In 2022, the Town of Halton Hills Cultural Services Department partnered with the Downtown Acton BIA to bring you 'Art Around Acton'. Residents and visitors can still experience a variety of temporary and permanent public art activations in Downtown Acton.
Window Displays
Don't miss artwork by three local artists displayed in the windows of downtown businesses:
Location: Acton Discount, 52 Mill Street East
Artist: Elizabeth Bard
Elizabeth has resided in Acton for over thirty-five years. She loves nature, wildlife and enjoys gardening and photographing the many different perennials and birds that visit for future paintings. The collection is a seasonal and remembrance series. Tulips represents the coming of spring, poppies represent summer and to remember all the brave soldiers that gave their lives for our freedom. Sunflowers represents the arrival of fall and is the Ukrainian national flower, representing peace.
Location: Music store, 115 Mill Street East
Artist: Kathleen Bignell
Kathleen resides in Acton and has dedicated the last 30 years to a fulfilling career in teaching. She would often commute to work through the back roads of Halton Hills. Throughout the seasons she admired the light on the trees and fields. As she drove, she "painted" the landscape in her head. She has been yearning to get back to Creative Art. Now retired, Kathleen can pursue her painting passion, and prefers working en Plein Air (outdoors). She loves to explore different mediums but the buttery soft texture of oils is her most used and favourite medium.
Location: ROXY, 6 Mill Street East
Artist: Sonja Mortimer
Sonja Mortimer is an Acton based painter, collage and mixed media artist. Mortimer is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art, York University's Fine Arts program and a former Visual Arts Specialist/teacher. Mortimer finds inspiration in nature’s persistence and resilience. The semi abstracted landscape paintings are inspired by the infinite variety and combinations of twigs, bull-rushes, wildflowers and flowing grasses observed along rural side roads. Sonja translates her digital images onto canvas, taking into account the unique properties and challenges of converting light, colour and texture, from a digital format to canvas and acrylic paint.
Acton Solstice Festival
Thank you to everyone who joined us on December 18th at Prospect Park for free family friendly fun. The Acton Solstice Festival featured light installations and illuminated performers from the Department of Illumination, a festive community procession featuring giant puppets, Juno award-winning musician Richard Underhill and the Kensington Horns, illuminated circus artists from Trellis Arts, and more.
Wrapped Utility Box, Jaguar by Andrea Rodriguez
Location: Main & Mill Streets, Acton
Andrea Rodriguez (aka andreacataro) is creative, bold, and colourful. Latin American biodiversity is her inspiration. Rodriguez aims to create awareness about the loss of the tropical rainforest through engaging and eye-catching messages that motivate people. Andrea works in a multidisciplinary setting, combining her design knowledge with her love for mural and lettering art. See more from Andrea Rodriguez here.
Colour Unleashed, a banner series by Shelley Newman
As an oil painter, local artist Shelley Newman fills her canvases with an abstracted impressionist interpretation of the Canadian landscape. Shelley aims to bring a smile to the community with this uplifting and joyful public art banner project on display in downtown Acton.
Shelley studied commercial art and continued her art education at various studios. She worked professionally in advertising and design for several years. While she has worked with other mediums, she always returned to oil paint because of its richness and luminosity. Shelley has been in numerous solo, group and juried shows and is an elected member of the Society of Canadian Artists and the Ontario Society of Artists. After she was selected as Artist in Residence in 2016 at the Red Door Gallery in Georgetown, she worked as a studio artist at Williams Mill Visual Arts Centre where she painted for 5 years. Shelley now works in her home studio keeping up with the demand for her work in galleries in Ontario and Quebec. Her originals and prints are enjoyed across Canada, the United States and around the world. See more from Shelley Newman here.
Picnic Tables
Local and GTA artists painted five picnic tables this summer. The tables provide an accessible art experience to residents and visitors and make a vibrant addition to local restaurants in the Acton BIA core and Prospect Park.
Scroll through the photos below to see the artist names and locations. Be sure to visit all five locations! Post your photos, tag the artist and use the hashtag #ArtAroundActon.
Artist Residency
Ingrid Mayrhofer completed an 8-week artist residency at the Acton Farmer’s Market this fall. During this residency Mayrhofer worked with a “Tree of Life” motif, creating clay tiles that were mounted to form a mural. Visitors contributed sketches or clay pieces or chose to take a self-curing clay piece home. The final mural was presented by Ingrid Mayrhofer and Judi Henhawk Sault on November 26 at the Acton Library during an artist talk. Want to see the final mural on display? Stop by the Acton Library Branch today.
Ingrid Mayrhofer (BFA, MA, York University) is a visual artist, curator, educator and community arts practitioner. Ingrid recently opened her own pottery studio in downtown Hamilton. Her work is part of the exhibition “Voices” at the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery, Waterloo, Ontario, that opened on September 24. Residents in Halton Hills may recognize her printmaking works from the After Nature public art banners that were displayed in multiple locations in Town in 2020 and 2021.
Music series at the Acton Farmer’s Market
Thank you to the musical guests who performed at the Acton Farmer's Market!
September 1 - Monty Greig, September 8 - August Eleven, September 15 - Paula Sofia, September 22 - Madison Galloway, September 29 - Tragedy Ann, October 6 - John Muirhead