This season, the Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery presents three compelling exhibitions: a celebration of 25 years of emerging talent in contemporary ceramics, a long-overdue retrospective of glass sculptor Irene Frolic, and Lauren Nicole Rice’s bold debut exploring Queer identity through glass.
Excellence in Clay: 25 Years of the Winifred Shantz Award
May 31 – September 14, 2025
For a quarter century, the Winifred Shantz Award for Ceramics has been celebrating the best of emerging ceramic artists in Canada. This year is no exception, as we recognize the winner and finalists of 2025, as well as each winner in the award’s 25-year history. The only national award for emerging ceramic artists in Canada, the impact of the award is unmatched.
The 2025 Winifred Shantz Award for Ceramics is presented to Sami Tsang of Toronto, Ontario. Corwyn Lund (Toronto, ON) was selected as the runner-up and the finalists are Etty Anderson (Montréal, QC), Gloria Han (Coquitlam, BC) and Gayle Uyagaqi Kabloona (Ottawa, ON). The award was juried by Susan Collett, Carole Epp, and Sequoia Miller.
Presented annually through an ongoing partnership with The Keith and Winifred Shantz Fund for the Arts, held at Waterloo Region Community Foundation, the winner receives $10,000 to undertake a period of independent research, residency, or other activities that advance their artistic and professional practice. The runner-up receives $5,000, and each finalist is awarded $1,000.
Through works from the Gallery’s Permanent Collection, as well as works loaned from the Art Gallery of Burlington and Gardiner Museum, we celebrate each of the award’s twenty-five incredible winners.
Curated by Peter Flannery, with Denis Longchamps & Cheyenne Mapplebeck
Irene Frolic: A Retrospective
May 24 – September 19, 2025
For 40 years, Irene Frolic has been creating thought – provoking sculptures in glass that engage with her personal history and comment on memory, ageing and healing. In 1948, at the age of seven, she and her parents landed in Halifax, having spent three post war years in a United Nations refugee camp in Austria. Her documents stated she was a “displaced person.” Although the family quickly assimilated, this feeling of “displacement,” perhaps shared by many artists, has fuelled her explorations in art making to this day. Her sculptures convey with glass a rare emotional intensity. The glass becomes the perfect medium, combining its qualities of strength and fragility with the portrayal of emotion, of beauty and pain, of love and healing. Irene has contributed to the development of kiln cast glass as an art form within the international glass studio movement through placement in museum collections, exhibitions, lectures, and with teaching workshops worldwide. With a retrospective exhibition that has long been overdue we now celebrate one of Canada‘s leading sculptors in glass.
Curated by Peter Flannery and Denis Longchamps
Lauren Nicole Rice: JOY+CONNECTION+LOVE
May 31 – September 14, 2025
In her debut solo exhibition, JOY+CONNECTION+LOVE, Lauren Nicole Rice combines vibrant blown glass forms with handmade recycled leather harnesses in celebration of Queer joy. Her dynamic sculptures encourage the audience to explore the work from multiple perspectives, drawing them into a whimsical web that embodies intricate networks of Queer connection and community. Inspired by Queer leather subculture, Rice’s leatherwork is a poignant symbol of visibility and pride. The supple leather, studded with silver grommets and hardware, is juxtaposed against sleek glass sculptures, each reflecting an exploration of form and identity. In some pieces, Rice creates an illusion of the rigid glass bulging against the leather. This playful flip of materiality is emblematic of the way that Rice pushes the limits of the medium, transforming her sculptures from mere vessels to bodies that celebrate and wear Queer culture.
This exhibition is presented as part of the Emerging Talents Series and is generously supported by Pottery Supply House and The Musagetes Fund held at Waterloo Region Community Foundation.
Guest Curated by Ashlyn Gregory
Contact
info@theclayandglass.ca
The Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery
25 Caroline Street North
Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 2Y5
Canada
Photos courtesy of The Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery
Captions
- Sami Tsang, Those Butterflies in my Room, 2024. Stoneware, slip, glaze, metal rod, poly China silk, chain. Courtesy of the Artist and Cooper Cole, Toronto.
- Susan Collett, ROSELADEN (Laden Series), 2021. Porcelain, paper clay, wire, glaze. 25 x 25 x 25cm. Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery Permanent Collection. Gift of the artist in memory of Winifred Shantz. 2023.023.001A-B
- Irene Frolic, Summer Sang in Me, 1992. Plate glass, copper. Private collection.
- Lauren Nicole Rice, A Ruffled Soirée, 2025. Blown glass, leather, metal. Collection of the artist.
