Visual Arts

Please review each article prior to use: grade-level applicability and curricular alignment might not be obvious from the headline alone.

No Subscription Required

Quand les émotions se dégagent des formes et des couleurs

Lucille Dourlens 4 minute read Preview
No Subscription Required

Quand les émotions se dégagent des formes et des couleurs

Lucille Dourlens 4 minute read Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025

L’artiste peintre Xavier Mutshipayi présente pour la première fois ses créations dans l’exposition Nouveaux Horizons à la galerie d’art du Centre culturel franco-manitobain (CCFM).

Il s’agit de la troisième présentation solo du peintre originaire du Congo. L’occasion pour lui de présenter une nouvelle facette de son travail. En effet, si Xavier Mutshipayi est plutôt connu pour son style réaliste, ses créations évoluent ici vers l’art abstrait et l’impressionnisme.

La galerie du CCFM accueille environ une dizaine de tableaux dont la majorité ont été conçus pour l’évènement. Parmi eux, quatre toiles arborent un style abstrait tandis que quatre autres reprennent les codes du mouvement impressionniste. Cette évolution artistique s’est développée au fil des années pour Xavier Mutshipayi.

“Comme pour l’homme, l’artiste grandit et change avec le temps. L’endroit où j’habite et mon parcours de vie m’inspirent dans mes créations. C’est pourquoi il y a beaucoup de portraits dans mes œuvres. À force de travailler, j’ai développé un style, une patte.”

Read
Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025

Marta Guerrero photo

Xavier Mutshipayi dans son atelier.

Marta Guerrero photo
                                Xavier Mutshipayi dans son atelier.
No Subscription Required

New Jenna Rae cookbook focuses on bakers’ favourite home recipes

Eva Wasney 6 minute read Preview
No Subscription Required

New Jenna Rae cookbook focuses on bakers’ favourite home recipes

Eva Wasney 6 minute read Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024

There’s a sweet new edition on the way.

Sisters Jenna Hutchinson and Ashley Kosowan are expanding their successful local bakery business with a new cookbook venture. Jenna Rae Cakes at Home: Our Favourite Recipes to Enjoy with Family and Friends hits bookstores Oct. 8 and features more than 100 colourful, family-friendly recipes.

The cookbook is a followup to their first release, Jenna Rae Cakes and Sweet Treats, and is a labour of love that brings together the twins’ individual interests.

“Ash was meant to make cookbooks,” says Hutchinson, whose passion for cake design prompted the entrepreneurial siblings to open their first Jenna Rae Cakes shop in 2014.

Read
Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024
No Subscription Required

Riel, le lien entre les francos d’Amérique

Daniel Bahuaud de La Liberté pour le Winnipeg Free Press  5 minute read Preview
No Subscription Required

Riel, le lien entre les francos d’Amérique

Daniel Bahuaud de La Liberté pour le Winnipeg Free Press  5 minute read Saturday, Nov. 18, 2017

Pour Jocelyn Jalette, bédéiste de Joliette, au Québec, pas besoin d’être métis, ou manitobain, ou encore francophone en milieu minoritaire pour apprécier le combat, le triomphe et la tragédie de Louis Riel. Et voici pourquoi.

Dans La République assassinée des Métis, la bande dessinée de Jocelyn Jalette qui vient tout juste d’être publiée aux Éditions du Phoenix (www.editionsduphoenix.com), des personnages fictifs côtoient Louis Riel et Gabriel Dumont, mais aussi les politiciens Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine, Louis-Joseph Papineau et Honoré Mercier.

Une palette de personnages pour mieux placer la résistance des Métis dans un contexte francophone plus large, comme le souligne l’auteur de 47 ans :

“Les liens sont étroits entre la résistance des Métis, Louis Riel et les francophones du Québec. Surtout quand on se rappelle que la lutte pour assurer un statut d’égalité entre le français, l’anglais, et les cultures francophone et anglophone, c’est l’affaire de tous les francophones.”

Read
Saturday, Nov. 18, 2017

Daniel Bahuaud photo
‘Toute la francophonie nord-américaine est liée’: Le bédéiste québécois Jocelyn Jalette a rendu hommage à Louis Riel en visitant, le 8 novembre dernier, la tombe du Père du Manitoba. Riel a été pendu le 16 novembre 1885.

Daniel Bahuaud photo
‘Toute la francophonie nord-américaine est liée’: Le bédéiste québécois Jocelyn Jalette a rendu hommage à Louis Riel en visitant, le 8 novembre dernier, la tombe du Père du Manitoba. Riel a été pendu le 16 novembre 1885.

$54.7M sale of Frida Kahlo self-portrait breaks auction record for female artists

Hannah Schoenbaum, The Associated Press 4 minute read Preview

$54.7M sale of Frida Kahlo self-portrait breaks auction record for female artists

Hannah Schoenbaum, The Associated Press 4 minute read Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025

A haunting 1940 self-portrait by famed Mexican artist Frida Kahlo sold Thursday for $54.7 million and became the top-selling work by any female artist at an auction.

The painting of Kahlo asleep in a bed — titled “El sueño (La cama)” or in English, “The Dream (The Bed)” — surpassed the record held by Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1," which sold for $44.4 million in 2014.

The sale at Sotheby's in New York also topped Kahlo's own auction record for a work by a Latin American artist. The 1949 painting “Diego and I,” depicting the artist and her husband, muralist Diego Rivera, went for $34.9 million in 2021. Her paintings are reported to have sold privately for even more.

The self-portrait is among the few Kahlo pieces that have remained in private hands outside Mexico, where her body of work has been declared an artistic monument. Her works in both public and private collections within the country cannot be sold abroad or destroyed.

Read
Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025

FILE - A painting by Frida Kahlo titled "El sueño (La cama)" or (The Dream (The Bed), is displayed at Sotheby's auction rooms in London, Sept. 19, 2025. The painting, estimated at 40-60 million US dollars, is part of a collection of surrealist masterpieces unveiled ahead of its upcoming sale in New York. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)

FILE - A painting by Frida Kahlo titled
No Subscription Required

Travelling sign painter finds his groove on the move

AV Kitching 4 minute read Preview
No Subscription Required

Travelling sign painter finds his groove on the move

AV Kitching 4 minute read Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025

For someone whose writing appears all over the city, Joseph Pilapil’s penmanship isn’t the best.

You’ve probably seen his meticulously formed letters above store entrances, on shop windows and decorating sandwich boards all across the city.

But when it comes to writing on paper, well, the less said the better.

“My handwriting is terrible. When I am writing out my day-to-day stuff, it’s absolutely really bad,” he says, with a laugh.

Read
Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025

Ruth Bonneville / Free Press

Joseph Pilapil’s meticulously formed letters, from bold block capitals to curly twirls and swirls, appear in front of restaurants, on shop windows and sandwich panels.

Ruth Bonneville / Free Press
                                Joseph Pilapil’s meticulously formed letters, from bold block capitals to curly twirls and swirls, appear in front of restaurants, on shop windows and sandwich panels.
No Subscription Required

La créativité franco-manitobaine rayonne: Anna Binta Diallo expose à travers le pays

Virginie Frere 4 minute read Preview
No Subscription Required

La créativité franco-manitobaine rayonne: Anna Binta Diallo expose à travers le pays

Virginie Frere 4 minute read Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025

En 2025, l’artiste visuelle franco-manitobaine Anna Binta Diallo connaît une année charnière. De Vancouver à Toronto, en passant par Edmonton et Winnipeg, ses expositions se succèdent, confirmant la place qu’elle occupe désormais parmi les figures majeures de la scène artistique canadienne contemporaine.

Née à Dakar, Sénégal, en 1983 et élevée à Saint-Boniface, Anna Binta Diallo tisse depuis toujours des liens entre les continents et les mémoires. Ses œuvres explorent les intersections entre identité, nostalgie et nature, dans un langage visuel qui conjugue collage, vidéo, graphisme et sculpture.

“Le collage est depuis longtemps au cœur de ma démarche,” confie-t-elle. “J’aime réagencer des images anciennes, des sons, des fragments d’archives pour construire de nouveaux récits.”

L’artiste collecte cartes, livres et photos qu’elle transforme en compositions hybrides, à la croisée du passé et du futur.

Read
Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025

Alicia Régnier photo

En 2025, l’artiste franco-manitobaine Anna Binta Diallo a multiplié les expositions à travers le pays.

Alicia Régnier photo
                                En 2025, l’artiste franco-manitobaine Anna Binta Diallo a multiplié les expositions à travers le pays.

Rosa Parks and Helen Keller statues unveiled at the Alabama Capitol

Kim Chandler, The Associated Press 4 minute read Preview

Rosa Parks and Helen Keller statues unveiled at the Alabama Capitol

Kim Chandler, The Associated Press 4 minute read Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Statues of Rosa Parks and Helen Keller, pivotal figures who fought for justice and inspired change across the world, were unveiled Friday on the grounds of the Alabama Capitol.

The monuments honoring the Alabama natives whose advocacy helped dismantle racial segregation and promoted the rights of people with disabilities are the first statues of women to be installed on the lawn of the Alabama Capitol, broadening the history reflected on the grounds that also include tributes to the Confederacy, which was formed at the site in 1861.

Gov. Kay Ivey, currently the nation's longest serving female governor, said Parks and Keller “rose to shape history through quiet strength and unwavering conviction.”

“Courage changes the course of history, and today, these statutes stand as symbols of that courage — testaments to what one person, especially one determined one, can do to make the world a better place,” Ivey said.

Read
Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025

FILE - Rosa Parks speaks at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Ga., Jan. 15, 1969. (AP Photo/Joe Holloway, Jr., File)

FILE - Rosa Parks speaks at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Ga., Jan. 15, 1969. (AP Photo/Joe Holloway, Jr., File)
No Subscription Required

Misguided dramedy not great

Alison Gillmor 4 minute read Preview
No Subscription Required

Misguided dramedy not great

Alison Gillmor 4 minute read Friday, Sep. 26, 2025

Making her directorial debut, actor Scarlett Johansson (whose movies range from Lost in Translation to The Avengers) has chosen a small human story that is enormously well-intentioned.

But as the central character in this awkward, uneven dramedy proves, good intentions can have disastrous consequences. Attempting to make a much-needed statement about our contemporary culture’s difficulty in dealing with age, grief and loneliness, Eleanor the Great misfires, sometimes badly.

There are things that work. As we often see in projects by actors-turned-directors, the film’s core strength comes from its performances, especially that of 95-year-old June Squibb, a veteran actress who has a long list of supporting work in such movies as Nebraska and About Schmidt and recently received star billing in 2024’s Thelma. Here she takes the title role of Eleanor Morgenstein, a cranky, critical but compassionate senior.

As the story opens, Eleanor is living in Florida with Bessie (Rita Zohar). After the deaths of their husbands, the two old friends have been looking after each other. When Bessie wakes from nightmares rising out of her experiences during the Holocaust — a story she has never related, even to her own family — she and Eleanor sit at the kitchen table and talk it through.

Read
Friday, Sep. 26, 2025

Anne Joyce /Sony Pictures Classics

Eleanor (June Squibb, left) has a yarn to spin for journalism student Nina (Erin Kellyman).

Anne Joyce /Sony Pictures Classics
                                Eleanor (June Squibb, left) has a yarn to spin for journalism student Nina (Erin Kellyman).
No Subscription Required

Local filmmaker’s lo-fi feature packs a punch

Alison Gillmor 4 minute read Preview
No Subscription Required

Local filmmaker’s lo-fi feature packs a punch

Alison Gillmor 4 minute read Thursday, Sep. 25, 2025

It feels right that this low-budget, lo-fi experimental feature should be showing as part of We’re Still Here, a slate of programming that marks 50 resilient and resourceful years of the Winnipeg Film Group.

Read
Thursday, Sep. 25, 2025

Supplied

Greg Hanec plays Al, a questioning artist, in his long-gestating feature Think at Night.

Supplied
                                Greg Hanec plays Al, a questioning artist, in his long-gestating feature Think at Night.
No Subscription Required

Winnipegger’s artwork chosen for Walmart’s national Orange Shirt offering

AV Kitching 5 minute read Preview
No Subscription Required

Winnipegger’s artwork chosen for Walmart’s national Orange Shirt offering

AV Kitching 5 minute read Monday, Sep. 22, 2025

As she walked into the Unicity Walmart department store, Indigenous artist Brooklyn Rudolph-Nicholas felt her excitement levels rising.

She headed towards the racks of instantly recognizable orange T-shirts, smiling as she glimpsed the familiar image on the front.

It was a pinch-me moment: her work was emblazoned on Walmart Canada’s National Day for Truth & Reconciliation orange shirts stocked in stores across the country.

The granddaughter of two residential school survivors, Rudolph-Nicholas made her T-shirt art in honour of her late grandparents.

Read
Monday, Sep. 22, 2025

Ruth Bonneville / Free Press

ENT - TnR shirts / Walmart

Photo of local artist, Brooklyn Rudolph-Nicholas with her designs on TnR shirts at the Walmart in Southdale.

Story: Winnipeg Artist selected for Walmart Canada’s Orange Shirt Day Campaign
Indigenous artist Brooklyn Rudolph-Nicholas, a member of the Pimicikamak Cree Nation and granddaughter of two Residential School Survivor is the artist and designer of Walmart ‘sCanada’s National Day for Truth & Reconciliation campaign. Her design will appear on Orange Shirts which are currently on sale Walmarts throughout the country.

Story by AV Kitching

Sept 19 h, 2025

Ruth Bonneville / Free Press 

ENT - TnR shirts / Walmart

Photo of local artist, Brooklyn Rudolph-Nicholas with her designs on TnR shirts at the Walmart in Southdale.  

Story: Winnipeg Artist selected for Walmart Canada’s Orange Shirt Day Campaign
Indigenous artist Brooklyn Rudolph-Nicholas, a member of the Pimicikamak Cree Nation and granddaughter of two Residential School Survivor is the artist and designer of  Walmart ‘sCanada’s National Day for Truth & Reconciliation campaign. Her design will appear on Orange Shirts which are currently on sale Walmarts throughout the country.  

Story by AV Kitching 

Sept 19 h,  2025
No Subscription Required

Artist explores internal dialogues with a surreal twist

Jen Zoratti 4 minute read Preview
No Subscription Required

Artist explores internal dialogues with a surreal twist

Jen Zoratti 4 minute read Friday, Sep. 12, 2025

Can you ever truly be alone with your thoughts when your thoughts don’t leave you alone?

In the oil and acrylic paintings that populate Bria Fernandes’ solo show, Things Left Unsaid — on view now at Gallery 1C03 at the University of Winnipeg — feelings and thoughts of self-doubt, anxiety, grief and displacement show up as physical visitors, often in the most banal moments of daily life. Like when you’re brushing your teeth, say. Or making coffee.

In the 2024 work Ain’t Misbehavin’, they arrive when the central figure is pulling on her socks. A melancholy blue figure leans against her thigh as though seeking comfort. Another appears from behind, hands on her shoulders.

“She’s trying to live her life, and she’s having these thoughts, and the thoughts in her mind are coming out into reality and interacting with her,” Fernandes says.

Read
Friday, Sep. 12, 2025

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS

Bria Fernandes’ show Things Left Unsaid is on display now at Gallery 1C03 in the University of Winnipeg.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS
                                Bria Fernandes’ show Things Left Unsaid is on display now at Gallery 1C03 in the University of Winnipeg.
No Subscription Required

Drawn to their unique grain pattern, carver gravitates to trees’ ungainly outgrowths

AV Kitching 4 minute read Preview
No Subscription Required

Drawn to their unique grain pattern, carver gravitates to trees’ ungainly outgrowths

AV Kitching 4 minute read Saturday, Sep. 6, 2025

There’s more to a burl than meets the eye. On the surface the flawed wood is a gnarly, lumpy mess. But beneath the scars hides something rather special.

“Burls are an unappealing wart-like growth on a tree,” artist Gary Foidart, 69, explains.

“They are horrific looking on the outside. Some of them look terrible. You never know what you are going to hit when you cut a burl open but the wood inside is the most beautiful wood there is. Each one is totally unique.”

Bulbous and rough, a wood burl forms when a tree experiences stress or disruption to its growth. Burls can also develop from insect infestation, bacterial or fungi growth, and environmental injuries.

Read
Saturday, Sep. 6, 2025

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS

Gary Foidart’s driftwood sculptures in his Winnipeg Beach yard

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS
                                Gary Foidart’s driftwood sculptures in his Winnipeg Beach yard

The defunded Corporation for Public Broadcasting will get one of TV’s biggest prizes

Mark Kennedy, The Associated Press 2 minute read Preview

The defunded Corporation for Public Broadcasting will get one of TV’s biggest prizes

Mark Kennedy, The Associated Press 2 minute read Saturday, Sep. 20, 2025

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting will be honored with one of the television's top prizes even as it winds down its nearly 60-year work after the U.S. government withdrew funding.

The organization, which has helped pay for PBS, NPR, 1,500 local radio and TV stations as well as programs like “Sesame Street” and “Finding Your Roots,” will be awarded the Television Academy's Governors Award, which honors those who have "made a profound, transformational and long-lasting contribution to the arts and/or science of television.”

It will be handed to Patricia de Stacy Harrison, the longest-serving president and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremony on Sept. 7.

“For more than half a century, CPB has been a steadfast champion of storytelling that informs, educates and unites us and ensures public media remains a vital space where diverse voices are heard and communities are served,” Television Academy Chair Cris Abrego said in a statement Tuesday.

Read
Saturday, Sep. 20, 2025

FILE - An entrance to the Arizona PBS offices in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Phoenix is seen Friday, May 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Katie Oyan, File)

FILE - An entrance to the Arizona PBS offices in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Phoenix is seen Friday, May 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Katie Oyan, File)

‘No safety rules’: Concerns grow as AI-generated videos spread hate online

Sharif Hassan, The Canadian Press 6 minute read Preview

‘No safety rules’: Concerns grow as AI-generated videos spread hate online

Sharif Hassan, The Canadian Press 6 minute read Tuesday, Sep. 23, 2025

At first it appears to be a quirky video clip generated by artificial intelligence to make people laugh.

In it, a hairy Bigfoot wearing a cowboy hat and a vest emblazoned with the American flag sits behind the wheel of a pickup truck.

“We are going today to the LGBT parade,” the apelike creature says with a laugh. “You are going to love it.”

Things then take a violent and disturbing turn as Bigfoot drives through a crowd of screaming people, some of them holding rainbow flags.

Read
Tuesday, Sep. 23, 2025

A person uses a cell phone in Ottawa on July 18, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

A person uses a cell phone in Ottawa on July 18, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Not just Big Bird: Things to know about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and its funding cuts

Audrey Mcavoy, The Associated Press 5 minute read Preview

Not just Big Bird: Things to know about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and its funding cuts

Audrey Mcavoy, The Associated Press 5 minute read Friday, Sep. 19, 2025

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps pay for PBS, NPR, 1,500 local radio and television stations as well as programs like “Sesame Street” and “Finding Your Roots,” said Friday that it would close after the U.S. government withdrew funding.

The organization told employees that most staff positions will end with the fiscal year on Sept. 30. A small transition team will stay until January to finish any remaining work.

The private, nonprofit corporation was founded in 1968 shortly after Congress authorized its formation. It now ends nearly six decades of fueling the production of renowned educational programming, cultural content and emergency alerts about natural disasters.

Here's what to know:

Read
Friday, Sep. 19, 2025

FILE - One of the control rooms at the Arizona PBS offices at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Phoenix is seen Friday, May 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Katie Oyan, File)

FILE - One of the control rooms at the Arizona PBS offices at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Phoenix is seen Friday, May 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Katie Oyan, File)

Canadian researchers create tool to remove anti-deepfake watermarks from AI content

Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press 4 minute read Preview

Canadian researchers create tool to remove anti-deepfake watermarks from AI content

Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press 4 minute read Saturday, Sep. 20, 2025

OTTAWA - University of Waterloo researchers have built a tool that can quickly remove watermarks identifying content as artificially generated — and they say it proves that global efforts to combat deepfakes are most likely on the wrong track.

Academia and industry have focused on watermarking as the best way to fight deepfakes and "basically abandoned all other approaches," said Andre Kassis, a PhD candidate in computer science who led the research.

At a White House event in 2023, the leading AI companies — including OpenAI, Meta, Google and Amazon — pledged to implement mechanisms such as watermarking to clearly identify AI-generated content.

AI companies’ systems embed a watermark, which is a hidden signature or pattern that isn’t visible to a person but can be identified by another system, Kassis explained.

Read
Saturday, Sep. 20, 2025

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman participates in a panel discussion during the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024. OpenAI was one of the major tech firms that promised to pursue watermarking technology. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman participates in a panel discussion during the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024. OpenAI was one of the major tech firms that promised to pursue watermarking technology. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
No Subscription Required

Celebrating cats and the pet parents who love them

Eva Wasney 4 minute read Preview
No Subscription Required

Celebrating cats and the pet parents who love them

Eva Wasney 4 minute read Thursday, Jun. 26, 2025

The cats have come back to the big screen.

Read
Thursday, Jun. 26, 2025

SUPPLIED

Local feline influencer Littlefoot is a guest judge at Saturday’s cat film festival.

SUPPLIED
                                Local feline influencer Littlefoot is a guest judge at Saturday’s cat film festival.

Graham Avenue stretch to get pedestrian, bike-only trial when buses vanish

Joyanne Pursaga 5 minute read Preview

Graham Avenue stretch to get pedestrian, bike-only trial when buses vanish

Joyanne Pursaga 5 minute read Friday, Jun. 20, 2025

The city will turn a four-block stretch of Graham Avenue into a living lab when Winnipeg Transit’s network overhaul pulls buses off the downtown street.

It will be cyclists and pedestrians only between Carlton and Garry streets in an indefinite pilot project scheduled to begin after June 29.

“In July 2025, buses will be removed from four blocks, creating a rare opportunity to transform the street into a safer, pedestrian-first space. With a focus on recreation, public gathering areas, and cultural programming, Graham Avenue can become a dynamic hub of activity in the heart of downtown,” a city document states.

Without changes, the area risks becoming a neglected corridor with minimal foot traffic once buses leave, it warns.

Read
Friday, Jun. 20, 2025

SUPPLIED

A rendering of Graham Avenue between Donald and Smith Streets.

SUPPLIED
                                A rendering of Graham Avenue between Donald and Smith Streets.
No Subscription Required

‘Elio’ is an intergalactic tale — but for Toronto’s Domee Shi, it hits close to home

Alex Nino Gheciu, The Canadian Press 5 minute read Preview
No Subscription Required

‘Elio’ is an intergalactic tale — but for Toronto’s Domee Shi, it hits close to home

Alex Nino Gheciu, The Canadian Press 5 minute read Friday, Sep. 19, 2025

TORONTO - For Domee Shi, making a movie about an introverted kid getting abducted by aliens felt oddly familiar.

Not because she’s had any close encounters, but because she remembers being a teenager longing to be taken away to a world where her weirdness was understood.

The Toronto native co-directs “Elio,” a Pixar animated sci-fi film about an 11-year-old orphan who yearns to be snatched by extraterrestrials to escape his loneliness — and gets his wish when an interplanetary organization mistakes him for Earth’s ambassador.

“He's this lonely artsy kid who just wants to belong somewhere. I definitely felt that way growing up,” says the Oscar-winning animator behind 2022’s coming-of-age Toronto-set hit “Turning Red.”

Read
Friday, Sep. 19, 2025

A scene from “Elio,” a Pixar animated sci-fi film about an 11-year-old orphan who yearns to be snatched by extraterrestrials to escape his loneliness — and gets his wish when an interplanetary organization mistakes him for Earth’s ambassador, is shown in this handout image. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Disney/Pixar *MANDATORY CREDIT*

A scene from “Elio,” a Pixar animated sci-fi film about an 11-year-old orphan who yearns to be snatched by extraterrestrials to escape his loneliness — and gets his wish when an interplanetary organization mistakes him for Earth’s ambassador, is shown in this handout image. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Disney/Pixar *MANDATORY CREDIT*

Diversified roles in society shape painter Brian Hunter’s work and process

AV Kitching 4 minute read Preview

Diversified roles in society shape painter Brian Hunter’s work and process

AV Kitching 4 minute read Saturday, Jun. 7, 2025

Brian Hunter’s multiple roles within society inform the works in his current exhibition, On Shaky Ground, at 226 Gallery, located at 226 Main St.

It’s his first solo show in seven years.

The 22 oils, created in response to “the current shifting and uncertain atmosphere,” are a departure from the artist’s previous work.

Nine years ago Hunter snagged top spot at the RBC Canadian Painting Competition. He spent a year in an art residency at the Gwangju Museum of Art in South Korea, and has shown in South Korea, Spain, Montreal and Toronto.

Read
Saturday, Jun. 7, 2025

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS

As a parent, painter and police officer — Brian Hunter juggles a demanding career and his passions.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS
                                As a parent, painter and police officer — Brian Hunter juggles a demanding career and his passions.

Carrie’s voice is back. So is the show’s soul as ‘And Just Like That…’ grows up

Thomas Adamson, The Associated Press 6 minute read Preview

Carrie’s voice is back. So is the show’s soul as ‘And Just Like That…’ grows up

Thomas Adamson, The Associated Press 6 minute read Sunday, Sep. 21, 2025

PARIS (AP) — “She’s messy. It can be messy. But it’s real.”

So says Cynthia Nixon — not just of Miranda Hobbes, the character she’s embodied for almost three decades, but of the show itself. “And Just Like That...,” HBO’s “Sex and the City” revival, has come into its own in Season 3: less preoccupied with pleasing everyone, and more interested in telling the truth.

Truth, in this case, looks like complexity. Women in their 50s with evolving identities. Not frozen in time, but changing, reckoning, reliving. Queerness that’s joyful but not polished. Grief without melodrama. A pirate shirt with a bleach hole that somehow becomes a talisman of power.

At its glittering European premiere this week, Nixon and co-star Sarah Jessica Parker, flanked by Kristin Davis and Sarita Choudhury, spoke candidly with The Associated Press about how the show has evolved into something deeper, rawer and more reflective of who they are now.

Read
Sunday, Sep. 21, 2025

Nicole Ari Parker, from left, Kristin Davis, Sarah Jessica Parker, Sarita Choudhury and Cynthia Nixon pose together at the premiere of "And Just Like That..." Season 3 at the Crane Club on Wednesday, May 21, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Nicole Ari Parker, from left, Kristin Davis, Sarah Jessica Parker, Sarita Choudhury and Cynthia Nixon pose together at the premiere of

Protests over ‘please walk on me’ flag artwork prompt its removal from New Zealand gallery – again

Charlotte Graham-mclay, The Associated Press 4 minute read Preview

Protests over ‘please walk on me’ flag artwork prompt its removal from New Zealand gallery – again

Charlotte Graham-mclay, The Associated Press 4 minute read Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A New Zealand flag printed with the words “please walk on me” and laid on the floor of an art gallery has once again been packed away following public outcry, 30 years after protests forced the removal of the same artwork.

The Suter Art Gallery in the city of Nelson said Thursday it had taken down the work by Māori artist Diane Prince due to escalating tensions and safety fears. The episode mirrored an Auckland gallery's removal of the work amid public backlash and complaints to law enforcement in 1995.

This time, the flag was meant to remain on display for five months. Instead, it lasted just 19 days, reigniting long-running debates in New Zealand over artistic expression, national symbols and the country’s colonial history.

Police told The Associated Press on Friday that officers were investigating “several” complaints about the exhibition.

Read
Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025

An artwork titled Flagging the Future, a cloth New Zealand flag with the words "please walk on me" stenciled across it by Māori artist Diane Prince, is displayed on the floor on Tuesday, May 27, 2025, at the Suter Art Gallery in Nelson, New Zealand. (Catherine Hubbard/Nelson Mail/STUFF via AP)

An artwork titled Flagging the Future, a cloth New Zealand flag with the words

Paul Reubens tells his story in ‘Pee-wee as Himself.’ Here’s how it came together after his death

Lindsey Bahr, The Associated Press 6 minute read Preview

Paul Reubens tells his story in ‘Pee-wee as Himself.’ Here’s how it came together after his death

Lindsey Bahr, The Associated Press 6 minute read Saturday, Sep. 20, 2025

Paul Reubens did not tell his director that he was dying.

On July 31, 2023, the news of Reubens' death came as a shock to documentary filmmaker Matt Wolf, who had spent a year trying to convince him to make the ambitious two-part documentary “Pee-wee as Himself,” now streaming on HBO Max, and over 40 hours interviewing him on camera.

But in 2023, the project was in danger of falling apart: The two had been at an impasse for a while over the issue of creative control and they’d finally found a way forward. He had one last interview scheduled, set for the first week of August. Then the texts started coming in. Wolf sat there shaking.

They’d spoken about everything — Reubens' childhood, his complicated relationship with fame, his ambitions, his commitment to his alter-ego Pee-wee Herman, his sexuality, his arrest — except the fact that he’d been battling cancer for the past six years. But after the initial shock, a renewed purpose set in.

Read
Saturday, Sep. 20, 2025

This image released by HBO Max shows Paul Reubens in a scene from the documentary "Pee-Wee As Himself." (HBO Max via AP)

This image released by HBO Max shows Paul Reubens in a scene from the documentary

The Cannes Film Festival is over. Here’s some key things that happened

The Associated Press 8 minute read Preview

The Cannes Film Festival is over. Here’s some key things that happened

The Associated Press 8 minute read Thursday, Sep. 18, 2025

CANNES, France (AP) — This year's Cannes Film Festival is over, ending in dramatic fashion with a power outage ahead of the closing ceremony that bestowed the Palme d'Or trophy to Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi's film, “It Was Just an Accident.”

This year's festival included a strong slate as Cannes has become increasingly important to the Oscars’ best picture hopefuls. As the festival drew to close Saturday, it was clear that filmmakers are reckoning with geopolitical doom, climate change and other calamities that closely resemble current events.

This year's festival was an attention-grabbing affair since its start — from new rules for its red carpets, nerves about potential U.S. tariffs and the return of Tom Cruise.

Even in a normal year, Cannes is a lot to keep up with. Here's a handy guide of what's happened so far, what's left and what it may mean.

Read
Thursday, Sep. 18, 2025

Rihanna, left, and A$AP Rocky pose for photographers upon departure from the premiere of the film 'Highest 2 Lowest' at the 78th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Monday, May 19, 2025. (Photo by Lewis Joly/Invision/AP)

Rihanna, left, and A$AP Rocky pose for photographers upon departure from the premiere of the film 'Highest 2 Lowest' at the 78th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Monday, May 19, 2025. (Photo by Lewis Joly/Invision/AP)