As if Mother Nature hadn’t done a bang-up job of making Vancouver’s North Shore a breathtaking sight to behold, the cities have upped the game with a generous public art program reflecting North Van’s rich heritage and culture. Grab a map and explore over 150 outdoor pieces, in between visits to the many galleries, theatres and gardens that make the North Shore more than just a pretty place.
Art in the Community Presents Sande Waters: BOXED
Sande Waters grew up in North Vancouver. She then lived and explored the BC coast on a sailboat for many years, eventually settling
more
Event Details
Art in the Community Presents Sande Waters: BOXED
Sande Waters grew up in North Vancouver. She then lived and explored the BC coast on a sailboat for many years, eventually settling on Cortes Island for a decade. For many years now she has resided adjacent to the ocean by Cates Park. Consequently, the ocean has stimulated her senses and profoundly influenced her as an artist, inspiring her to paint intuitively as a method of expression.
The act of creating art is often described as a dialogue between the artist and the artwork. Paintings often speak to the artist about what is needed next in the conversation, as the pigments themselves have the potential to become an influential voice in the direction of the entire composition. Her colourful and fluid abstract paintings represent a fascination with how chaos can emerge in one’s life, no matter how carefully we plan.
Working with acrylic paint and ink on canvas or paper, Waters creates organic forms, by allowing the paint and ink to “do its own thing” layer upon layer. Her intuitive, bold, and energetic paintings reflect a synergistic process of letting go, spontaneous gestural abstractions that are transformed into images of significance by the artist.
Waters is compelled by the process of bringing the uninhibited, undefined, and indescribable, into physical form. By constructing boxes made from her paintings on paper, she juxtaposes the abstract with the tangible. By acknowledging the “Box”, Waters invokes numerous contemporary narratives. She perceives the boxes as a metaphor for diversity as they are various sizes, and each one has a unique painting on the surface. A “Box” is also an object of desire, a vessel of containment and mysticism, which establishes its power. The “Box’ signifies a contemporary form, which speaks to our global economy and prosperity. All these qualities define the concept of my boxes.
Waters received her BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Vancouver and MFA from San Francisco Art Institute, California. She currently volunteers as the Assistant Art Curator at Lions Gate Hospital for the Healing Power of Art program. She was the Vice President on the Board of Directors at Seymour Art Gallery, North Vancouver, BC and on the Board of Directors for the Contemporary Art Society of Vancouver as Chair of the Artist Prize. Her work has been shown and collected in Canada, USA and Europe. She lives and works in Deep Cove, North Vancouver, BC as a guest on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw, Stó꞉lō, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.
Feature image:
Sande_Waters, Boxes #1, Acrylic on paper 2019 NFS 16x27x20
Response: Remembering Our Futures is the culmination of the Response Program, an annual filmmaking initiative that inspires artistic responses to historical and contemporary Indigenous ways of being. Participants engaged in
more
Event Details
Response: Remembering Our Futures is the culmination of the Response Program, an annual filmmaking initiative that inspires artistic responses to historical and contemporary Indigenous ways of being. Participants engaged in a series of workshops led by Indigenous artists and Knowledge Holders during the summer of 2024 to produce an original video work on view in The Polygon Gallery’s Seaspan Pavilion from March 5 to April 4, 2025.
Past generations, stories, and histories influence the way we look toward our futures, inciting care and intention as we imagine beyond current realities. By breaking down the dichotomy of past and present, we invite an all-encompassing understanding of the relationships that we hold. This year, participants were encouraged to consider experiences and connections that transcend time, and the ways in which formative influences remain vital and present throughout one’s life. Through techniques ranging from performance to animation, the artists’ films in Response: Remembering Our Futures embrace themes of healing, intimacy, belonging, and resistance.
Looking forward can feel uneasy during a time where so much seems uncertain, but Remembering Our Futures reminds us that our relationships exist in all directions, and tending to them allows us to see further than ourselves.
