Latcham presents the art of Stanzie Tooth

Latcham Art Centre showcases the remarkable art of Stanzie Tooth to the community.

This special exhibition features the largest ever artwork to be installed in the Latcham Art Centre as well as the award-winning artist’s most recent ink paintings. An entire wall of the gallery is covered by a massive digital print that is derived from one of the artist’s paintings, creating an immersive environment for visitors to explore.

Titled The Wall, the large-scale installation appears as a wall of foliage with the shapes of three mysterious figures cut out of it.

“It is really inspiring to see how excited some of the young visitors get when they encounter the work,” said Jeff Nye, curator at Latcham. “A lot of families are coming through the exhibition and are enjoying the piece by taking selfies next to The Wall. The piece also has an accompanying installation that is on view in the Stouffville Library, and it has been great to partner with the library to inspire a new audience of people who haven’t yet discovered the art centre.”

This is Tooth’s first time incorporating digital media into a mural. “In exhibitions that I’ve produced, I’ve often had these large-scale murals,” Stanzie said. “I really like how those larger pieces ground the space and kind of implicate the viewer in a different way than if they were just encountering a regular painting.”

Inspired by memories of her mother’s garden and of the plants she encountered in the forests and fields of her family’s rural property outside of Nappanee, Stanzie’s ink paintings overflow with colourful flowers and plants. Reflecting that period of her childhood, the fantastical and highly detailed spaces within the paintings are reminiscent of children’s book illustrations. Each of the pieces is painted using vibrant, richly coloured inks.

The artist began working with ink as her primary material in 2000, when, during the COVID-19 pandemic, she worked at home while caring for her newborn child.

She first discovered her love for the medium while living in Germany. “The community of ink makers is this wild and crazy world of these small batch productions. And so, I [could] go into one of my ink shops and just start pulling things, really drawn to the colours of materials that I’m seeing and get inspired. Inks are made of a lot of natural dyes, and there are all these very rich colours that come from the materials themselves.”

Stanzie Tooth’s exhibition, Inheritance, is on now and continues until July 12 at Latcham Art Centre in the Stouffville Recreation Centre at 2 Park Drive. Latcham welcomes everyone to the exhibition to celebrate arts and culture in the community. Don’t miss the chance to immerse yourself in art.

For more information, visit latchamartcentre.ca/exhibitions.

*Image credit: Stanzie Tooth, Inheritance (Installation view), 2025. (Latcham photo)