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LXCL:Union Gallery is a not-for-profit, student-centred, public contemporary art gallery located in Katarokwi-Kingston. / Photo courtesy of Chris Miner, summer exhibitions 2026.

Looking to connect with Katarokwi-Kingston's vibrant arts community? A Union Gallery membership is a great place to start: take advantage of our special perks while having a say in UG's nonprofit work and affirming our mandate to act as a community-driven hub supporting the next generation of artists and arts workers. All are welcome. Thank you for getting involved!

Looking to connect with Katarokwi-Kingston's vibrant arts community? A Union Gallery membership is a great place to start: take advantage of our special perks while having a say in UG's nonprofit work and affirming our mandate to act as a community-driven hub supporting the next generation of artists and arts workers. All are welcome. Thank you for getting involved!

Union Gallery Membership

Limited edition UG branded items + commissioned merchandise. Thank you for supporting our nonprofit work!

Limited edition UG branded items + commissioned merchandise. Thank you for supporting our nonprofit work!

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<span fr-original-style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;" style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial, sans-serif;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;box-sizing:inherit">Looking to support Union Gallery? Contributions of any amount truly make a difference, whether as a one-time gift or a smaller, recurring contribution. <span fr-original-style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;" style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial, sans-serif;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;box-sizing:inherit">100% of every donation goes directly to Union Gallery’s artistic and community programming, experiential learning opportunities, and operations as a not-for-profit arts organization. We greatly appreciate your support!

Looking to support Union Gallery? Contributions of any amount truly make a difference, whether as a one-time gift or a smaller, recurring contribution.100% of every donation goes directly to Union Gallery’s artistic and community programming, experiential learning opportunities, and operations as a not-for-profit arts organization. We greatly appreciate your support!

Join us at the gallery for an artist talk by Kellyann Marie, whose exhibition On my knees through the desert repenting&nbsp;is in Union Gallery&#39;s Main Space from October 13&ndash;December 19, 2026. A casual reception with light refreshments will follow. ARTIST STATEMENT This show is titled after Wild Geese, the Mary Oliver poem we read to my brother as he was pronounced dead on May 24th, 2025. Everyone I knew gathered around me to make this &ldquo;crawling on my knees&rdquo; &nbsp;a bearable albeit horrendous task. My brother died and I packed up my bicycle and rode from Florida back to Kingston (seeing everyone who&#39;s ever loved me a whole seaboard wide) I kept thinking about quilts. Oh god I love to think about quilts &ndash; something about being made from what remains (my brother was a full body organ donor). They, made of second-hand, hold the evidence of many hands in collaboration in a catastrophe. The works in this exhibition emerge from this year following my brother&#39;s death. Quilts I made of textiles I carried and tended to on the days when the desert was too much. They are stitched from grief, inherited knowledge, found materials, and the strange generosity of being carried by other people. Showing the bar where my friends cared for me, &nbsp;honoring my brother, really praying for the stranger that held me in their arms at an airport. People that sat beside me when there was nothing to say. &nbsp;These quilts show a narrative of southern poverty being negotiated in moments of care. &nbsp;I have often thought of crisis as something on the horizon. Climate collapse. Rising fascism. &nbsp;But this grief reminds me of the ways we already live inside ongoing collapse. Poverty, addiction, bureaucratic neglect, and loneliness aren&#39;t quite future catastrophes but the ordinary conditions under which people are asked to survive, and my brother didn&rsquo;t. The quilts I make ask what knowledge exists within communities who have always had to make something from almost nothing (an alligator a stand in for Florida tumult printed on a secondhand sheet in the Montana sun).&nbsp; I do not know how to rebuild the world, but I know how to save scraps (my brother was a full body organ donor), and the alchemy of an almost&nbsp;nothing (my brother living in poverty), becoming a something (full bodied organ donor). BIOGRAPHY Kellyann Marie is a queer transient responding to poverty and seeking a life in the in-between by creating pockets of home, through community, through sex work, and through honoring the ephemera found there. By celebrating the second hand, they work to connect queer life-art-home-godliness. &nbsp;Kellyann embraces oversharing and tenderness to honor the handmade skills that make life in poverty possible. The resulting work is paintings and textiles layered with personal narrative, meeting functional objects glorious in their usefulness &mdash; always centering the mark of the hand (to be thankful to have hands and that they would be so sweet as to leave a kiss on everything they might touch). Kellyann is a SSHRC CGS-D Fellow working towards a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies at Queen&rsquo;s University. They hold a MFA from Memorial University of Newfoundland, a BFA from Florida State University, and have exhibited nationally and internationally.&nbsp; THANKS + ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS From the artist:&nbsp; &ldquo;I am thankful for my dear friend Brittany Dale who stood by me through the devastating loss of my brother, from the first phone call until now. I am thankful in all things I do for Lindsey Bailey, who walked through that whole ordeal with me, sitting in hospital chairs for hours at a time. I am thankful to a girl named Lexie who gave Eoian CPR on the side of the road such that his every organ was available for donation.&nbsp; I am thankful to be under this same sky that held the exhale from my brother&rsquo;s first breath.&nbsp; I am thankful to be anything at all.&rdquo; Union Gallery thanks the Inclusive Community Fund at Queen&#39;s University for their generous support of this program.

Artist Talk | Kellyann Marie

Beyond Words was created by BIPOC for BIPOC. Beyond Words aims to foster a safe and creative space centred in art healing for Queen&rsquo;s University students and members of the Katarokwi-Kingston community who identify as Black, Indigenous, and people of colour. We will be using art as a tool for expression and discussion in order to help facilitate healing within our mind, body, and spirit. Art as healing is a growing movement that has a lot to offer to individuals working through emotions that can be difficult to put into words. For 2026-27, our first session is a Collage Workshop with Alyssa Vernon! MEET THE FACILITATOR Alyssa Vernon (she/her) is a Jamaican-Guyanese collage artist, educator, and arts worker living in Kingston, Ontario. Alyssa is currently a full-time student undergoing her Masters in Gender Studies at Queen&rsquo;s University, but she holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Gender Studies and a Bachelor of Education with a Social Justice concentration from Queen&rsquo;s University. Her schooling has led to her continual integration of anti-oppressive pedagogy within arts-based activism. Alyssa is the founder of the Queer Collage Collective, where she facilitates anti-oppressive, healing-centered collage programs across community organizations, schools and galleries, centering the histories and experiences of Black, racialized, and 2SLGBTQIA+ communities. Alyssa&rsquo;s collage practice explores Black girlhood, (un)belonging, queer liberation, and community care, drawing from Black histories to imagine liberatory futures. Her art has been featured in local publications and exhibitions, including with Dr. Naila Keleta-Mae&rsquo;s Black And Free research creation project, in collaboration with King-David Olajuwon for the &ldquo;ANITA - Cranes in the Sky&rdquo; exhibit at Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre, and in classrooms across the Limestone District School Board. Alyssa recently served as Program Administrator at Cultivate Art Commons and is an Occasional Teacher with the Limestone District School Board.

Union Gallery

Union Gallery

Union Gallery

Upcoming events

Events

Get your tickets

Artist Talk | Kellyann Marie

Get your tickets

Beyond Words BIPOC Art Series | Collage Workshop with Alyssa Vernon

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Union Gallery Membership

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Union Gallery

Upcoming events

Events

Get your tickets

Artist Talk | Kellyann Marie

Get your tickets

Beyond Words BIPOC Art Series | Collage Workshop with Alyssa Vernon

More ways to support us

Become a member

Union Gallery Membership

Shop now

Union Gallery Shop

Donate now

Donate to Union Gallery

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Union Gallery