Station Independent Projects organizes exhibitions and events with a focus on artist advocacy. Station Independent Projects specializes in discovering new emerging and mid-career artists that are not represented by galleries and organizes shows to connect artists to broader audiences.

Before opening the gallery in Toronto we were located in the Lower East Side of New York City. We also have also organized exhibitions in the New York City area for over ten years with numerous New York galleries, art fairs and non-profits.


Leah Oates is the founder of Station Independent Projects, a Lower East Side gallery in NYC that opened in September 2012.

Prior to opening Station Independent Projects, Oates curated exhibitions in the New York City area with The Scope Art Fair, The Bridge Art Fair, The Center for Photography at Woodstock, Asya Geisberg Gallery, Chashama, Artists Space, Nurture Art and The Kauffman Arcade Gallery and in the Chicago area at Randolph Street Gallery, The Peace Museum and The Noyes Cultural Arts Center.

Projects organized by Station Independent Projects have been written about in Fanzine, WNYC, The Brooklyn Rail, Crain’s NYC, The Village Voice, NY Arts Magazine, Artefuse, Chromogram, Heart as Arena, Tribeca Tribune, New Art Examiner, The Chicago Tribune, New City, Blouin Art Info, Artforum, Collector Daily, Bedford and Bowery, Lid Magazine, French Photo, I-Ref Magazine, Sleek Magazine, Musee Magazine, Slate, Photo District News, Women’s Wear Daily, The Tory Burch Culture Blog and Le Journal de Photographie.

Oates received a B.F.A. from The Rhode Island School of Design and an M.F.A. from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship for Post- Graduate study at Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland.

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Max Kershaw has worked at Gallery 501, the Strathcona County Gallery SLAB Program, the Environmental Awareness Art Show, the Edmonton Expo Centre, the The Works Art and Design Festival and at Rotary International. He is a graduate of Victoria School of The Arts in Edmonton and is currently studying Animation at Sheridan College in Toronto.


Janet Hinkle has taught with ArtStarts, East End Arts, the Toronto District School Board and the City of Toronto and has shown work in Toronto with Nuit Blanche, Lumen, DesignTO, STEPS Public Art, Cedar Ridge Creative Center and Art Metropole. In addition to her creative practice, Hinkle coordinates and curates art projects and artist capacity-building programs.


Chahat Soneja has a postgraduate degree from Humber College in Toronto and a Bachelor's degree in Visual Arts from India. She has worked at Charcoal Foundation Bongora, World University of Design and The Partition Museum. Her work has been featured in Yarn Bomb Zine, Orange Blush Zine, Otherwise Engaged Literature and Arts Journal, Coin-Operated Press Hallozine, Minnow Literary Magazine and her work has been shown in Toronto at Trapxart, Pancakes and Booze Art Show, Arts Etobicoke and internationally at Capital Culture House Gallery in Spain.


Maximillien St-Jacques is a Canadian American who lives between Toronto, Ontario and NYC. Max's photography has been featured in Up North Literary Online Magazine, The Lunch Break Zine, Stone Soup Magazine, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Open Minds Quarterly and Wanderlust Journal and his work has been shown at Light Space & Time Art Online Gallery, Colors of Humanity Gallery, J.Mane Gallery, Usagi NYC Project Gallery, Glen Echo Photoworks, Annmarie Sculpture Garden & Arts Center, Las Laguna Art Gallery, Ten Moir Gallery, Gallery 1313 and at the BRIC Project Room in NYC.


Nicole Ji Soo Kim is an interdisciplinary artist based in Toronto, Canada. Her art education began at School of the Arts Institute of Chicago, before completing her BFA at Ontario College of Art and Design University in 2020. Kim’s first solo exhibition was recently presented at Franz Kaka (Toronto, CA). She has exhibited at New York Art Residency and Studios Foundation (New York, US), the plumb, Whippersnapper Gallery, Xpace Cultural Centre, and Beaver Hall Gallery (Toronto, CA). She has participated in Roundtable Residency (Toronto, CA) and the NARS Foundation International Residency (Brooklyn, US) and completed Grief Education at OISE Continuing and Professional Learning at the University of Toronto. Her work has been published in The Six Hundred and Hyperallergic.

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Shane Harrington is an artist/musician from Ireland. He graduated with honors from Limerick School of Art & Design in 2009 where his thesis DIY Counter Culture received the highest grade in the College's history 150 year history. Harrington has worked at Ormston House, Eva Biennial and was a member of LIKE Studios all in Limerick, Ireland.

Throughout his teens and early twenties Shane toured across Ireland, the UK and mainland Europe playing experimental music, exhibiting his work and curating art shows. He moved to New York in 2012 where he now works at both The Isamu Noguchi Museum and Station Independent Projects, while also maintaining a rigorous recording schedule, as well as his own artistic practice.

Harrington curated a group show of local and international Irish artist titled "Irish Art Does Not Exist" at Station Independent Projects in 2014 which was sited in ArtFCity, Visual Arts Ireland, NY Arts Magazine, The LO-Down, Re-Title and Two Coats of Paint.

He lives and works in Brooklyn.


Klay-James Enos is a visual artist and Lower East Side native. He has worked for several Lower East Side, Chelsea, and California-based galleries, including Smart Clothes Gallery, Michael Mut Project Space, and PMM Art Projects. He has also interned for the curatorial department of the Reynolda House Museum of American Art in North Carolina. As a painter, Klay is a member of the Art Loisaida artist group and regularly shows his work in community spaces throughout the East Village. His essays on other artists' work have been featured at NYU's Kimmel Stovall Gallery and Bouduin College in Maine.

Klay graduated with a B.A. from Alfred University in 2012, where he studied English literature and art history. He received honors in English for his thesis on Gertrude Stern's experimental word portraits. In 2006, he was the recipient of a state department scholarship for language study in Beijing, China. He has also maintained an interest in world and independent cinemas, and was president of a University film club for two years.