Dale Byhre

From rocky shorelines and the working boats along the West Coast, to the fighting ships of the World War II, my strong appreciation for both ships and the sea compels me to depict them with accuracy and reverence.

Shelley Wuitchik

For me, painting with encaustic creates a state of totipotentia: a latin term meaning the ability for all things. Encaustic painting is filled with such potential. Since the medium is incredibly malleable and fluid, I am able to mix it with vibrant pigments and embed sculptural elements. I seek to illustrate the flow of water, the dense weight of the earth and the flashy and volatile qualities of fire. I hope the luminosity and movement of my work offers the viewer the same spontaneity and transformation I experience as I paint.

Nathalie Lapointe

Recently awarded internationally for my works, my approach aims to evolve the practice or at least modulate the aesthetics of the current form of figurative artistic expression. This is the research I am conducting, seeking to find a new contemporary language without renouncing tradition.

Over the past 15 years, I have developed a personal technique for applying oil on metal panels, offering me freedom in gesture, which translates into a distinctive expression. However, this technique only holds value when accompanied by the ability to let go, where the movement must be executed with a free, instinctive, and unrestrained intention. Beyond the technique, I feel the need to evoke, with emotion and musicality in the gesture, a macroscopic atmosphere of nature freed from human exploitation. The idea of such harmony involves letting go, where the concept of representation is replaced by spontaneity. I am passionate, even obsessed, with aesthetics because I strive to evoke the pure emotion that nature generates in humans when in a state of conscious observation.

My work is essentially a continuous experimentation on my vision of this pure beauty that transcends time and cultures, in
connection with the soul. Materializing the intangible is a quest that inhabits me. I believe that representing beauty awakens a need for protection and conservation, which we greatly need as a dominant species. As Simon Brault aptly titled, "And if art could change the world?"

Lisa Riehl

I have always been Inspired by Nature. I love to simplify what I’m seeing and translate it into the feeling of being outside with nothing between me and nature, or the feeling of tranquility and vibrancy that is all around me. Nature’s beauty is all around us to see, touch and hear. It has a way of affecting our moods and it can help us to change our way of thinking for the better, from negative to positive. I believe that being exposed to Nature’s beauty can have a positive effect on our lives, in the way we look at things and the way we feel about ourselves. Perhaps my paintings can help bring this feeling of wonder and peace to others.

Each painting I create feels like a poem that is made visible. I can’t just give them boring names - they deserve so much more! So I title each painting with a phrase that, at least to me, evokes incredible meaning in my heart.

Christine Code

The ever changing nature and vast expanses of the "Land of the Living Skies" are commonly explored themes in my paintings. Working in oils, I enjoy the techniques of Impressionism and Tonalism as I aim to convey a particular mood or atmosphere in each piece, using varied brushwork and palette knife application to create interesting passages.

I regularly paint en plein air, taking my easel outdoors into the rolling hills and sprawling farmland. The knowledge gained through direct observation outdoors informs my larger paintings in the studio.

As an avid gardener and bird lover, I also derive much inspiration from my own back yard."

Martin Wasserfall

My work begins where others might see the end of a material’s life. I am drawn to metal that has already lived a story, rusted, bent, or discarded, and I see in it the possibility of renewal. Each piece carries a memory of its previous function, and through heat, hammer, and patience, I try to reveal its next form.

Nature is my greatest collaborator. The movements of birds, the intricate architecture of insects, and the quiet intelligence of natural patterns all influence the lines and gestures that emerge in my sculptures.

Working with recycled materials is both an environmental choice and a spiritual one, a reminder that transformation is always possible, and that beauty often arises from what has been overlooked. In every sculpture, I aim to preserve a sense of the metal’s raw truth while inviting a feeling of life and motion. The process is part dialogue, part discovery: I shape the material, and it, in turn, teaches me about resilience, balance, and impermanence. Ultimately, my work is about renewal, not just of materials, but of perception. It asks us to look again, to see vitality where we thought there was none, and to recognize that even in decay, there is still grace.

Susie Cipolla

The myriad techniques employed in my creative process are as varied as the themes that inspire me. While layering opaque paints and transparent glazes to create depth, my signature darks from the blend of my favourite transparent colours will frequently appear as the base. Keeping the palette relatively limited, I work with neutrals derived from the opposites on the colour wheel, balancing the values, temperature, shapes, forms and textures to create pieces that range from subtle monochromatic semi-abstract expressions to dynamic, purely abstract visual raptures of saturated colours.

Jeannette Perreault

I have developed a visual language that allows me great freedom. In capturing the beauty of ordinary objects, observing and portraying people interwoven in the intricate tapestry of life, be it a fragment of a theatre life, an ambiance of a café, an interior scene, I'm distilling the essence of a moment through the use of vibrant and harmonious colours and gestural lines. The study of light is central to my approach, which aims to render the atmosphere in a specific moment. I aim to evoke the emotion of being there and share these so simple and in fact extraordinary slices of everyday life. 

Gail Johnson

I feel privileged to have so much to paint - such beauty and rich, grounded experiences to draw from. I follow my brush . . . and taste the color.

Aleksandra Kalinic

To me painting is a powerful way to grow inside, communicate, explore and be free. Through creative process I get to know myself and the world better, and strive to express emotion and beauty of the moment.

Painting old towns, houses, roofs, windows feels like special kind of traveling. In some quiet, unobtrusive way they hide so many different lives and destinies but also have a life of their own. I am inspired by charming places I have visited and by people I met there, performers, dancers and passers-by on the street. Dancers fascinate me with their passion for beauty of the movement and joy of performing.

Using playful palette I strive to create poetic work filled with life, tenderness and a dose of hidden nostalgia and childlike imagination. I want to create the place where everything is connected in some beautiful way.

Through my portraits I study emotions and personalities as well as my relationship with the person if I know them well. I realize how fragile life is and treasure every moment I have with people I love so I challenge myself to see how well I will be able to express my love for them through my paintings.

For me art is a fascinating journey, with always present thought about simultaneity of beauty and fragility of life. 

Kato Rempel

Figure painting is my primary passion. My figurative oil paintings often embody a sense of longing for the unknown. We feel this in the dichotomy between what we see and what exists in our own inner world of our mind. In pushing subject matter, my figurative works range from expression of intimacy and connectedness to a narrative of strength and blossoming womanhood.

Rose Tanner

Birds sing, dance, fight, fly, court, breed, claim territory, pair for life, play the field and fool around. They hold funerals, have socials, eat fermented berries and perform mating rituals that leave me baffled. Many people do not see birds because they are small and fleeting, but with my paintings I want the viewer to connect with the birds, to see into their eyes and realize there is much more than expected. I hope my work inspires people to spend time outdoors and find a reason to be in nature.

Sharon Stone

I have been leaning towards abstraction the more I paint and even when I’m doing representational paintings and landscapes, there tends to be an element of abstraction in them. Shapes and colors really appeal to me. I love geometric forms and they appear throughout my paintings. The designs behind my paintings often emerge from focusing my attention on negative painting in the backspace and interesting color relationships, resulting in works of art that weave in and out of abstraction.

Eunmi Conacher

I describe myself as a contemporary impressionist and expressionist artist. My desire is to create paintings which bring energy to the canvas. My use of color, form, and texture is intuitive. My hope is that the viewers connect emotionally with the painting in their own way. The result I strive for is a painting from the heart.

Ed Oldfield

For 30 years I have explored, experimented, and questioned the wonders of Raku. I am starting to have a grasp on the process but am reluctant to say I know what I am doing as such a bold statement is sure to throw off one’s Karma. There are so many variables in the process it is difficult to duplicate any given result. I sometimes refer to it as Heart Break Pottery.
My work is heavily influenced by nature and most frequently by the ocean. I have spent a lifetime on the shores of the Salish Sea and it has provided me with much inspiration. My high School Art Teacher, William Calder, encouraged me when I was young and he was my mentor into university. To him I owe my teaching career as well as my art career. I will be forever grateful to him for his direction. Edward J. Hughes and Emily Carr are two of my favorite B.C. Artists. I try to learn something new each day as I continue to experiment with the infinite world of Raku.

Aleksandra Kalinic

To me painting is a powerful way to grow inside, communicate, explore and be free. Through creative process I get to know myself and the world better, and strive to express emotion and beauty of the moment.

Painting old towns, houses, roofs, windows feels like special kind of traveling. In some quiet, unobtrusive way they hide so many different lives and destinies but also have a life of their own. I am inspired by charming places I have visited and by people I met there, performers, dancers and passers-by on the street. Dancers fascinate me with their passion for beauty of the movement and joy of performing.

Using playful palette I strive to create poetic work filled with life, tenderness and a dose of hidden nostalgia and childlike imagination. I want to create the place where everything is connected in some beautiful way.

Through my portraits I study emotions and personalities as well as my relationship with the person if I know them well. I realize how fragile life is and treasure every moment I have with people I love so I challenge myself to see how well I will be able to express my love for them through my paintings.

For me art is a fascinating journey, with always present thought about simultaneity of beauty and fragility of life. 

Susan Woolgar

My artistic vision is being continuously refreshed, using visual language growingly unconstrained by the elements of realism. By abstracting the landscape and thus conveying the essence of a place or an idea of the subject matter being depicted, I strive to breathe energy into each piece by rendering forms and shapes with a sense of effortless spontaneity, while my use of colour becomes the key instrument in creating mood and evoking emotion.