Gallery

The Gallery at the J

Three people look at photos hanging on a gallery wall Located in the Jacobs Lounge on the main floor of the Miles Nadal JCC, the Gallery provides a platform for both emerging and established artists to showcase their talent, share their stories and connect with the community through visual art.

Our exhibitions draw the viewer's attention to corners of everyday life, often challenging pre-existing opinions of culture, religious identity and social issues. Celebrate the powerful world of images and painting at The Gallery at the J.

Gallery Hours: Monday - Friday 5:30 am - 10:00 pm; Saturday - Sunday 7:00 am - 7:00 pm

Gallery info: (416) 924-6211 x250

Gallery Coordinator Deanna Di Lello; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Call for Submissions

Looking for an audience? The Gallery at the J is searching for artists to participate in our 2020-2021 season. The selected artists will receive excellent exposure thanks to the 1,000 members and guests visiting the gallery each month.

The MNjcc strives to be an inclusive and welcoming hub for healthy and joyful community, anchored in Jewish value. We have found that many of those values are universal and the Gallery at the J is the perfect opportunity to explore them together.

FAQ

Q: What is the size of the gallery?

A: The gallery has 500 square feet of non-linear hanging space.

Q: How many people visit the gallery a month?

A: Our gallery doubles as our member’s lounge with approximately 1,000 members and guests frequenting the space.

Sephardi Voices: A Canadian Refuge

October 3 - 29, 2019

Opening reception Thursday October 3rd 7-9pm - rsvp to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Sephardi Voices – A Canadian Refuge portrays the story of the last generation of Sephardi Jews born in North Africa and the Middle East. The exhibition humanizes the past of a civilization that exists today only in exile. It tells the tragic tale of a people with a love for their homeland that persists even though forced to leave. The high contrast black and white portraits, taken by photographer Liam Sharp, portray the vulnerability of the passage of time. Each is a record of survival – a reference point for a life lived and the essential Sephardi Jewish experience. The exhibition will inform the visitor of a forgotten exodus that is little known in the mosaic of Canadian life.

In the years following the founding of the State of Israel, close to a million Jews ﬂed their native Islamic lands. Until recently, little has been formally documented, leaving a signiﬁcant part of Jewish history largely unheard. The Sephardi Voices International Audio-Visual History project is collecting the stories of the last generation of Sephardi Jews. This includes video interviews, portraits, archival documents, photographs, exhibitions and ﬁlms. To date close to 400 subjects including 80 from Canada in both French and English are part of the archive. The goal is to collect 2000 interviews over the next few years.

If you would like to learn more about Sephardi Voices, we invite you to attend our daytime lecture Sephardi Voices: The Forgotten Exodus featuring guest speaker Professor Henry Green, International Director of Sephardi Voices on Thursday October 17, 1:30-3:00pm

Not So Abstract

September 6 - October 31, 2019

I love to be creative and constantly challenge myself to get to another unknown level. To me, inspiration is part of who we are, what we see, how we see it, hear it and smell it. It comes from within our inner souls and is our own unique internal language. I start with a white canvas or a canvas I have put some texture or ground on before painting. I sometimes figure out my colour combinations before applying paint or just go with it and see what happens experimenting with colour.

My work has definitely changed over time with retirement, travel and life’s experiences. Today, my passion is painting abstracts with acrylic where I am trying new ways of getting to somewhere where my work is pleasing to my eye.

About the Artist

Born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Lynn showed aptitude and talent at an early age. In addition to watercolours, Lynn loves to work with acrylics, oils, and mixed media. She is also skilled with bronze and clay sculpting. Another interest she has is in working with encaustic, where she combines found rusty items and traditional techniques to create some truly glorious industrial work. Her abstract work reflects imagination and intuition, focusing on shapes, values, colours, textures and recently mark-making. Lynn has shown her work many times in the Bayview Art Show, Don Valley Art Club, Forest Hill Club, North Toronto Group of Artists and a few Toronto restaurants.

The work of Lynn Spencer is for sale. Support local artists. Bring art into your life.

On the Doorposts: Making New Jewish Art from Traces of a Jewish Past in Poland

October 31 – November 27, 2019

Tues November 5, 2:30 pm guided tour

Combining contemporary photography and archival research, this original exhibition takes visitors on a journey across Poland with young Warsaw-based artists and Judaica designers, Helena Czernek and Aleksander Prugar. Visitors will receive a behind-the-scenes look at their remarkable project to locate and preserve traces of mezuzot still found on doorposts of homes, gateways and apartments across Poland. They cast a bronze mezuzah from a mold made out of the space left behind by the mezuzah that once hung there. They create meaningful, beautiful Jewish ritual objects for today’s home while commemorating Jewish homes abandoned during the Holocaust. To date, Helena and Aleksander have visited over 70 cities and towns, extending their journeys into Ukraine, Belarus and Romania. The exhibition highlights a handful of the more than one hundred mezuzot they have created under the banner of their company, MI POLIN. Discover MI POLIN’s surprising and inspiring story of making Jewish art in Poland today.
Co-presented by The Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre, Fentster and The Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre. Generously supported by the UJA Kultura Collective.

See other events around the city by Mi Polin on The Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre website, and see other Holocaust Education Week events at the MNjcc here.