Wyn Gelenyse: Portraits of Community
May 22, 2025 at 7:00pm
Join us for a visit with with Governor General's Award recipient Wyn Geleynse who will join us at TAP Centre for Creativity to talk about his exhibition, Community Portraits.
Wyn Gelenyse: Portraits of Community
In Conversation with Words Director Josh Lambier
Thursday, 22 May 2025, 7PM
Tap Centre for Creativity
203 Dundas St, London, ON
Registration is free or by donation
Our event will be hybrid: you can join us onsite at TAP Centre for Creativity or online via Zoom webinar! Your registration here is good for either an online or onsite ticket.
This Unscripted conversation will be led by Josh Lambier, Artistic Director of Words Literary & Creative Arts Festival, who will guide the dialogue and moderate a short audience Q&A.
Originally conceived as a simple exercise in painting the portrait of a close friend and fellow artist, Geleynse saw a bigger project as more friends and acquaintances from his walk in life — from the person who prepares and serves his coffee, colleagues from the arts community, a shop keeper at his local stereo shop, co-workers at the Mission Store where Geleynse volunteers twice a week, the woman who cleans the building that houses his studio — various members of Geleynse’s community stepped forward to be caught in paint on his paper canvas. With forty-one portraits, a series was born from that simple exercise.
This series of portraits is presented one or two at a time for a month, beginning at Milos Craft Beer Emporium last September to December and now at TAP Centre for Creativity. It’s an unusual method to display an exhibit but one that almost mimics the way we encounter our friends and cohorts and acquaintances in daily life, a pleasant reminder that our communal time together is slightly fragmented.
