Arts and Entertainment

Paul Morin Studio at historic former Alton Town Hall to feature discussion on New Tango

November 20, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

Lydia Panart brought her dream of her life’s story in art, poetry, Tango dance and theatre to Paul Morin’s Gallery in Alton last weekend. It was the first time she had hung her paintings in a venue outside the Alton Mill Arts Centre since she had opened her own studio there in 2021.

It was also the first time Paul Morin had welcomed an exhibit of this scale since he purchased and converted the historic Alton Town Hall into his studio and gallery in 2015. Together, the two firsts put on a very beautiful and exciting revue, and Paul Morin realized his gallery could be ideal for this multi-arts living dream.

This weekend, on Saturday, Nov. 22, from 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., Panart will return to Morin’s Gallery for a cafe-style, intimate, casual talk about the New Tango.

The event will feature music and focus on “the importance of Astor Piazzola in the Argentinean music and internationally, some anecdotes about his life, and how Lydia’s journey is reflected in 16 of her own artworks inspired by his emotional compositions.”

Panart will be joined by actor Jorge Lipovetzky of The Mississauga Players Theatre.

Coming from Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1998 with her family, her (then) husband and three children, all aged three years old. Lydia Panart was to find a life deeply involved with the arts here in her new home in Canada.

Her background in Argentina was in architecture.

More than that, Panart studied fine arts with the famous Argentinian artist, Kenneth Kemble. He was one of the most controversial artists in the 1950s, but by 1983, he was voted the best teacher, and in 1985, the best artist, both awards from the Argentine Association of Art Critics.

Living in Mississauga, Panart began teaching art to students at several locations.

She said. “I was working in an architectural firm and then I moved to fine arts and started giving classes in many visual arts galleries: the AGO, McMichael Art Gallery (Canadian Art Collection). I love to teach; also at the Burlington Art Centre. I gained a lot of experience.”

In 2012, Panart took a studio in the Distillery District and was there for nine years – then COVID hit.

“I was looking for another studio in Sept. 2021, thinking if I try something new, but I couldn’t have anticipated this. I am a student of, and I love the history. I am so happy there. I found the Alton Mill and there was one studio available and I took it. I fell in love with the art scene, the area, the Mill.”

Panart is still doing painting classes in many places and workshops at the McMichael Gallery. As a vendor with the Peel School Board and also Wellington, she holds workshops, saying, “I don’t paint there but encourage students to work on larger panels. Since 2005, doing the visual arts in Mississauga, they got grants to bring artists in.”

Panart said she worried about the suppression of the arts in many schools, “If you don’t bring the kids into self-expression, they lose out. With experience in the arts, that can create amazing managers in business later on. I know how much the arts help.”

“Canada gave me the chance to work and share,” she said. “In all my solo shows, I am grateful.”

The New Tango tells a new life about immigrants living in a place and needing to talk about a new life, about love, friendship and sadness.

“The story was my journey – but universal; people could relate and join the venture with The Mississauga Players Theatre,” Panart said.

“If I have to walk in troubled waters, that’s another side of myself, and I bring it to the art.”

Susan Silva, theatre director, was writing and preparing to direct Vicki Chiapari, an actor with the Mississauga Players. Part of the story is based on one of Panart’s paintings.

“A Tango,” she said, “but you can sing it.”

“They believed in my dream and made it their dream; this is how we give this to the people,” said Silva.

The dancer, Olga Lucia Barrios, knew Astor Piazzola, which the event will focus on, broke with tradition; Piazzola talks about life through music. Barrios danced to the paintings.

On this Saturday, there will be music and an informal chat. Panart’s paintings will still be there, and music will be played.

A little bit of everything – all about community, with the comment, maybe to be thought about: “You paint outside yourself.”

Once it is hung on a wall for all to see, people see it as they do, not necessarily as the artist meant it.

One question left: an admission, a call for something she has not told anyone else, maybe not even herself.

She considered a moment and said, “One of the things I didn’t know when this dream, the clique that we have, is they did it with so much Minga – a Columbian idea meaning a collaborative effort for the sake of another. That spirit, it moves me.”

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