Dates
Jun 6 – Jul 26, 2026
Sandra Brewster, Jorian Charlton, June Clark, Delali Cofie, Sameer Farooq, Oreka James, Bushra Junaid, Natia Lemay, Adewole Louis, Kent Monkman, Native Art Department International, Isabel Okoro, Chiedza Pasipanodya, Tushar Patel, Curtiss Randolph, Winsom Winsom Hannah Traore Gallery is pleased to present Love Letter, an ode to Toronto, Canada— The city where all sixteen artists in this exhibition live and work. This exhibition connects artists across generations, reflecting a complex and nuanced relationship to Toronto, a place that functions as a major metropolitan city, a site of intersecting diasporas, and a territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples. While these artists do not use Toronto as the subject of their work, this exhibition approaches the city as a textured, eclectic, and fruitful environment for creative practice. Translated into various forms through photographic processes, archival materials, and saturated palettes, much of the work on view considers place as an expression or extension of identity, explores lesser-known histories of Canada's past, and honors the pre-colonial cultures of the country's many provinces. Isabel Okoro's series, which includes Runnin', depicts scenes of Toronto alongside those from Lagos, Mexico City, and New York. Okoro explains, "weaving these distinct points in time into a single extended sequence, the work explores the converging and diverging ways we experience people and space." Sandra Brewster's series, Take a Little Trip, integrates interviews by artists and activists to allude to the unfixable nature of their being and their tendency towards geographical and imaginative movement. For Bushra Junaid, art is a means of layering fragmentary records, oral histories, and visual culture to create images and narratives that restore presence and complexity to overlooked or obscured histories. This exhibition forms a dynamic portrait of Toronto, bringing together artists at unique, pivotal moments in their careers. For Adewole Louis, works created during the formative years of his practice explore how materials' aesthetic meanings are absorbed into the creation of form, offering a way to understand larger systems of cultural production. Kent Monkman, based between Toronto and New York, expands the recurring themes across his portfolio, including his gender-fluid alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle. Their frameworks provide a critical look at the shared history of these lands and re-examine the traditional keepers of Canada. This exhibition encourages a more sustained dialogue linking the nearby North American cities of Toronto and New York. Curated by Hannah Traore, this exhibition is a love letter that reflects her personal devotion to the creative landscape of each city, encouraging a rich and evolving correspondence between them.