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Just as the tree buds break in the park outside Glenhyrst Art Gallery, inside, the museum teems with life as well. The first-floor exhibition rooms of the Brantford, Ont., public art gallery are full of blooms and birds and plenty of bats.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Night Vision<\/a>, a solo show by Toronto-based artist Laura Findlay<\/a>, invites visitors to ponder the magic of the garden at night. Her ethereal, sometimes eerie paintings convey the wonder and mystery of encountering another living thing in the wild \u2014 be it a robin\u2019s egg or an earthworm. In this twilight space, Findlay\u2019s art welcomes the kind of introspection private moments in nature tend to inspire.<\/p>\n \u201cHer work prompts us to turn inward,\u201d says Glenhyrst curator Matthew Ryan Smith, \u201cto think deeply about our loved ones and ourselves, and about how fleeting all this can be. The world is a precarious place, and these paintings help us make sense of our vulnerability.\u201d<\/p>\n Born in Montreal and raised on Vancouver Island, Findlay discovered art\u2019s expressive power at a very young age. \u201cMy mom died when I was six, and my dad found that the only way I could really talk about the feelings was through drawing and making images,\u201d she says. \u201cI was very fortunate to have just always been encouraged.\u201d<\/p>\n As she grew older \u2014 attending a specialized arts high school, then moving abroad to work in photography, before returning to study art in university \u2014 Findlay\u2019s knack became a persistent urge. \u201cI’m like one of those spiders,\u201d she says. \u201cI have this compulsion to make things.\u201d<\/p>\n A busy commercial photographer who documents artworks for artists, galleries and collections around southern Ontario<\/a>, Findlay\u2019s paintings are also indebted to the visual language of the camera. Her subject is always centred in-frame. And even rendered in oils, her scenes appear to be lit by flashbulb.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI’m obsessed with what it means to take a picture,\u201d she says. \u201cWhy do people try to preserve something? That’s a big question in painting, but it’s also a big part of everyday photography.\u201d<\/p>\n The luminous quality of Findlay\u2019s painting \u2014 which can make a bat\u2019s wing glow like stained glass \u2014 comes from a subtractive, Old Masters technique. The artist applies transparent glazes in a thick coat to create a dark ground, then wipes away pigment with a rag to reveal colours and define highlights. Much like a photograph, her images emerge from the darkness.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cLaura is your favourite painter\u2019s favourite painter,\u201d says Smith. \u201cShe pulls the paint away from the surface to leave a stain, creating these remarkable effects with light and colour. Her paintings are at once beautiful and haunting.\u201d<\/p>\n Findlay uses the garden as a site to reflect on the cycles and seasons. \u201cYou cannot have life without death and rot,\u201d she says. \u201cI don’t think you can even appreciate the beauty of the flower if you’re not occasionally remembering slugs exist.\u201d<\/p>\n For the artist, the image of the garden implies the presence of a gardener \u2014 though Findlay never pictures them. \u201cI am particularly interested in pointing to absence as an ingredient in the thoughts I’m trying to depict.\u201d<\/p>\n The bats, which Findlay began painting more than 10 years ago, evolved as a related motif. The artist regards the flying mammal\u2019s echolocation as a kind of one-sided conversation. For her, it represents the dialogue interrupted when someone leaves your life.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhat if I continue to have this conversation without the person ever receiving that message?\u201d she asks. \u201cSending it out into the darkness.\u201d<\/p>\n The symbol also makes her think about her lot as an artist, putting work into the world \u2014 another one-sided conversation she\u2019ll continue throughout her life. Sometime after starting the project, Findlay came across an essay by Thomas Nagel called \u201cWhat Is It Like to Be a Bat?\u201d<\/a> in which the American philosopher considers the unknowability of other people. \u201cUnknowable things keep me coming back over and over again to these subjects,\u201d says the painter.<\/p>\n At Glenhyrst, alongside images of bramble, dandelions and a hornet\u2019s nest, a large triptych forms the centrepiece of Night Vision. It shows a pond covered with jade- and rust-coloured lily pads, where bats dive to lap up water and catch bugs. It is the work that finally gave the bats a home.<\/p>\n \u201cThe garden at night is a quiet, cool space of contemplation, for big questions and small ones,\u201d Findlay says. \u201c[It] is a beautiful, private crossroads.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"On](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778874852_76_default.jpg\")
Installation view of Laura Findlay: Night Vision at Glenhyrst Art Gallery in Brantford, Ont. (LF Documentation)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778874853_267_default.jpg\")
Laura Findlay is a painter and commercial photographer based in Toronto. (Sarah Bodri)<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778874853_851_default.jpg\")
Laura Findlay, Bramble, 2022. (LF Documentation)<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778874854_585_default.jpg\")
Laura Findlay, Drift, 2022. (LF Documentation)<\/p>\n![\"Three](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778874855_705_default.jpg\")
Laura Findlay, The Pond, 2026. (LF Documentation)<\/p>\n