Memory and Place: St. Michael's Student Showcase Celebrates the Donovan Collection
When artist Linda Martinello sat down in conversation with John Geoghegan, she described how her work is shaped by memories of significant places in her life. “There’s only so much you can take in and see and respond to,” she said. “I’m not trying to get the whole image.”
The conversation was the centrepiece of an evening hosted by the Donovan Collection Committee to increase student engagement with the Donovan Collection at St. Mike’s. Inspired by Martinello’s work, the theme for the evening was “Memory and Place.”
The event was complemented by a Student Art Showcase, with the Principal’s Office inviting students to submit original pieces exploring the theme.
Karina Stellato, Programs Lead for Academic and Community Engagement at St. Michael’s, said the evening was about bringing the Donovan Collection and art to the forefront. “We wanted to have students be the ones to create and showcase their work as a complement to this evening’s event. The hope is to have students engage with the arts, and have that be a catalyst for learning more about the Donovan Collection and what it offers our community,” she said.
John Geoghegan, a writer, art historian, and Curator at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, guided the conversation, drawing on his curatorial expertise to probe the ideas behind Martinello’s practice. His curatorial work includes solo exhibitions of Derek Sullivan, Moridja Kitenge Banza, Rita Leistner, Sandra Brewster, and Ann MacIntosh Duff. He was Co-Editor of the award-winning publication Early Days: Indigenous Art at the McMichael (2023) and former Senior Editor of Inuit Art Quarterly.
The conversation touched on her process and the places that have shaped it. Martinello works in oil and graphite on mylar and her subjects drawn from travels to Matera, Italy; the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico; historical sites in Turkey and Greece; and Banff, Alberta, where she completed a Visual Arts Residency at the Banff Centre in 2024.
She shared how the mentorship she received through working as a studio assistant for acclaimed painter Denyse Thomasos while completing her MFA and then again after graduation shaped her artistic vision, process, and creative trajectory.
Her work is held in prominent private and corporate collections and can also be found all around campus as part of the Donovan Collection.
The event was complemented by a Student Art Showcase, with the Principal’s Office inviting students to submit original pieces exploring the theme.
Karina Stellato, Programs Lead for Academic and Community Engagement at St. Michael’s, said the evening was about bringing the Donovan Collection and art to the forefront. “We wanted to have students be the ones to create and showcase their work as a complement to this evening’s event. The hope is to have students engage with the arts, and have that be a catalyst for learning more about the Donovan Collection and what it offers our community,” she said.
The response was enthusiastic, with student artists from across disciplines offering their own interpretations of how place lives on in memory.
For student artist Radhika Punchhi, the theme inspired her to paint a scene with special meaning. Her piece depicts a woman standing alone beside a street food cart, a self-portrait that explores her experience of cultural belonging. “I specifically chose this type of food because when it’s eaten, you usually enjoy it with a bunch of people — it’s street food, there’s a lot of interaction,” she explained. Radhika’s parents had immigrated to Canada and then moved back to India. The painting reflected her experience of being back in her country of ethnic origin. “I specifically made the subject a lone figure because it was based on my experience of feeling lonely in my own cultural makeup,” she said.
St. Michael’s student Carrie Ji took a more sentimental approach, painting a scene from a photograph taken of her in a café — a place she came to realize had quietly anchored many of the significant moments of her life. “The theme was really special to me, especially as someone who’s very nostalgic,” she said. “Having the chance to convince myself to paint something like this for an exhibit really drove me to create something meaningful.”
Together, the works in the Student Art Showcase reflected what Martinello’s own practice has long embodied: that memory is never a perfect record, but something that is felt. By bringing her work and her thinking to campus, the evening gave students the space to explore that idea in their own voices and reminded us that art can turn the landscapes we carry inside ourselves into something others are invited to enter.
