Artists: Christos Damianos & Greg Chiykowski
Scars and Seeds: Tracing the Memory of Nature is a collaborative residency and exhibition by artists Christos Damianos and Greg Chiykowski. The project explores ecological memory through a variety of medium and experimentation with natural inks, handmade papers, and foraged materials. By transforming organic debris into art, the artists create works that trace the visible impact of human activity on the environment. Through drawings, paintings, mixed-media pieces, and immersive installations, they examine cycles of damage and renewal. The project invites reflection on how we bear witness to the land’s memory—and how we might offer it care.
Scars and Seeds: Tracing the Memory of Nature is a collaborative residency and exhibition by artists Christos Damianos and Greg Chiykowski, exploring the natural world through material transformation. This project examines how the byproducts of nature—earth pigments, plant matter, and organic debris—can be harvested to create natural inks and pigments. These materials serve as both medium and metaphor, highlighting ecological damage while celebrating nature’s potential for renewal and resilience. Rooted in environmental reflection and hands-on experimentation, the project unfolds as a visual and tactile dialogue between destruction and regeneration.
Inspired by the poetic notion that “Paper is ink’s sister” (Jason Logan), the artists focus their practice on creating handmade inks and papers using foraged materials. These elements become both medium and message, embodying the cyclical relationship between nature and artistic practice.
Working with these natural materials, the artists will continue to experiment and create an ongoing body of drawings, paintings, handmade papers, and mixed-media works that trace the visible impact of human activity on the natural world. These pieces function as “maps” of ecological trauma—both documentation and reinterpretation—viewed through a lens of hope and healing.
While the studio will serve as a site for alchemical experimentation—boiling, fermenting, and grinding materials to produce mediums that carry the physical and symbolic DNA of place—the art gallery will showcase evidence of process, documentation, and research. The transformation of landscape into mark-making material will result in immersive visual experiences that engage viewers physically, optically, and conceptually. Through layered stains, gestures, and embedded fibers, audiences will be invited to reflect on how we might bear witness to nature’s evolving story. At once elegy and invocation, Scars and Seeds asks: How do we carry the memory of the land, and how might we offer it new forms of care?
Artist Backgrounds
Greg Chiykowski and Christos Damianos are York Region-based visual artists and active members of both the Mill Pond Gallery and the Richmond Hill Artists Group.
Christos Damianos, is a multimedia artist whose work delves into themes of identity, nature, and communication, capturing the complex relationship between humanity and the environment. He has exhibited extensively and serves on several boards of directors for non-profit cultural organizations. He has received numerous grants and awards and is a two-time recipient of the Richmond Hill Culture Grant (2023, 2024) for his curated exhibitions Environment (2024) and At Risk – Salamander (2025).
Greg Chiykowski is a landscape artist who has lived in Richmond Hill for over 35 years. His landscape paintings are inspired by the beauty and complexities of nature that strive to “bring the outdoors experience inside”. He works in a variety of mediums including watercolour, soft pastel, homemade inks, and oil paints. Greg was a featured artist in Environment (2024) and received the 2024 Richmond Hill Culture Grant for his project Ink Spots of Richmond Hill – Making Ink with Foraged Natural Materials.
Each Tuesday throughout July and August, members of the Richmond Hill Group of Artists will begin a one week residency in the Mill Pond Gallery.
Would you like to see how artists create their work? Drop in often to see the works in progress, talk to our artists and enjoy the work on display at the gallery.
*Note – Thursday evenings the City of Richmond Hill hosts “Concerts in The Park” at the Mill Pond Park. We will be open until after the concert. Stop by for a visit!
There is never an admission fee and all are welcome!
Summer Gallery Hours:
Tuesday to Friday: 1:00 pm to 7:00 pm (9:30 pm on Thursday)
Saturday and Sunday: 11:00 pm to 5:00 pm