Body of Work, Body of Truth

The labor of life behind The Exhibitionists Take AWE

Meeting the art collective The Exhibitionists for the first time, I am greeted by four women who are unmistakably artists. Before we even settle in, the conversation drifts naturally within the group, asking about recent works, stepping back to capture a photo, or exchanging quick quips. The energy between them in person feels like a prelude to the exhibit itself.

The artists behind the installation are Judy Chappus, Sandie Collins, Rebecca Draisey, and Linda Renaud Fisher. These four make up the current iteration of the group, although other artists have contributed over the years. The work of one former member, Eugenia Catroppa, is also included in this exhibit. Though each of the women approaches art differently, the series is connected by a shared examination of what it means to exist in the female body, and how to handle the expectations and preconceptions imposed upon it.

What started first as a desire to practice life drawing gradually became something more vulnerable. It’s something I can only call “exposure therapy.” Rather than hiring models, the women began life modeling for one another themselves.

For some members of the group, this shift was initially met with hesitation. For others, it simply felt like a logical extension of the creative process. But after just a few sessions they discovered that posing nude for their art – and for each other – wasn’t scandalous. It was liberating.

Revealing Experiences

“As we got naked with each other, we started to talk about our bodies and our experiences in our bodies,” says Chappus. “The way we’ve been seen and the way we’re expected to act. We just started discovering all of these common thoughts and feelings and ideas about being a woman in your body in society.”

As the practice developed and the women became less self-conscious, they found a deeper connection to their truth and femininity. A personal one, rather than one defined for them. “[As] we started making the work and looking at the work, we were saying, this is us. We’re identifiable.” recalls Draisey.

On the third floor of Art Windsor-Essex, The Exhibitionists Take AWE asks viewers to reconsider many of the assumptions attached to women’s bodies about aging, beauty, sexuality, and visibility. The exhibit is honest and direct without being sensational. The portraits are vulnerable, personal, and willing to reveal the marks and scars and memories that might have, in other contexts, remained hidden.

That level of candor feels significant in a world that considers visible signs of aging to be undesirable, where women are instructed to hide them. Instead, the work of The Exhibitionists puts the lived histories of these women front and center. The honesty of their portraits serves as a reminder that growing older is not a source of shame, but a privilege.

Highlighting the body’s history, not hiding it

Chappus’ realism work, in particular, became a point of conversation among the group.

“She exaggerates,” Draisey jokes, on seeing the images of her colleagues in one of Chappus’ paintings. “She exaggerates your faults. You look at this and [it’s] all the things I’ve been trying to hide.”

The observation doesn’t come across as criticism. It reads as deep trust in each other and their creative processes. As the morning goes on, the artists flow organically between playful ribbing each other and discussing their work with genuine seriousness. And for any level of anxiousness or self-consciousness they might still carry towards their nude bodies on display, it is far outweighed by the mutual appreciation for each other and the body of work they have created together.

As The Exhibitionists collective grew in public visibility, the artists also observed effects beyond their inner circle, particularly the ways in which other women encountered and engaged with their art.

“Women were saying, ‘I feel so much more powerful about myself because you’re doing this,’” recalls Chappus. “We didn’t really grasp the weight of what we were doing at that point.”

Part of the impact of the exhibit comes from how welcoming it feels despite the vulnerability on display. The collection invites viewers into the conversation rather than confronting them from a distance. The artists are examining themselves, but they are also encouraging audiences to reconsider the ways women internalize shame, criticism, and impossible standards.

The labour of women

The exhibition is rooted as much in lived experience as it is in artistic practice. Walking through the gallery, I am struck repeatedly by the sheer amount of labour visible in the work itself. The size of the canvases, the detail in the etchings, the path of the brush strokes; the visibility of their effort makes the work all the more important. Their art redirects their labour from obligation into joy. 

That labor itself feels focal and important to the collection. Our conversation repeatedly returns to the expectations placed on women: caretaking, housekeeping, educating, and providing in so many often unacknowledged ways. How common it becomes for a woman to choose maintaining her community and home over pursuing her creative endeavours. And how at times it can feel like there is no other choice but to put one’s own joy and artistic expression on the back burner. 

Prioritizing art & self-expression

The Exhibitionists have instead established joy and artistic expression as a non-negotiable pillar in their lives. The creative work is necessary. And it is through the lens of their life experiences that they’re able to create art. It’s a conscious choice to find that balance.

For Renaud Fisher, returning to art came after years spent raising her children and managing work responsibilities. She recalls seeing artist-run hubs filling Windsor neighborhoods decades ago while working a job downtown. The passion and energy of those communities stayed with her even as she had temporarily set art aside to focus on those other responsibilities.

As her children grew up and her interest in revisiting art persisted, she found recognition and encouragement from her family. “The kids said, why don’t you go back to school?” she recalls. The years away from her art meant finding fulfillment in myriad other ways, but returning to it meant “finally getting to say what you’ve been wanting to say for a few decades.” 

Collins’ path was to redefine her relationship to labour with intention. She built a home studio space that allows her to move between the daily tasks and creative practice. Speaking of her printmaking work, she reflects on trying to move away from rigid ideas of technical perfection. Her studio is a space to unlearn the standards she previously believed would improve her art.

“I feel like I lost something along the way because that perfection came in and then it was like, how do I get back to this?” she reflects, comparing her booklets from before and after regimented coursework. “I try to be so hands on with my prints, [to] show a human hand touched it.” 

That physicality is visible throughout her work. Her prints feel exploratory and tactile, filled with textures, recurring imagery, and fragments of moments shared among the group. Upon entering the exhibit, viewers are immediately met with one of Collins’ lino prints, establishing the collection’s personal and handmade tone.

Mapping the evolution of life and relationships

The ebb and flow of the exhibit mirrors the artists’ friendship. Each approaches the work differently, but recurring motifs and shared experiences weave the pieces together into a larger conversation.

Throughout the morning, Draisey repeatedly pauses to photograph details that catch her attention. At one point she gently repositions Chappus near a window so the light reflects through her earring just right. Elsewhere, Chappus studies Collins’ work closely, asking questions only a longtime friend would think to ask.

The conversations surrounding the exhibit move between technical discussion, inside jokes, personal stories, and reflections on making the art itself. That closeness is embedded throughout the gallery. This, too, is on display in the exhibit; only that which each artist made could have been created by her, yet contributes to the larger narrative.

It’s one that encourages visitors to ask: what are you doing here? What are you trying to say? How are you trying to say it?

Finding meaning in bearing it all

“Does it ever feel scandalous?” I ask Draisey as she shows me images from her time in British Columbia. 

She insists the nudity involved in The Exhibitionists has never been about that. That the work of the group on its surface may seem surprising or antagonistic, but this in itself calls into question the bias we have about women’s bodies and the freedoms they are entitled to.

For Draisey, The Exhibitionists offers her an opportunity to push the boundaries of her art form and practice new techniques. The accessibility of creating art is as important as the art itself; “I want to do it with [tools] that anyone could use,” she explains. 

These women have not existed in a vacuum while making art. The exhibit repeatedly challenges the viewer to reject the idea that life or one’s body must be perfect before it deserves to be examined and celebrated. Aging, relationships, motherhood, illness, friendship, insecurity, and renewal are all carried into the work rather than edited out of it. Over and over, the discussion turns to the tension on women and how they see themselves in the world.

For Renaud Fisher, the work became a platform to confront a lifelong concern, “a recurring theme where women were being portrayed in this very sexualized manner. [It’s] very unrealistic.” Being part of The Exhibitionists encouraged her to use her art to challenge the gender norms established in the arts. 

One particular instance of this is found in Renaud Fisher’s work, Self Portrait, aka Proud to be a Pear, 2026. “The statement for me was more about taking control of the way that we’re portraying [women].” Renaud Fisher says of the mixed media piece. “Painting in such a way where I’m depicting what women really look like, not the fantasy that some have in their head about how we look… It became therapeutic for me too.” 

Self Portrait, aka Proud to be a Pear, 2026 quite literally holds a mirror up to the viewer and to the offhanded comments we give and take too comfortably about the female body. “Like many women, I’m sure, we’ve gotten comments over the years about our body and I decided to put mine up on the wall.”

For Chappus, it is a space to engage with her own feelings towards hypocritical and reductive social standards, as well as with the art her friends have created in response to those same pressures. In fact, the majority of our time speaking together is spent discussing the other exhibitionists’ works. Her pride in this series is largely rooted in the impact it has made on other women.

An open conversation

As much as this installation foregrounds the experience of being in the female body, it is a conversation open to everyone. Emily McKibbon, Head of Exhibitions and Collection at Art Windsor-Essex, worked with the artists to curate the show alongside pieces from AWE’s permanent collection. Part of the goal, McKibbon explains, is to highlight both the artists’ individual interests as well as the historical gaps surrounding female representation in art.

That conversation is on display in the gallery as the collection asks us to reassess the many norms in art and society that reduce the autonomy of women. For generations, women’s bodies have appeared in art through a narrow lens, as objects of sexualization or submission or perfection, while women remain comparatively underrepresented as artists themselves. The Exhibitionists Take AWE challenges the imbalance, by reclaiming the authorship and presence of one’s own female body, and the liberation in representing it accordingly.

The beauty in a lived life

The art in this exhibit is often beautiful to look at, and yet beauty is its least important detail. Beauty is often the first compliment people go to with femininity. But The Exhibitionists Take AWE continually asks viewers to see past the superficial and see the significance of the honesty beneath. That’s what draws you in.

The exhibit’s emotional weight comes through the bodies on display not as idealist fantasies, but as records of lives being lived. Here on display is years of friendship, of artistic exchange, of encouragement, experimentation and mutual trust. 

A body of work shaped by an honest examination of themselves and their lives. Scars and all.

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The Exhibitionists Take AWE is on display at Art Windsor-Essex, at 401 Riverside Dr W in Windsor through October 25th.