28 Objects in 28 Days | Cynthia Waldow

Showing from Oct 21 - Nov 4, 2025

“28 Objects in 28 Days” is a painting series created over a single 28-day period. Each day, one ordinary object was selected and painted, using a deliberately limited palette: seven colours in total (though rules were broken in one painting). This constraint mirrors the rhythms, expectations, and negotiations that often define women’s lives. Each object, whether a tube of lipstick, a razor, or a keepsake, carries shifting meanings across generations and individual experiences. What might seem trivial becomes, upon reflection, a carrier of history, resistance, and self-definition.

Waldow describes this body of work as a reflection from mid-life; a time when the accumulation of meanings, expectations, and choices becomes especially visible. The 28-day structure references the average menstrual cycle, an archetype of repetition and renewal that is universal and deeply personal. However, the work extends beyond womanhood; inviting anyone to consider the objects that chart their own journeys, the cycles they live within, and the rules they occasionally need to break.

Born out of a gift exchange tradition — 24 small gifts for the 24 days before Christmas —“28 Objects in 28 Days” transforms that idea into an act of self-reflection: 28 small witnesses to the life of someone navigating the intersection of identity, time, and art-making. Some paintings obeyed the rules of limitation; others demanded more colour, more tools, more freedom. Just like life, the process itself became a quiet rebellion.

About the Artist

Cynthia Waldow is a Guelph-based, self-taught artist whose practice explores feminism, politics, and transformation through the lens of the everyday. Working primarily in acrylic, she reclaims the overlooked—small objects and fragments of daily life—and reframes them, inviting viewers to find meaning in the ordinary.

Featured works are 6 x 8 inches & acrylic on wood panel. Not for sale.