Wish You Were Here in Oshawa this June!

Well, if there was ever an art exhibition title that sums it all up, it is Wish You Were Here. The new exhibit opens Saturday, June 21, and runs through January 11, 2026. It features historical postcards from Oshawa, drawn from the Thomas Bouckley Collection. Thomas Bouckley was a photographer and archivist of his time. (Bouckley died in 1988 at the age of 84.) His collection of more than 3,000 pieces was donated to The Robert McLaughlin Gallery’s permanent collection.

Wish You Were Here could also be the title of this blog post and every other blog post on this site, because we wish you were here in Oshawa to experience this unique place and culture. There was a time when postcards were a primary way to attract visitors, although that is less common now. But they were effective, and as this exhibit shows, there was an art to them.

One of Thomas Bouckley's photographs depicts men playing pool/billiards at the old Oshawa YMCA.

The Star Glyph Garden in the backyard area of the RMG will also open on Saturday, June 21. There will be activities, refreshments, and appearances by the artists and curators of the exhibit. The Star Glyph Garden was designed by Kai Recollet and Jon Johnson and is informed by Indigenous storytelling. Multidisciplinary ecological artist and community-engaged arts facilitator Nimra Bandukwala will lead art activities. Her paintings are inspired by motifs from her homeland of Karachi and folktales from the desert.

Artwork by Nimra Bandukwala.

In Oshawa, art and gardening are never far from each other. The annual Peony Festival, held Saturday, June 7, and Sunday, June 8, at the Oshawa Valley Botanical Gardens, will showcase work by members of The Oshawa Art Association. The Peony Festival coincides with the peak bloom cycle of more than 300 varieties of peonies, including the original 100 donated by the Canadian Peony Festival. The Oshawa Peony Festival is among Ontario's top 100 festivals and events and is a key event in the city’s calendar. It is one of the most popular events the city hosts.

The festival includes food vendors, artisans, exhibitors, and live music, featuring Andy Earle and the Bandits on Saturday and Swing Shift on Sunday. There is also a photography contest and tours by city forestry staff. Also on site are the Living Room Mobile Art Studio and Durhamways’ Paint-A-Bus program.

Help add a splash of colour to a Durhamways bus at the annual Oshawa Peony Festival on June 7 and 8!

Outdoor activities are part of the Robert McLaughlin Gallery’s monthly Friday events. On June 6, bingo night will be held in the backyard. Drag artist and community advocate Kali Kontour will host the event, along with other drag artists, including reigning Queen of Dim Sum Orlandra Bloom and Deena Dazeem.

On June 8, the Peony Festival inspires the Sunday art activities at the gallery, with Pretty Peonies as the theme.

Other exhibitions continuing at the gallery include Tom Dean’s Goodbye, Painters Eleven: Abstract Bonds, Resistance, and Artists By Artists.

Opening June 7 is We Are Ten Thousand Hands That Plant Seeds, with a talk and tour by exhibition curator Abedar Kamgarion on June 12 at 6:30 p.m. The group exhibit features textile artists Megan Feheley, Maureen Gruben, Sharmistha Kar, Gloria Martinez-Granados, Soledad Fátima Muñoz and Nazzal Studio. The artists use the everyday familiarity of textiles to explore complex issues such as colonialism, displacement and genocide.