The Campus Gallery
Georgian’s Campus Gallery is a vibrant multi-disciplinary exhibition space where students in Design and Visual Arts programs and established artists showcase their work. The Campus Gallery hosts a variety of exhibitions and artist talks that reflect regional, national and international art, craft and design.
On this page:
Exhibitions
Aanikoobijiganag/Generations
An Exhibition by Tanya Cunnington and Bewabon Shilling, with Dora Benson, Annie Kmyta Cunnington, Maria Kmyta, Arthur Shilling, and Cal Shilling
Curated by the students of the Museum and Gallery Studies program
January 5 – February 1, 2026
About the exhibition
“Aanikoobijiganag/Generations” presents an artistic odyssey that reaches through the generations of the Cunnington and Shilling families. Within these relationships, a love of art, and the art itself, are continuously passed down from parent to child. This exhibit celebrates objects imbued with living memories, that whisper stories through brushstrokes, quillwork, and mark-making. Including painting series from contemporary artists Tanya Cunnington and Bewabon Shilling, as well as works from their grandparents, parents Arthur Shilling, Annie Kmyta Cunnington (former graduate of Georgian College’s Fine Arts program), and their son Cal, this exhibition unites cultures through a shared passion for recording meaningful places and people through stories and art.
This exhibition is in partnership with Indigenous Studies, the Wiidookdaading Indigenous Resource Centre, and the Museum and Gallery Studies program and is supported by an Ontario Arts Council Grant.
Opening Reception: January 15 5-7 pm
Artist Talk with Tanya and Bewabon Shilling Jan 22nd 10am in The Campus Gallery.
Image credit: Tanya Cunnington, “Grandpa and Annie, Nana & Nick” acrylic on paper 22″ x22″ 2025
Working on “Aanikoobijiganag/Generations” has been an exciting opportunity for us. Curating, writing the labels, and then collaborating on the Exhibit layout and designing the space has been enlightening. The experiences we have gained through discussions with Tanya and Bewobon has been a great learning opportunity that will be applied in our future careers.
Sarah Taylor, Museum and Gallery Studies student
This exhibition is a celebration of the Cunnington and Shilling families. Connecting the roots and legacy of Tanya Cunnington and Bewabon Shilling, this exhibition highlights regional artists with international reach. I am thrilled for the Museum and Gallery Studies students who have been planning and collaborating throughout the Fall term to create this exhibition.
Amy Bagshaw, Director of The Campus Gallery and Program Coordinator for the Museum and Gallery Studies program
Tanya Cunnington
Born in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, Tanya Cunnington now lives and works in Rama First Nation. She earned her Associate’s Degree in Drawing and Painting from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 2001, where she was awarded the Eric Freifeld Award for Excellence in Figurative Art and participated in the Florence off-campus studies program. Tanya has received numerous awards and grants throughout her career, including the Canada Council for the Arts Research and Creation Grant (2019), the Cleeve Horne Purchase Award from the Orillia Museum of Art & History (2018), and the John Hartman Award from the MacLaren Art Centre (2015). She is also known for her collaborative practice, the Birdbath Collaboration, created with her partner, artist Bewabon Shilling. Her work has been featured in Carte Blanche Volume II: Painting (Magenta Foundation) and reviewed in Canadian Art magazine. From 2007 to 2018, Tanya exhibited with Toronto’s Loop Gallery, and she continues to exhibit widely across Ontario, including shows at the MacLaren Art Centre (Barrie), be contemporary (Innisfil), the Orillia Museum of Art & History (Orillia), and Quest Gallery (Midland).
Bewabon Shilling
Born in 1977, Bewabon Shilling is the eldest son of the late Ojibway artist Arthur Shilling. His paintings are inspired by his surroundings, and his subject matter consists mainly of his environment and its local inhabitants. Painting on the shores of Lake Couchiching, Shilling is engrossed by the ever-changing seasons and inspired by the people that come and go in his life. His artwork consists of paintings based on the Black River which runs near his studio, oil sketches of Lake Couchiching and the Forest Series, painted onsite at his studio in Rama, ON. Bewabon enrolled in a one-year Graphic Design program before attending the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) in the field of drawing and painting. In 1999 while at OCAD, he was accepted to take part in the Florence, Italy off-campus studies program. Shilling graduated from OCAD in 2001 being awarded both the Norman Jewison Award and the Rose of Cedarvale Scholarship. He has exhibited throughout North America and Europe including Santa Fe USA and London, England. In 2011 Bewabon was chosen to exhibit a painting through the Art Dealers Association of Canada at the Armory Show in New York City, and in 2019 was awarded a Research and Creation Grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to do a one-month artist residency in Sointula BC. He is represented by Roberts Gallery in Toronto ON where he just held his twelfth solo exhibition.
About the gallery
Location
The Campus Gallery is located in room 140, D building (Helen and Arch Brown Centre for Design and Visual Arts) at the Barrie Campus, Georgian College, 1 Georgian Drive.
Hours of operation
Effective Sept. 21:
- Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Saturday to Sunday, noon to 4 p.m.
For more information, please contact us.
The Campus Gallery objective and mandate is to deliver a diversity of visual to the City of Barrie, its immediate region and within the Georgian College campus community.
The exhibitions celebrate emerging, mid-career and established artists, designers and craftspersons, as well as students within post-secondary arts education. The Campus Gallery will support the exhibition objectives with informative artist lectures that will be open to the immediate community, high schools and the college community, thus creating an environment of critical thinking, insight and appreciation.
Through outreach and exchange, the Campus Gallery will host and present international exchange exhibitions and lectures as well as exhibitions of community outreach at our partner venues. We exhibit our significant collection and bring visual arts to distinctly different audiences, facilitating and encouraging a dialogue and awareness of the arts in our community.
The Campus Gallery is committed to delivering a diverse program of exhibitions by visual artists, designers and crafts people to the Barrie and the Simcoe County arts community. A policy of inclusivity guides our programming, giving equal voice to emerging, mid career and senior artist with diverse practices.
The gallery space allows artists to realize special projects, surveys or retrospectives, and to see large groups of work together in an excellent facility, sometimes for the first time.
We are committed to furthering the knowledge of contemporary practice to the community with our on going artist lecture series, which has consistently featured insightful dialogue form the frontlines of creativity by exceptional regional, national and international artists.
The Campus Gallery identifies its exhibition roster three years in advance and books its artist lecture series on a yearly basis. We provide a diversity of visual arts programming to the community and continue to foster an environment of learning, engagement and dialogue in the visual arts which is only available in one other Barrie location.
The Campus Gallery provides a laboratory space for our Museum and Gallery Studies graduate certificate students to engage with artists, the campus collection, and to develop programming in locations outside of the gallery, based on the Campus Gallery Collection. This offsite programming allows us to bring unique, contemporary art to an even more diverse audience, creating another level of dialogue, awareness and engagement.
Over the past years, we have partnered with the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH), Five Points Theatre (formerly The Mady Centre for the Performing Arts) and the Barrie Courthouse to create exhibition space and thoughtful, unique programming from some of over 2,500 works in the Campus Gallery collection.
The Georgian College Art Collection holds over 5,000 diverse artworks of local, regional, and international significance. The collection has grown over the span of 50 years, as artists have crossed paths with the college’s Design and Visual Arts Department and contributed artworks. The artworks are preserved and displayed in college offices, libraries, and The Campus Gallery, as well as in community venues. The collection space also acts as a learning environment for students of the Museum and Gallery Studies program.
Art from the Georgian Collection Collection can currently be viewed at the Royal Victoria Hospital David McCullough Hearts and Minds Gallery “Healing through Art: Nature’s Comfort” featuring paintings by Christina Luck and curated by students in the Museum and Gallery Studies program. On view until early June 2024.
“Hidden Gems” features art from the Georgian College Collection is on view at The First Floor Gallery at City Hall in Barrie, curated by Collections Assistant, Yasmeen Kazak. On view until mid-June 2024.
Contact us
If you have questions or require more information, please email Amy Bagshaw, Director, The Campus Gallery.