Akin Richmond-Bathurst Open Studio for Culture Days 2025!
We’re happy to invite you to the Akin Richmond-Bathurst Open Studio taking place on Saturday, September 27th from 12-5pm as a part of Ontario Culture Days, a province-wide celebration of art and culture.
Located at 579 Richmond Street West, Akin Richmond-Bathurst is home to a diverse group of emerging and established artists working in painting, illustration, textile art, sculpture, mixed media, and more. During this event we will open our studio doors to the public to get a behind-the-scenes look at the incredible work and community inside. Guests are invited to tour the studios, meet the artists, and learn about their creative practices through informal talks, demos, and in-studio displays.
Several of our members will be showcasing their practices through special activations during the day. Sarah Conway (@sarahterra.art) will be offering oil pastel portrait commisions for guests to take home, while Andrés Domínguez (@andresdominguez.artist) will offer a live hyperrealist painting demonstration alongside a mini showcase of his completed works. Dimitra Roussakis (@di.composing) invites everyone to take part in a collaborative drawing and mixed media activity, and Natalie Peck will share her process through a doll painting demonstration drawn from her studio practice. Rounding out the activations, Sofia Berger (@sofiaberger) will present an artist talk exploring her work, colour, and materiality. Join us to connect with these artists and experience the studio as it transforms into a lively, interactive space for one day only.
Admission is free and all are welcome!
Accessibility Info: There is a step on the street level leading into the main foyer. Once inside, there are 9 steps leading up to the elevator. The elevator takes you up to the third and fourth floor where the studios are located. The private, gender neutral bathrooms are inside the studios with a 1” high transition leading into each bathroom. For more accessibility information click here.
Date: Saturday, September 27, 2025
Time: 12:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Location: Akin Richmond-Bathurst, 579 Richmond St W
Meet some of the Akin Richmond-Bathurst artists who will be participating in the Open Studio.
Vicky Vyas
Vicky Vyas (@vickyvyasart) is a Canadian painter whose work explores themes of identity, tradition, and cultural belonging through bold use of colour and texture. One of the early Canadian-Indian artists to address the Indian diaspora in her practice, she earned recognition with an Award of Excellence for her contributions to the arts and the South Asian community. Her first solo exhibition in New York City’s Soho district earned her the title “South Asian Frida Kahlo”—a comparison that has echoed throughout her life.
In 2001, a life-altering accident left Vyas with serious injuries and a long recovery. After years away from the canvas, she returned to painting as both an act of resilience and a source of healing.
”My work reflects the intersection of East and West, modern and traditional, personal and universal. I use cultural symbolism not as religious commentary but as a way to compare narrative and experience. Each piece evolves with my life—capturing resilience, identity, and the search for belonging.”
Jordan Laura MacLachlan
Jordan Laura MacLachlan (@jordanlauramaclachlan) is a Toronto artist working in clay and mixed media. Her works are in public collections in Canada and abroad, most recently with an inaugural exhibition of her works in the permanent collection of the American Visionary Art Museum. She has received funding from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Toronto Arts Council, and the Ontario Arts Council.
Jordan states, "The art I make reflects my life in a figurative manner, and is always of great meaning to me."
Jordan will have an exhibition joining the permanent collection of the American Visionary Art Museum, opening on October 3rd. The Baltimore-based museum is a national institution and educational center dedicated to intuitive artists, creatives, and visionaries.
Darrel Smith
Darrel Smith (@dsmith5880) enjoys creating art but not creating artist statements. He works in mixed media: acrylic, ink, oil pastel, markers, prints, collage—whatever comes to hand. Perhaps he can't make up his mind, or he enjoys experimenting with all of them.
Darrel's first love is portraiture. The human face and the emotion one can portray never get old. Whatever the subject matter or medium, he loves exploring colour. He does so on a wide variety of surfaces, from paper to mylar, wood and canvas.
Portraying the natural world and its mysteries is another area of ongoing interest. He creates monoprints of plants and insects, illustrating a small, sometimes overlooked world with close-up looks at these subjects. Darrel is currently exploring landscapes, especially the placement of people in the urban nature found in our parks, and the mystery nature offers even in the city.
Please contact Darrel if any of his work interests you! You can DM him on Instagram or you can talk to him at the open house - he will be there much of the afternoon.
Andrés Domínguez
Andrés Domínguez (@andresdominguez.artist) is a Canadian visual artist with more than two decades of professional experience, working primarily in oil painting from a contemporary perspective. Raised in Santiago de Chile, he studied architecture, industrial design, and visual arts—a multidisciplinary background that shaped the structural rigor and spatial sensitivity present in his work.
His practice stands as an act of resistance against digital immediacy: a gesture that reclaims slowness, contemplation, and materiality in a world dominated by algorithms and visual simulacra. Through portraiture and urban scenes, his paintings explore the tension between the human and the technological, offering images that restore a sense of dignity—not as instant consumption but as a space of presence.
Domínguez has developed an international career with exhibitions across North America, Europe, and Latin America, and has taken part in residencies in Miami, Toronto, Florence, and São Paulo. He currently lives and works in Toronto.
Pauline Douady
Pauline Douady (@pauline_douady) is a French visual artist whose practice spans drawing, printmaking, and large-scale painting. Her tactile, sensory-driven approach explores themes of memory, emotion, and transformation. Largely self-taught, her trajectory was shaped by formative years in Buenos Aires under the guidance of painter Jorge Demirjian, where she honed a sensitivity to form, balance, and the invisible structures beneath the visible.
Her engagement with printmaking—first through xylography at the Beaux-Arts in Buenos Aires, then lithography at the Beaux-Arts in Angers—marked a turning point, leading her to create unique, limited-edition prints rooted in material experimentation.
Since relocating to Toulon in 2017, the Mediterranean landscape has enriched her visual lexicon. In 2019, she co-founded the city’s first printmaking festival.
Douady’s work has been exhibited in local galleries, artist-run initiatives, and unconventional spaces, reflecting her commitment to open, dynamic modes of artistic exchange and a strong engagement with local artistic communities.
Emily Simek
Emily Simek’s (@emilysimekart) work explores deeply personal experiences through visual narratives that move between the familiar and the uncanny. Surreal, dreamlike elements punctuate her compositions, informed by found imagery and free association, generating ideas that are arranged compositionally through repeated patterns and motifs.
