January 20 – March 28, 2026
Daybreak
Works by Taras Lachowsky, Philip Leonard Ocampo, Tazeen Qayyum, saysah, Skawennati & Connor TaylorCurated by Erin Szikora
As the earth turns on its axis, intervals between light and dark unfold according to our shifting proximity to the sun. In this perpetual motion, the sun rises and sets each day, marking an endless choreography of changing seasons, and cadences that influence how we live. Both fact and metaphor, this celestial rhythm mirrors the cycles of transformation that guide our own existence—our rituals, choices, dreams, and fears. Meditating on this ever-returning passage between dawn and dusk, and grounded in the day to day actions that shape our lives, the artists in Daybreak invite viewers to reflect on how we spend, understand, and mark time.
Daybreak presents artmaking as both a tool and a mirror that help us understand the events and choices that shape our lives. The exhibition brings together an intergenerational and culturally diverse group of artists whose works draw from lived experience, and collective and ancestral knowledge. Taras Lachowsky, Philip Leonard Ocampo, Tazeen Qayyum, saysah, Skawennati, and Connor Taylor invite us to consider how time slows, slips, repeats, and gathers meaning. Through poetry, performance, collage, video, installation, and painting, they collaborate with community, with strangers, and with the earth itself, sharing insights on how to move through a world that is often demanding and relentless, yet still full of beauty, spontaneity, and connection. By pausing to notice both the wonders and anxieties of everyday life, their works reveal how artmaking can help us navigate these shifting rhythms and find clarity within our brief moment in a vast and transitory planetary cycle.
Daybreak has been developed alongside Nightfall, an exhibition curated by Hannah Keating opening at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery in November 2026. Together, the exhibitions explore the interconnectedness of human rhythms and ancient cycles of time—whether daily, seasonal, generational, or geological—and draw attention to the intuitive, creative, and necessary relationship between rest and action.
About the Artists
Taras Lachowsky is a multidisciplinary artist whose work is deeply rooted in his Ukrainian heritage. Based in Guelph, Ontario, Lachowsky blends traditional techniques such as Vytynaky (paper cutting), Pysanky (Easter egg painting), and Vishyvanky (embroidery) to create new, contemporary works that explore themes of identity, belonging, and cultural resilience. After studying textile and surface design at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario, Lachowsky earned a B.A. in Fine Art Studio at the University of Guelph.
Philip Leonard Ocampo (b.1995) is an artist and arts facilitator based in Tkaronto, Canada. Ocampo’s multidisciplinary practice involves painting, sculpture, writing, and curatorial projects. Exploring worldbuilding, radical hope, and speculative futures, Ocampo’s work embodies a curious cross between magic wonder and the nostalgic imaginary. Following the tangents, histories, and canons of popular culture, Ocampo is interested in how unearthing cultural touchstones of past / current times may therefore serve as catalysts for broader conversations about lived experiences; personal, collective, diasporic, etc. He holds a BFA in Integrated Media (DPXA) from OCAD University (2018) and is one of the four founding co-directors of Hearth, an artist-run space based in the city.
Tazeen Qayyum (she/her) is a multidisciplinary Pakistani-Canadian contemporary artist. Her work has been exhibited worldwide and is included in both public and private collections. Qayyum co-founded Art Address in 2018, an interactive space for artistic discourse. She currently serves as a member of the Arts Council, Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital, and has previously served on the Board of Directors at Oakville Galleries, and the Advisory Board at Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto Mississauga. In 1996, she received her BFA in Visual Arts from the National College of Arts, Lahore, Pakistan, specializing in miniature painting of South Asian and Persian traditions. She lives and works in Oakville, Canada.
saysah moves through the world with a deep intention to be in right relationship with their body, the land, and the communities they belong to. They are always in the process of (un)becoming—an ever-evolving learner, maker, and mover. As a multidisciplinary and multisensorial artist, saysah’s practice weaves together different forms of expression, all guided by sensory exploration. They find joy in mulling over layers of embodied knowledge systems and re-membering what has been left for us. Through their work, they build spaces for co-creation, where community-building, ritual-theatre, and archive come together in a shared approach. These elements are deeply informed by earth and water as vital teachers and collaborators—saysah honours these guides by moving with a commitment to reciprocity.
Skawennati is a visual artist. Her machinimas and machinimagraphs (movies and still images made in virtual environments), textiles, and sculpture have been presented internationally and collected by the National Gallery of Canada, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montreal and the Thoma Foundation, among others. Recipient of a 2022 Hewlett 50 Arts Commissions Grant and an Honorary Doctorate from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, she is also a founding board member of daphne, Montreal’s first Indigenous artist-run center. She co-directs Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace (AbTeC), a research-creation network at Concordia University. Originally from Kahnawà:ke, Skawennati resides in Montreal.
Connor Taylor is a self-taught poet from Moose Cree First Nation, Treaty 9, Moose Factory, Ontario. Borrowing inspiration from those around him, Taylor writes from the perspective of being human in a world gone dark, using poetry to shine light on the human condition. Connor was the Doris McCarthy Gallery’s 2024/2025 Indigenous Youth Artist in Residence.
About the Curator
Erin Szikora is a curator based in Guelph, Ontario. Working with both early career and established artists, she is interested in projects that deconstruct assumed authority and carve space for the building of new, more just futures. Her work follows an ethos of care and places relationship and community building at its core. Of mixed settler (Scottish and Hungarian) and Haudenosaunee (Cayuga, Six Nations of the Grand River) ancestry, she holds a BA in Art History and Visual Studies from the University of Toronto and an MA in Contemporary Art, Design, and New Media Art Histories from OCAD University. Szikora served as Interim Curator at the Doris McCarthy Gallery in 2024 and currently holds the position of Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of Guelph.
