Holly Mitchell is a British-Canadian abstract painter working in Whistler.
Throughout her work, Holly takes inspiration from nature and how the changing seasons alter her surroundings. Using lush colours and textures, Holly creates a rich emotional palate for her audience. Her canvases convey a tranquillity that welcomes pause and reflection as if you were experiencing a nature-scape.
Learn more about Holly’s work and upcoming exhibits by visiting her website or Instagram
MONOVA is looking at transportation on the North Shore through a historical lens with their latest exhibit: Are We There Yet? How did the early infrastructure decisions of almost a
MONOVA is looking at transportation on the North Shore through a historical lens with their latest exhibit: Are We There Yet? How did the early infrastructure decisions of almost a century ago shape our communities and how we move around today? The exhibit brings together rarely-seen archival materials dating back to the early 20th century, and tells a story of how communities were created on the North Shore, and with new roads and bridges, came more choices about where to live and work.
Museum of North Vancouver
115 Esplanade W, North Vancouver, BC V7M 0G7
Heather Woolley, an environmental designer and artist, finds inspiration in the West Coast’s landscapes. Her work fosters a dialogue between humanity and nature, emphasizing sustainability and community engagement. Central to Heather’s
Heather Woolley, an environmental designer and artist, finds inspiration in the West Coast’s landscapes. Her work fosters a dialogue between humanity and nature, emphasizing sustainability and community engagement.
Central to Heather’s practice is her passion project on rammed earth, where she explores the intersection of material technique, construction art, and sustainability. Through this endeavor, Heather aims to create enduring structures that harmonize with the environment while advocating for responsible building practices. Her goal is to inspire stewardship and sustainability in her viewers, promoting a deeper connection with the natural world.
Since 2011, Choi has been creating traditional Korean folk paintings, drawing inspiration from centuries-old techniques while also infusing them with her own creative expression. She primarily works with Oriental watercolour,
Since 2011, Choi has been creating traditional Korean folk paintings, drawing inspiration from centuries-old techniques while also infusing them with her own creative expression. She primarily works with Oriental watercolour, Mica Powder, and Hanji—a traditional Korean paper handmade from mulberry trees. She occasionally incorporates other traditional materials, such as Bunchae—a traditional Korean powdered pigment made by mixing finely ground natural or mineral pigments with animal glue— and Bongchae— a premium pigment made by mixing powdered pigments with animal glue and hardening the mixture into solid stick form.
The works featured in this exhibition reflect both homage and innovation. While rooted in the forms and motifs of traditional Korean folk painting, Choi’s works are not mere reproductions. Instead, she reinterprets and transforms these traditions, creating original pieces that embody both reverence and personal vision. Her goal is to highlight the enduring beauty and emotional depth of Korean folk art while bringing a fresh perspective that resonates with contemporary audiences.
Choi is particularly drawn to natural themes—peonies, birds, and other elements of the natural world—which are rich symbols in Korean culture.
Each piece is created through a meticulous process that may take up to six months, involving multiple stages: sketching, outlining, and layering of colours. Through this careful craftsmanship, Choi seeks to preserve the traditional while also exploring her own evolving artistic language.
Choi began her artistic journey in community art classes, initially painting as a hobby. Over time, her dedication and talent led her to participate in various competitions and exhibitions.
Experience a three-channel video installation, created by LA based multidisciplinary artist Justen LeRoy that speaks to Black environmentalism, Black resistance, and Black liberation.
Experience a three-channel video installation, created by LA based multidisciplinary artist Justen LeRoy that speaks to Black environmentalism, Black resistance, and Black liberation.
Surrey Art Gallery
13750 88 Ave
The You Are Here exhibit presents the original artwork selected for the 2026 You Are Here Fundraising Calendar. Artists submit artworks of places that are recognizably in North Vancouver or
The You Are Here exhibit presents the original artwork selected for the 2026 You Are Here Fundraising Calendar. Artists submit artworks of places that are recognizably in North Vancouver or West Vancouver. The 2026 You Are Here Calendar features Mount Seymour, Lonsdale Quay, Whytecliff Park, Seaview Trail, Horseshoe Bay, Grand Boulevard, Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve Gazebo, Lighthouse Park, Spirt Trail, Deep Cove and The Shipyards. This calendar is a fundraiser for the North Shore Culture Compass, a free online map featuring arts, heritage, and stories of the North Shore.
North Vancouver District Public Library, Lynn Valley Branch
1277 Lynn Valley Rd
This exhibit showcase stories from Surrey resident Yvon Lehoux, who served on two of the ships featured in the display. See archival photographs, personal memorabilia and more!
This exhibit showcase stories from Surrey resident Yvon Lehoux, who served on two of the ships featured in the display. See archival photographs, personal memorabilia and more!
Museum of Surrey
17710 56A Avenue
Edge Effects features a combination of new commissioned works and projects never before seen by audiences in Canada, such as Liz Magor’s still poignant Blue Students/Alumnos en azul (1997). Originally
Edge Effects features a combination of new commissioned works and projects never before seen by audiences in Canada, such as Liz Magor’s still poignant Blue Students/Alumnos en azul (1997). Originally commissioned by INSITE97, the public project centred on photographic portraits of students from the School of Creative and Performing Arts in San Diego, California, and the Preparatoria Federal Lázaro Cárdenas in Tijuana, Mexico, that were placed throughout both cities. The film negatives were pressed with paper covered in iron salts, which converted into positive blue images as they were exposed to sunlight. By the end of the installation period, only a few portraits had not been completely obscured, with the artist stating that the legibility of the images represented the power of circumstance and chance that governs people’s lives.
Photo credit: Jin-me Yoon, video still from As the Crane Flies Bunker (Sonic Transformations), 2025. 4K and thermal 3-channel video installation with sound, sandbags, netting, and wood. 15:05 minutes, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist.
Gibson Art Museum
Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art presents the world premiere of NDN Giver, from September 17, 2025 – January 25, 2026. Curated by the gallery’s Assistant Curator, member of
Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art presents the world premiere of NDN Giver, from September 17, 2025 – January 25, 2026. Curated by the gallery’s Assistant Curator, member of the Tsiits Git’anee clan, and passionate Haida Nation scholar Amelia Rea in her solo curatorial debut, the exhibition examines reciprocity, identity, and the evolving practice of gift-giving within potlatch traditions. Bringing together contemporary potlatch gifts such as prints and mugs alongside archival records of historical potlatches, NDN Giver features select pieces from Amelia’s personal collection as well as works by artists from communities across the coast, including the Haida and Heiltsuk Nations. For admission information and complete event details, visit: billreidgallery.ca
Bill Reid Gallery
639 Hornby Street
Phantom Scripts revisits three works by Geoffrey Farmer from the Audain Art Museum’s Permanent Collection — Vampire Archive, November 22, 1974 (2010 – 2025), The Politics of Appearing (2012 –
Phantom Scripts revisits three works by Geoffrey Farmer from the Audain Art Museum’s Permanent Collection — Vampire Archive, November 22, 1974 (2010 – 2025), The Politics of Appearing (2012 – 2025), The Good Sweeper (2017 – 2025)— reframing them through newly composed scripts, annotations, and didactic texts authored by the artist. The texts function as interjections — speculative, contextual, poetic — that reexamine and complicate the earlier works. In doing so, Farmer explores how art can be returned to, re-read, and re-situated under shifting historical and ethical awarenesses.
This exhibition is a return — not only to Farmer’s past works, and to the evolving conditions in which they are understood. Phantom Scripts highlights the artist’s curiosity to revisit the assumptions, forms, and the silences embedded in his earlier productions, treating the past not as fixed, but as an unsettled field of interpretation and implication. Early aesthetic elements remain — vivid, disorienting, alive — but are now considered by the artist within a broader awareness of colonial entanglements and queer disidentification, foregrounding the role of the museum not as neutral host, but as a site of complicity, memory, and potential transformation.
Audain Art Museum
4350 Blackcomb Way
Charles Atlas (b. 1949, St. Louis, MO) has lived and worked in New York City since the early 1970s. In 2024, the ICA Boston presented About Time, the first U.S.
Charles Atlas (b. 1949, St. Louis, MO) has lived and worked in New York City since the early 1970s. In 2024, the ICA Boston presented About Time, the first U.S. museum survey devoted to Atlas’ work. Other recent solo exhibitions include The Mathematics of Consciousness, a 100-foot long video installation commissioned by Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY (2022); Charles Atlas: Ominous, Glamorous, Momentous, Ridiculous, Fondazione ICA Milano, Italy (2021); and Charles Atlas: The past is here, the futures are coming and The Kitchen Follies, The Kitchen, New York (2018). Atlas’ work is included in the permanent collections of major institutions worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Art Institute of Chicago; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Tate Modern, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin; Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zürich; and De Hallen Haarlem, The Netherlands. In 2024, Atlas’ archive was acquired by The Getty Research Institute.
Contemporary Art Gallery
555 Nelson Street
Enemy Alien is the first major solo exhibition and retrospective of works by documentary photographer Tamio Wakayama. His career, spanning over fifty years, began with his photographs of the Civil Rights
Enemy Alien is the first major solo exhibition and retrospective of works by documentary photographer Tamio Wakayama.
His career, spanning over fifty years, began with his photographs of the Civil Rights Movement in the southern United States. Wakayama documented many of the social justice movements and countercultures of the 1960s and 70s. His work tells stories of community, joy and resistance in the face of injustice. The exhibition also highlights Wakayama’s documentation of Indigenous communities in Saskatchewan and the Doukhobors of eastern BC.
Vancouver Art Gallery
750 Hornby Street
For more than ten years now, the paintings of Sojourner Truth Parsons have trafficked in the saturated and sensorial. Plumbing the space between abstraction and legibility, feeling and form, the
For more than ten years now, the paintings of Sojourner Truth Parsons have trafficked in the saturated and sensorial. Plumbing the space between abstraction and legibility, feeling and form, the language of Parsons’ work is an intuitive one. Building depth through accretion, collapsing interior and exterior realms, and traversing a shifting set of references — from the history of dance to the Gee’s Bend quilts of Alabama to her garden in the Catskill Mountains — her paintings give shape to intensities both atmospheric and embodied.
Louise brings together a selection of works produced by the Vancouver-born, New York-based artist over the past several years, surveying the dexterity of her movement between figuration and form and her canvases’ elemental approach to sensation, texture and tone. Titled after the work of poet Louise Glück — known for her decades-long meditation on the illusions and agonies of the self — the exhibition traces the enduring emotional registers, both individual and collective, that occupy Parsons’ time in the studio: desire, loss, isolation, redemption, resurgence.
Contemporary Art Gallery
555 Nelson Street
Kintsugi, the Japanese art of “golden joinery,” is a 500-year-old tradition of repairing broken ceramics with natural Urushi lacquer and powdered gold. Rather than disguising damage, it highlights it—honoring imperfection
Kintsugi, the Japanese art of “golden joinery,” is a 500-year-old tradition of repairing broken ceramics with natural Urushi lacquer and powdered gold. Rather than disguising damage, it highlights it—honoring imperfection and the passage of time.
Vancouver-based artist Naoko Fukumaru draws on this ancient practice as both a craft and a meditative process. Through her work, she offers a powerful metaphor for personal healing: like broken pottery, our cracks can become part of our story—transformed, illuminated, and made beautiful.
Respecting traditional materials and methods, Fukumaru also pushes the boundaries of kintsugi through instinctive, innovative techniques. Her approach redefines what restoration can mean—bridging history and emotion in work that is both raw and radiant.
This exhibition invites viewers to reflect on what it means to be beautifully broken—and to find strength and beauty in the imperfect.
Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Center
6688 Southoaks Crescent, V5E 4M7
Showcasing Surrey’s own athletes and game-changers alongside national icons, this engaging and interactive exhibit explores Canada’s deep-rooted relationship with its national winter sport. This original Museum of Surrey-curated experience celebrates the
Showcasing Surrey’s own athletes and game-changers alongside national icons, this engaging and interactive exhibit explores Canada’s deep-rooted relationship with its national winter sport.
This original Museum of Surrey-curated experience celebrates the unifying power of hockey, highlighting its diversity, cultural significance, and impact on local communities.
Visitors will also learn about grassroots initiatives, women’s hockey, para hockey, Punjabi broadcasters, and the achievements that shape both local and national hockey culture.
Museum of Surrey
17710 56A Avenue
Connected through waters and shared territory, this exhibit features Squamish and Lil̓wat fashion and accessory designers with guest artists from the Northwest Coast. Through contemporary expression, Indigenous designers represent their
Connected through waters and shared territory, this exhibit features Squamish and Lil̓wat fashion and accessory designers with guest artists from the Northwest Coast. Through contemporary expression, Indigenous designers represent their identities rooted in lineage, land, and culture, shaping the future of fashion. Featuring works selected by Guest Curator Rebecca Baker-Grenier, an Indigenous Designer of Kwakiutł and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh ancestry.
Squamish Lil'Wat Cultural Centre
4584 Blackcomb Way
We who have known tides begins from a poetic inquiry that seeks to understand what it means to exist at the edges of the Pacific Ocean. We who have known
We who have known tides begins from a poetic inquiry that seeks to understand what it means to exist at the edges of the Pacific Ocean. We who have known tides is an examination that unveils the ways in which the ocean and living in proximity to it has shaped the work of Indigenous artists, as well as their relation to territories across land and water, and their connections to communities that have witnessed the tides change for thousands of years. Drawn predominantly from the Vancouver Art Gallery’s permanent collection, this exhibition asks us to consider where we are on a deeper level, looking to the ocean as a way of understanding how this place is ever changing.
Vancouver Art Gallery
750 Hornby Street
This exhibition explores one of the most intense and productive chapters in the professional life of American photographer Lee Miller. Between 1932 and 1945 Miller was simultaneously a renowned portrait
This exhibition explores one of the most intense and productive chapters in the professional life of American photographer Lee Miller. Between 1932 and 1945 Miller was simultaneously a renowned portrait photographer running her own studio in New York (1932—1934), a photographer for perfume and cosmetic brands in advertising (1932—1945), and a fashion photographer and war correspondent for the British edition of Vogue (1939—1945). This short time span encompasses a rich history in which the photographer moved between and linked her various practices. Miller’s diverse professional activities, and the ease with which she stepped from one context to another, reveal a photographer whose work was defined primarily by its exchange and commercial value. Lee Miller: A Photographer at Work reveals the inner dynamics of managing a photography career amid the myriad challenges facing professional women at the time. The exhibition offers a rich and complex portrait of this important figure, previously known best for her collaboration with American artist Man Ray and her close ties to the Surrealist movement of the 1920s.
The Polygon
101 Carrie Cates Court
Within The Mould, Against the Grain establishes itself as a case study on the genealogies and emergence of Black culture from within the Continent ( Africa) and across the diaspora. Utilizing
Within The Mould, Against the Grain establishes itself as a case study on the genealogies and emergence of Black culture from within the Continent ( Africa) and across the diaspora.
Utilizing Deforrest Brown Jr’s seminal text (Assembling A Black Counter-Culture) and Stuart Halls’s assertions on Black popular culture and identity as conceptual points of departure, this exhibition investigates the similarities, differences and connections that exist between instances of Black cultural production that have emerged from the Western Black diaspora as well as the Continent. Though united under the shared identity marker of “Black”, each one holds nuance based on separate histories, traditions, material conditions and varying stakes.
Through an intimate coalescing of lens-based works, schematics and sonic installations works, exhibiting artists Tati Au Miel, Odartey Aryee, Deforrest Brown jr, and Isabel Okoro expand on existing theoretical and conceptual frameworks that consider Black artists as knowledge keepers and producers, insisting that Black cultural identity, like Black cultural production, is a robust and complex process of both becoming and being that is ongoing.
Exploring themes like traditional spirituality, embodied knowledge, the limits of representation, global Black identity, and the tensions between appropriation, commercialization, and Black cultural production, this exhibition exemplifies the politics of style and oppositionality that position Black cultural production as existing against the grain, despite the hegemonic forces that attempt to dilute and subvert its potential.
The Black Arts Centre
The exhibition brings together artists Mike McNeeley, Chuck Melnychuk, and Sandrine Umuhoza in collaboration with WePress Community Arts Space. Their works reflect on lived experiences and social conditions of Vancouver’s
The exhibition brings together artists Mike McNeeley, Chuck Melnychuk, and Sandrine Umuhoza in collaboration with WePress Community Arts Space. Their works reflect on lived experiences and social conditions of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside—narratives that also hold relevance with communities in Surrey.
Aligned with WePress’ commitment to working with those most impacted by systemic injustice, What Bodies Know grew from community workshops centering immunocompromised and disabled participants. These workshops focused on expressions of collective care, with McNeeley, Melnychuk, and Umuhoza contributing as peer workers. In these roles, they offered guidance, shared knowledge, and helped cultivate a supportive space grounded in accessibility.
Developed alongside the exhibition, descriptive and extend labels will provide visual details of the artworks, creating an inclusive experience that supports deeper engagement and understanding. Altogether, What Bodies Know reflects a collaborative and creative process, highlighting how art can serve as a tool for community connection and transformative dialogue.
Surrey Art Gallery
13750 88 Ave
An extended presentation of the Audain Art Museum’s Permanent Collection, From Sea to Sky celebrates the collection’s evolution from its inception in 2016 to the present. Built on the generous
An extended presentation of the Audain Art Museum’s Permanent Collection, From Sea to Sky celebrates the collection’s evolution from its inception in 2016 to the present. Built on the generous donation of over 200 works by Founders Michael Audain and Yoshiko Karasawa, the AAM’s Acquisition Committee has since guided the holding’s expansion through purchase, commission, and donation, to almost 300 outstanding pieces representing the art of British Columbia. Carving, painting, and photography serve as the pillars of the collection, featuring notable works by artists active from the mid-nineteenth to early twenty-first century. Such a display offers a unique visual evocation of the cultural differences that continue to shape BC’s socio-political identity.
From Sea to Sky showcases familiar masterpieces alongside newly acquired and previously archived works of art. These pieces by artists from the province, and those inspired by local environs, are all housed in Patricia and John Patkau’s stunning example of contemporary West Coast architecture. Among the active carvers and photographers of note are Robert Davidson, Dempsey Bob, Jeff Wall, Jin-Me Yoon and Stan Douglas, while paintings by Emily Carr, AY Jackson and BC Binning add a historical dimension to this sweeping display. Works acquired from Karin Bubaš, Rebecca Belmore, and Russna Kaur are indicative of a mid-point in their respective careers and each have also been featured in solo exhibitions at the Museum.
Audain Art Museum
4350 Blackcomb Way
The first solo-exhibition by Marika Swan, A Circle Strong Enough to Carry Both Sides explores her deeply woven understandings of the nature of duality held in all things. In elaborate,
The first solo-exhibition by Marika Swan, A Circle Strong Enough to Carry Both Sides explores her deeply woven understandings of the nature of duality held in all things. In elaborate, large-scale imagery, Swan depicts truths about the human experience through playful imaginings of spiritual realities. Using an emotional visual language entirely her own, Swan’s woodblock printmaking is informed by the rich philosophical and carving traditions of her Nuu-chah-nulth lineage. Introduced to printmaking as a tool for political organizing, her work speaks to the challenges and world we must face now. As the only public art museum dedicated to collecting works on paper, the Burnaby Art Gallery is honoured to host this exhibition, which features new works alongside Swan’s extensive portfolio.
Burnaby Art Gallery
6344 Deer Lake Avenue
The Museum of Anthropology (MOA) at UBC presents the world premiere of Entangled Territories: Tibet Through Images, on display from November 20, 2025 to March 29, 2026. Curated by Dr.
The Museum of Anthropology (MOA) at UBC presents the world premiere of Entangled Territories: Tibet Through Images, on display from November 20, 2025 to March 29, 2026. Curated by Dr. Fuyubi Nakamura, in collaboration with Tibetan-Canadian community members and artists, the bilingual exhibition explores Tibet’s rich cultural heritage alongside its current political context, through the lenses and voices of the Tibetan diasporic community. The exhibition features photography, letters, objects, and belongings from MOA’s archives alongside contemporary contributions from Tibetan-Canadian artists: Lodoe Laura will have several works on display, alongside the screenings of two short films from filmmaker Kunsang Kyirong, whose work was recently screened at the Toronto and Vancouver International Film Festivals. MOA will celebrate the opening of Entangled Territories on November 20, 6–9pm, with free museum admission for all. To learn more about the exhibition, as well as ancillary events, visit moa.ubc.ca
Museum of Anthropology
6393 N.W. Marine Drive
The Potters Guild of BC enters its 70th year with its newest exhibition – Earth, Fire and Form: A BC Ceramics Celebration featuring the work of over 50 BC artists.
The Potters Guild of BC enters its 70th year with its newest exhibition – Earth, Fire and Form: A BC Ceramics Celebration featuring the work of over 50 BC artists. All works are for sale and there is a mug wall.
Artist talks on Saturdays, 2 – 3pm: November 29, December 6, 13, 20 & January 10
Italian Cultural Centre
3075 Slocan St, Vancouver, BC
Where Mountain Cats Live is a lush invitation for strengthening community bonds, while acknowledging the precarity that we often build our roots upon. Via table-based installation, prints, and accompanying artist’s
Where Mountain Cats Live is a lush invitation for strengthening community bonds, while acknowledging the precarity that we often build our roots upon. Via table-based installation, prints, and accompanying artist’s books, artist Jenie Gao collapses layers of global and local colonization, childhood memories, and familial narratives of home, displacement, and perseverance, embedded in individual objects.
The centrepiece of this exhibition is the iconic ‘lazy Susan’ table, a post-colonial innovation emblematic of Chinese American and Canadian restaurants. The table features hand-carved images of rabbits and cats in a cyclical chase, from a story that Gao’s mother tells of her bravery while facing ‘mountain lions’ outside her childhood home on a mountainside in Keelung, Taiwan. The work captures a moment when a mother’s stories are suspended between a child’s imagination and an elder’s recollection, and as Gao deals with their present-day dilemmas: the predatory realtors encroaching upon their mother’s home in rural Kansas, increasing pollution and land destruction, and the stubborn resilience of native flora and fauna that nevertheless persist and return.
Where Mountain Cats Live is an investigation of material culture, an homage to the ‘imagination of the oppressed,’ and a love letter to Jenie Gao’s mother and extended communities who, in the face of many uncertainties, maintain a sense of home.
Grunt Gallery
350 E 2nd Ave, Vancouver, BC
Featuring artworks by gsindlinger, Colby Lincoln, Matthew Hildebrandt, and Robin Smith January 3 – 31, 2026 Opening reception: January 3, 6 – 8 pm. Free & open to the public. Gallery hours: Tuesday
Featuring artworks by gsindlinger, Colby Lincoln, Matthew Hildebrandt, and Robin Smith
January 3 – 31, 2026
Opening reception: January 3, 6 – 8 pm. Free & open to the public.
Gallery hours: Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 6pm
This month, we are pleased to present works by four artists we have not previously exhibited. gsindlinger is a self-taught mixed media artist based in Vancouver, BC. Colby Lincoln works in ink and pencil and is based in Duncan, BC. Matthew Hildebrandt is a self-taught painter who lives and works on Denman Island, BC. Robin Smith is a self-taught book artist living and working in Ladysmith, BC.
Colby Lincoln
“I began to focus more seriously on my art in high school, during a time when my sense of belonging and understanding of my place in society was unraveling, and art became my only immediate source of meaning and stability amid that alienation. Encouraged by a close relationship with my high school art teacher, I applied to and was accepted into the four-year fine art program at UBC Okanagan, completing my first year with mixed experiences before losing faith in the pursuit and leaving the program early in my second year. What followed was a prolonged period of difficulty, during which I briefly stopped making art before ultimately returning to it; since then, my practice has been the central focus of my life and a vital source of purpose and direction. Aside from my initial year of formal education, my artistic development has been entirely self-directed, shaped by my internal experience rather than academic structures.”
Matthew Hildebrandt
Matthew is a self-taught artist living on Salt Spring Island.
“My work centers on the relationships we have with one another, ourselves, and all the other wildernesses in which we live.
Nature as a thing inside us, not an opposing force. Life without opposite sides. A singular wholeness to which all life belongs.
This is what I paint.
Presently the subject matter for my work comes more from my dreams than anything else, but my experiences with nature and other human beings also inspire much of my work. Exploring the use of symbolism rather than realism, to convey ideas, feelings, and relationships, I blend ancient ideas with a modernist perspective and palette, creating paintings that live in a world that is both familiar and unique”
Robin Smith
Artwork grows from an exploration of sustainable fashion, eco-dyeing, felting, and bookbinding, rooted in the influence of India Flint and her School of Nomad Arts. Guided by the concept of topophilia, my practice is shaped by attentiveness to place, patience, and trust in process, allowing ideas to emerge organically through close listening to nature. I dye pages using local berries, plants, mushrooms, and trees, transforming old books, maps, and vintage marine charts—infused with salt water, memory, and landscape—into journals, sketchbooks, and artworks that carry the essence of their environment. Ideally, each journal becomes a collaboration between me and the person who fills it.
gsindlinger
My art arises from thoughts, feelings, perception, and the impulse to bring their essence into the physical world. I am drawn to generative moments—when an idea arrives with force—and to the challenge of finding a direct, accessible way to realize it. Works like Fingertips and Slowglidelung emerged from dreams, memory, place, and emotional convergence, distilled into simple forms, limited colours, and elemental gestures that reflect how I move through life. While the imagery may appear minimal, the process is largely mental and can unfold over months. I aim to create work that is deeply idiocentric, embraces ambiguity, and resists clear recognition, inviting viewers to sit with uncertainty and respond through feeling rather than explanation. In confronting aging, illness, time, loss, fear, and other uncomfortable truths, I seek to hold space for both the difficulty of existence and the compassion, beauty, and kindness that persist alongside it.
The Ferry Building Gallery is proud to present Strange Land, featuring paintings by Emma Fish, Jean Bradbury, and Gregg Simpson that use the natural world as a mirror for human
The Ferry Building Gallery is proud to present Strange Land, featuring paintings by Emma Fish, Jean Bradbury, and Gregg Simpson that use the natural world as a mirror for human experience.
In her vibrant mountain landscapes, Emma Fish explores the emotional connection between people and place. Influenced by her life as a snowboarder and shaped by both her Australian roots and the dramatic Pacific Northwest, her work captures the constant push and pull between resilience, change, and belonging. Often painting on recycled plywood, she reflects on how identity is formed through lived experience and our ongoing adaptation to the environments around us.
Jean Bradbury invites viewers into an imaginative world where native and invasive species become metaphors for belonging, displacement, and coexistence. Painting on organically shaped plywood panels and creating forest-like installations, she highlights both harmony and conflict within shared ecosystems. These relationships mirror her own experience as a settler on Indigenous land, with each plant and animal acting as a stand-in for broader stories of arrival, impact, and interdependence.
Working at the edge of abstraction and surrealism, Gregg Simpson embraces the fluidity and transformation inherent in nature. Beginning his paintings spontaneously, he allows colour to move freely before shaping it through layers of drawing and erasure. Forms emerge and dissolve, suggesting figures, landscapes, or still life without ever fully settling. His evolving compositions reflect a world in motion, reminding viewers that creativity—and life itself—is a continual process of reinterpretation.
The Ferry Building Gallery
1414 Argyle Avenue
Unearthed Artifacts: Post-Cyberpunk Relics from a Forgotten Future January 9–18, 2026 | Opening Reception: Saturday, January 10, 12–4 pm THIS Gallery opens its 2026 season with Unearthed Artifacts, an exhibition of new
Unearthed Artifacts: Post-Cyberpunk Relics from a Forgotten Future January 9–18, 2026 | Opening Reception: Saturday, January 10, 12–4 pm
THIS Gallery opens its 2026 season with Unearthed Artifacts, an exhibition of new work by Vancouver-based artist Wilson Makgawinata. Drawing on the methodologies of speculative archaeology, Makgawinata constructs ceramic forms that appear as technological remnants from an unrealised future. His hybrid process—combining wheel throwing, handbuilding, and the integration of slip-cast components resembling ports, connectors, and mechanical fittings—produces objects that complicate the boundaries between vessel, device, and artifact.
Rendered in black mirror glazes and accented with cobalt and neon elements, these works evoke containment modules, reactor cores, and fragments of obsolete machinery. Their surfaces oscillate between engineered precision and organic irregularity, positioning the pieces as both materially tethered to the present and uncannily displaced from it.
By framing these sculptures as archaeological specimens, Makgawinata interrogates assumptions surrounding ceramics as a functional or tradition-bound medium. Instead, the exhibition prompts a broader inquiry: what forms of material evidence might our own technologically saturated era leave behind, and how might future societies interpret such traces?
Unearthed Artifacts invites viewers to consider not only the imaginative worlds these objects imply, but also the cultural, technological, and ecological narratives embedded in the material practices of our time.
THIS Gallery
268 Keefer St
Through the lens of contemporary artists’ engagement with the metaphorical and literal processes of fire and the spaces it creates and displaces, The Structure of Smoke includes works that problematize
Through the lens of contemporary artists’ engagement with the metaphorical and literal processes of fire and the spaces it creates and displaces, The Structure of Smoke includes works that problematize the poetic, structural and political aspects of fire. These works complicate the inherent contradictions of wildness and domestication, technological progress and social control, colonial conditions, rebirth and death. Holding a smoked mirror to contemporary society, the works in this exhibition offer ways to undo the familiar in how we approach our uncertain future.
Speculative in nature, The Structure of Smoke is associative, contextual and driven by artistic practices that disturb existing power relations and question their own conditions and structures. With a focus on ecologies, interconnectedness and relationality the works and curatorial premise consider relating to land, community, family and wildfire ecologies including the non-human. As we have seen with the migration of smoke across the globe and the birth of a regular fire season, the ways in which we live with fire require new strategies that embrace specific Indigenous and ecological knowledges and the ability to develop relations with fire beyond the spectacle and devastation of its impacts.
The Structure of Smoke is curated by Melanie O’Brian and Tania Willard and made possible with the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and our Belkin Curator’s Forum members.
Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery
1825 Main Mall, Vancouver
To turn down the noise of daily life, Fei Disbrow seeks out-of-the-way places where she can find small, unusual organisms. It is in these places where she observes and records
To turn down the noise of daily life, Fei Disbrow seeks out-of-the-way places where she can find small, unusual organisms. It is in these places where she observes and records unfamiliar, miniature lifeforms which are integral to this body of Disbrow’s work. Her research focuses on cryptogams, resilient and ancient organisms that cover 30% of earth’s soil surface and play a foundational role in ecosystems around the globe. Found in the Arctic, the desert, forests and cities, they are global extremophiles thriving in hostile habitats, capable of surviving death-like desiccation. This exhibition explores the rich, often-overlooked world of cryptogams—mosses, lichens, and algae—through Disbrow’s sculptural work.
Using a camera as a drawing tool, Disbrow captures these organisms without disturbing them. The images are printed directly onto metal, then cut out, using outlines that are intuitively determined. Sculpted to defy traditional format, the pieces are either gently bent to echo the subjects’ undulating topographies or mounted onto monochrome panels to form photographic relief collages. By isolating these remarkable lifeforms and shifting their scale, each piece – presented not just as a biological subject but as a visual wonder – becomes a quiet contemplation.
West Vancouver Art Museum
680 17th Street, V7V 3T2
Western Front is pleased to present a performance by Nina Davies in the form of an open rehearsal by the fictional Image Syncers. The performance extends Davies’ exhibition, which centres
Western Front is pleased to present a performance by Nina Davies in the form of an open rehearsal by the fictional Image Syncers. The performance extends Davies’ exhibition, which centres on a new video narrated through an episode of a invented podcast What’s Sizzlin’. In the episode, investigative journalist Teagan Carroll recounts her first encounter with an Image Syncer community at the Trio Comms Hall; a moment the live performance restages.
Upon arrival, guests are invited to explore the gallery, watch the video, and familiarize themselves with the Image Syncers and the world they inhabit. Upstairs, a Twitch-style livestream plays at the entrance to the Grand Luxe Hall, featuring a workplace vlogger from Wifi Vision—a company selling movement-data packages for humanoid devices—who hosts a wager on whether a customer is “a bot or not.” The customer has called to report a glitch in their movement-data bundle, and when asked whether the training data is sourced from the real world, the streamer discovers that it is—and that the movements captured belong to the Image Syncers, a group who mimic AI-generated gestures from synthetic videos. As the video unfolds, the streamer realizes that the customer is, in fact, a fully autonomous bot. Since the ultimate aim of Image Syncers is to connect with AI worlds, the streamer—an Image Syncer themself—recognizes this moment as a long-awaited point of contact and invites the bot, Loren, to join an Image Synching séance.
At this point, the rehearsal begins. To enter the room, guests will be asked to camouflage themselves within the synthetic worlds the performers attempt to reach; ceremonial garments will be provided. For those who prefer not to enter the space, viewing from adjacent rooms will also be available. Ring lights equipped with phones will be positioned both inside and outside the performance area, enabling the audience to witness the rehearsal through the same networked outputs the dancers use to communicate with the AI systems they hope to encounter.
Time:
6:00 & 8:00 p.m. (Jan 16 & 23) 1:00, 3:00 & 5:00 p.m. (Jan 17 & 24)
Western Front
303 East 8th Ave
Growing from the 2023 Gallery exhibition Invisible Fish, and inspired by the Joy Harjo poem “Remember,” remember the earth, remember the sky is a group show focusing on ancestral connections
Growing from the 2023 Gallery exhibition Invisible Fish, and inspired by the Joy Harjo poem “Remember,” remember the earth, remember the sky is a group show focusing on ancestral connections through land, air, and memory as experienced and understood by early career artists connected to this territory and in conversation with works from the Gallery’s permanent collection by Salish artists.
Using an array of mediums, including painting, digital art, sound, sculptural installation, ceramic, and natural materials, the artists reflect on themes connected to place and environment, family history and ceremonies, migration and diasporic identities, and spirituality. This exhibition also includes hands-on experiences with art, including a visitor invitation where one can contribute to an interactive sculpture, weekly piñata breaking referencing its history of celebration and ritual, a collaborative playlist where visitors can dedicate a song to their ancestors, and more.
“remember the earth, remember the sky is partially inspired by my work with children with the Gallery’s school program Sharing Perspectives: Indigenous Contemporary Art Workshop,” says Alanna Edwards, Curator of Art & Education Initiatives. “Children are full of joy, curiosity, and wonder and are open to new ideas. I hope all who visit, no matter their age, can come and ground themselves by remembering their ancestors, their connection to place, and their journey.”
Surrey Art Gallery
13750 88 Ave
The stage as a living being: ineffable, transcendent is the atmosphere of Paradisum. Hungary’s cirque dance company Recirquel, under the direction of the company’s artistic director and choreographer Bence Vági, brings
The stage as a living being: ineffable, transcendent is the atmosphere of Paradisum.
Hungary’s cirque dance company Recirquel, under the direction of the company’s artistic director and choreographer Bence Vági, brings intellectual rigour to traditional circus acts, braiding together vertiginous risk with a profound emotional core. Alive with a spiritual intelligence, Paradisum transfigures feats of strength and agility into iconographic images.
With its reference to a post-apocalyptic world, Paradisum summons archetypal figures, each engaged with the overwhelming effort of existence. Elevating aerial and groundwork, elements of stagecraft — a rippling black drape, a ladder, rings, a hoop — create otherworldly vistas. Underpinning the larger cosmological ideas with concrete manifestations, the work is both deeply grounded in the earth and yet defiant of gravity.
As the performers carve out moments of stillness and grace: the truth of the body emerges in all its primal antediluvian power. Rebirth is too limited a term: this is anima mundi (world soul).
Vancouver Playhouse
600 Hamilton Street
For more than two decades, the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival has been BC’s signature, mid-winter cultural event delivering audacious, innovative, contemporary works of live arts by acclaimed local, national,
For more than two decades, the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival has been BC’s signature, mid-winter cultural event delivering audacious, innovative, contemporary works of live arts by acclaimed local, national, and international artists.
Curated, multidisciplinary, international in scope—the Festival animates culture and accelerates social change with performance and multimedia projects that embrace creative risk and share a sense of cultural urgency.
Our artistic vision is to create new possibilities for artistic expression and how we relate to one another, expanding our sense of the world while challenging assumptions. As such, we seek to amplify our position as a connector, cultivating opportunities for artistic kinship and intercultural exchange through both live arts experiences, as well as community engagement and professional development initiatives. We think about accessibility as equity design, from the integration of tools that make our performances more inclusive for people with a range of lived experiences, to programming artistic work that rigorously centres audience experience through thoughtful dramaturgy.
Professional development opportunities at the Festival take many forms and forums. A highlight is the PuSh Industry Series: a performing arts industry initiative that brings together 200+ visionary local, national and international artists and arts workers to engage in professional development and curatorial research activities alongside the artistic Festival program. It’s an opportunity to collectively dialogue industry issues, to spark ideas, to make new connections, and to be transformed by live performance.
Various locations in Metro Vancouver
The Advance Theatre Festival 2026, produced by Ruby Slippers Theatre in association with the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts and Playwrights Guild of Canada, is curated by Zahida Rahemtulla. The
The Advance Theatre Festival 2026, produced by Ruby Slippers Theatre in association with the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts and Playwrights Guild of Canada, is curated by Zahida Rahemtulla. The Festival showcases new works written and directed by female identifying and gender non conforming artists who also identify as IBPOC.
Shadbolt Centre for the Arts
6450 Deer Lake Avenue
An exhibition of approximately 40 works from the collection of Montreal collectors, Lillian and Billy Mauer. Including photography, paintings and sculptures from this impressive international collection by artists such as
An exhibition of approximately 40 works from the collection of Montreal collectors, Lillian and Billy Mauer. Including photography, paintings and sculptures from this impressive international collection by artists such as by Carrie May Weems, Lorraine O’Grady, John Baldessari, Rosemarie Trockel, Doug Aitken, Tatiana Trouvé, Huma Bhabha, Frank Bowling, Betty Goodwin, and Annette Messager. Often drawn to politically and socially engaged art, the exhibition will present a selection of works which represent the breadth of the collection.
Griffin Art Projects
1174 Welch St
We’re thrilled to welcome artist Gloria Estefanell to Whistler Contemporary Gallery for a special one-night event filled with creativity, energy, and artistic discovery. Gloria will be joining us in person for
We’re thrilled to welcome artist Gloria Estefanell to Whistler Contemporary Gallery for a special one-night event filled with creativity, energy, and artistic discovery.
Gloria will be joining us in person for an intimate evening where guests can explore her newest works, learn about her process, and experience a live performance featuring one of her sculptural pieces — a captivating extension of her iconic skier paintings.
✨ Meet & Greet
Connect with Gloria in a relaxed, welcoming setting. Say hello, chat about her inspirations, and experience her warmth and creativity firsthand.
🎨 Live Demo & Performance
Gloria will create a painted wall element to accompany one of her sculptural skiers — a rare opportunity to watch her transform space through movement, colour, and texture. This performance reflects the same energy and falling-paint aesthetic seen in her paintings.
🎥 Behind-the-Scenes Stories
Gloria will share insights into her studio practice, including time-lapse videos and recent commissions, offering a deeper look into how she builds her dynamic compositions.
🍷 Drinks & Good Company
Enjoy a selection of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages as you mingle with other collectors and art lovers.
🖼 Sneak Peek at New Work
Gloria is sending new pieces ahead of her visit – a wonderful chance to view fresh works before they officially debut.
This will be a fun, casual, and inspiring evening – the perfect winter gathering for collectors, guests, and anyone curious about Gloria’s magical world of colour, motion, and contemporary performance art.
Join us on January 31st from 4:00–6:00 PM at the Hilton Gallery.
We can’t wait to welcome you for an unforgettable event with Gloria Estefanell.
RSVP link coming soon!
Whistler Contemporary Gallery
#110 - 4293 Mountain Square
