October 3rd - October 26th 2026

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We are very excited to exhibit original works by multi award winning author-illustrator, Matt James. Featuring original paintings from his award winning books!

Matt James is a Canadian author-illustrator, painter and musician based in Toronto. His visual practice moves between images made for books and paintings made outside them, with storytelling, memory and ambiguity running through both. His work often suggests a larger narrative without explaining it completely, leaving room for viewers and readers to imagine what may have happened before an image - or what might happen next.

His work has received two Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards, the Governor General’s Literary Award for Children’s Literature - Illustration, the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award and an Ezra Jack Keats Honor. In 2026, both Rock and The One About the Blackbird were named finalists for the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award.

James has written and illustrated Tadpoles, Nice Try, Charlie! and The Funeral, which was named one of the New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Books. He has illustrated numerous books by other writers, including I Know How to Draw an Owl, I’m Afraid, Said the Leaf, Rock, The One About the Blackbird, I Know Here, When the Moon Comes, Yellow Moon, Apple Moon, The Stone Thrower and Northwest Passage. His next author-illustrated book, The Crush, is scheduled for publication in 2027.

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