OCAD Artists: Kayli Grant + Matthias Whalen + Kexuan Zhuang + Darah Galbraith

Top left

Kayli Grant is a fourth-year Advertising student at OCADU trained in illustration,

graphic design, typography, photography, and campaign strategy. Based in the Greater Toronto Area, Kayli has achieved awards such as first place in the Peel Region Police 2019 Graphic Design competition and top three in the Peel Ontario Skills Competition for graphic design two years consecutively. Her current goal is to focus her practice on creating campaigns that support people just as much as people have supported those that advertise to them. By aiming to craft campaigns that entertain, delight, inspire, or inform, she hopes to create more positive connections between advertiser and audience where both feel equally respected.

Top right

Matthias Whalen is a Lebanese-Canadian curator, currently completing his MFA in

Criticism and Curatorial Practices at OCAD University. His practice investigates home-making

and belonging within a queer SWANA context. Matthias holds a Bachelor of Design in Fashion

Communications from Toronto Metropolitan University and grew up on Canada’s east coast. He has worked with the Gallery on Queen and previously at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, and was instrumental in showcasing Wabanaki, an annual exhibit of east coast Indigenous art; Queens on Queen, a celebration of queer art from the Maritimes; and Liminal Space, featuring works by Jared Peters and Greg Charlton. Most recently, he has helped co-curate Bluefrog at XPACE Cultural Centre, and he is working towards his thesis exhibition, Grab/Hold, opening April 10th, 2026, at General Hardware Contemporary. His current research focuses on how Lebanese and SWANA artists produce and create work from a disoriented body.

Bottom left

Darah Galbraith is a transdisciplinary artist from Guelph, Ontario who explored media dynamics and visual cultures through disintegrating and re-integrating the image in the form of paper-based sculptures.

Bottom right

Kexuan Zhuang is a graduate student in the Digital Futures program at OCAD University.

Her work explores the relationship between digital interaction and everyday environments.

Through interactive media and design research, she investigates how digital experiences can

encourage exploration, reflection, and engagement with social issues.

DXC Opening Night Artwork on Exhibtiion:

Untitled

This work centres the case of imprisoned scholar Ahmadreza Djalali through sculpture, participation, and digital storytelling. Vertical poles evoke confinement while disrupting space. As participants mark them, the installation becomes a collective expression of witness and solidarity while an interactive digital piece traces his case, inviting reflection on human rights and our role within these systems.