OCAD University GradEx at TOAF

Tia Babbar is in love with a world that feels still and full—moments that linger, soft and blurred, in the spaces between. In these quiet observations, she sees not only her own body, but every fibre of her being. Her work explores the relationship between memory and interconnectedness in a world that is not separate from the self, but intertwined with every being and every moment.

Working from personal photographs, these images of space and embodiment become vessels for the self. They are not merely seen but lived. Each painting holds a felt moment—an instance where light, touch, body, and space converge. They trace the places where my body meets the world, where each mark becomes a memory, and painting becomes an archive of presence.

Judy Chen is a Toronto and Markham-based jewellery artist and OCAD University graduate in Material Art & Design. Her work merges minimalist aesthetics with kinetic expression, employing innovative gem-setting techniques and hybrid materials like metal, acrylics, and found objects. Through cold connections like rivets, she creates interactive pieces that invite touch and motion. Judy’s practice reimagines jewellery as a dynamic medium, exploring how jewellery can be impactful, provoking feelings, and playful. Movement, experimental gem settings, and unconventional materials define her approach, transforming adornment into a playful yet deliberate study of form, function, and impactful human connection.

Alana D’Agostino (b. 2003) is a Toronto-based figurative painter. Working primarily with oil and watercolour paint, her practice centres an intimacy in observation. Through her work, she explores how focused attention can reveal the emotional and affective qualities in scenes and objects. Emphasizing precision and the quietness that emerges from close attention, her work resists passivity, instead inviting an engagement grounded in care, and mindfulness. She works in thin layers that lend to one another, capturing the nuances of light as it diffuses and softens. In her work, she seeks to convey tenderness and the intimacy that comes with truly seeing.

Leah Fernandes is an emerging artist and designer based in downtown Toronto. A recent graduate of OCAD University’s Material Art and Design program, she earned her Bachelor of Design with a major in textiles and a minor in ceramics. Her practice blends function and craft, brought to life through sewing, textile surface design, paper making, and ceramics. Leah creates thoughtful, tactile works rooted in process and function, with a focus on intention, slowness, and the quiet beauty of everyday life. Her work reflects a deep appreciation for materiality, care, and the meditative nature of making by hand.

Maja Rudnicki (they/them) is an artist living and working in Tkaronto. A recent graduate of OCADU, they majored in Sculpture/Installation alongside a minor in Creative Writing. Maja’s practice has developed as a means of world-building and exploring alternate realities which celebrate the illicit and implicit: otherness, identity, permanence/transience, and the ‘natural’. Allowing their heart and hands to guide the clay which they use to give shape to the impulses within, humorous narratives and creatures emerge. Eternally keen to learn, the artist’s practice includes sculpture, illustration, and writing, in addition to an interest in mycology and entomology.