped establish the MFA Programme in Studio Art in 1992, and led the renovation of the department’s facilities. His colleagues established the Shuebrook Graduate Scholarship to recognize his commitment to the art and art history programmes. He has also been a consultant for more than 25 art and design programmes at Canadian universities and for government agencies. Shuebrook is also former president of the Universities Art Association of Canada and former President of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.
Shuebrook has received numerous awards, including a Senior Artist’s Grant from the Canada Council in 1985; the Art Administrator’s Award of Distinction from the National Council of Art Administrators in 2006; and a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medial in 2012. To honor his contributions to art education, the Canadian Society of Education through Art invited him to present the C.D. Gaitskell Memorial Lecture at its 2014 national conference in Halifax, NS.
Since 1965, Shuebrook has had more than 100 solo exhibitions and has participated in more than 200 group exhibitions. He has been represented by the Olga Korper Gallery, Toronto, since 1979, and in recent years has frequently exhibited at Renann Isaacs Contemporary Art in Guelph. Over the decades, he has also shown regularly at numerous other galleries and museums. His work is included in more than 60 public and corporate collections such as the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Art Gallery of Guelph, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, and numerous private collections. In 2019, he was commissioned to create new drawings for the BMO Collection.
During the summer of 2005, Shuebrook was a workshop leader (with Robert Christie) in observance of the 50th Anniversary of the Emma Lake Artists’ Workshop in Saskatchewan. He has been Senior Artist-in-Residence at Boarding House Arts in Guelph since 2013. Shuebrook has also published more than 100 essays, reviews, magazine articles, and exhibition catalogues.
Ron Shuebrook lives in Guelph, ON, and Blandford, NS.
Frances Thomas, a Canadian painter, and printmaker was born in Parry Sound, Ontario. She received both her BFA and MFA from York University, Toronto, Ontario, and is the recipient of the Samuel Sarick Purchase Award for excellence in thesis work.
Her paintings were featured in a solo exhibition, “but wait”, with an accompanying catalogue, at the MacLaren Art Centre in Barrie. She has exhibited in Barrie, Montreal, Edmonton, Toronto and New York and her work is in the permanent collections of the MacLaren Art Centre, Bank of Montreal and York University. Thomas has taught at Georgian College as well as holding advisory positions on various Fine Arts committees at Georgian. She has provided studio crits for undergrad and MFA students at York University and has been a juror for the Ontario Arts Council. She has participated in residencies in Pouch Cove, Newfoundland and Triangle Arts in Brooklyn, New York and in 2016 spent three months in Berlin on a self-directed residency.
Thomas currently lives and works in Barrie, ON Canada. She is also the Curator of the permanent art collection at Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH) in Barrie, ON.
