One Torontonian has come up with a cool way to shine a light on the city’s talented game development scene.
From illustrator, designer and art director Gavin McCarthy comes Art of the Concept, a free art gallery at George Brown College’s North Gallery featuring Toronto indie games that debuted in partnership with this year’s annual Toronto Games Week. McCarthy has since extended the gallery, telling me that it will be there for the rest of August and at least partway into September until whenever the college needs the space once the new school year ramps up.
What an amazing turnout!
Thank you to everyone who came out to yesterday’s reception for Art Of The Concept. It was a wonderful afternoon filled with fantastic conversations about art and video games. A special thanks to the friends, family, volunteers and studios who helped make it happen
#TGW26
— artoftheconcept.bsky.social (@artoftheconcept.bsky.social) June 15, 2026 at 11:50 AM
In the exhibit, you can see key artwork from a bunch of Toronto games with some additional information on each alongside gameplay footage on adjacent TVs. Here are the nine featured games:
I unfortunately missed the gallery in June amid all kinds of other events (including FIFA, Dead by Daylight‘s 10th anniversary event and Game Con Canada), but I finally got to check it out this week and loved what I saw. Having this exhibit at a college that people, especially students, can just pop into at no cost is an excellent way to spotlight local indie games. I’ve long said we need more consumer gaming events in Canada to raise awareness of our world-class gaming industry, and Art of the Concept shows how grassroots efforts can very much help fill these gaps.
Shoutout to McCarthy for organizing this and to all of these talented teams for taking part. Definitely worth checking out if you’re in Toronto!
