Urban Love Letters: Encaustic Art Exhibition

Step into a visual love story between people and place. ‘Urban Love Letters’ is an encaustic photography exhibition by PH1 Studios that captures the poetry and personality of urban landscapes. Through a lens of layered wax and pigment, this exhibit reveals the quiet beauty of unexpected messages—spray-painted on alley walls, pasted on abandoned buildings, or stuck to street poles—that speak about longing and belonging.

Spanning several years and multiple cities, this collection documents anonymous declarations of love to fleeting street ephemera. Each photograph is a moment of intimacy made public—a love letter embedded in the built environment and preserved in wax.

Visiting Information:

– Drop-in hours: Monday to Saturday, 7:30am-7:00pm

– Welcoming art lovers, urban explorers, and curious passersby

PH1 Studios is the collaborative practice of Toronto-based artists Melissa Espina and Pietro Gallo, merging encaustic painting, contemporary photography, and material exploration to create textured, multidimensional works rooted in memory, place, and sensory experience. Espina, a graduate of OCAD University, brings expertise in fine art, encaustic technique, and tactile mark-making. Gallo, a photographer and editor with over 25 years of experience in post-production and visual effects, contributes a narrative-driven visual language grounded in image construction and storytelling.

Their work has been exhibited across Toronto in galleries, artist-run centres, and public art events, including The Artist Project and Nuit Blanche. Committed to community engagement, Espina and Gallo lead workshops, participatory installations, and public programming that extend their craft into shared creative spaces and foster broader access to the arts.