Visiting Artists

The Visual Arts program brings in a diverse variety of visiting artists for campus talks and public gallery presentations that includes visual artists, filmmakers, sculptors, painters, playwrights, essayists, interactive and digital media artists.

All artists talks are free and open to all. This series is presented in partnership with the UBC Okanagan Gallery.

2023-2024 Visiting Artist Series

The Visiting Artist Series will be held in-person on Mondays at 10am in the University Theatre (ADM 026) as part of the CCS 150 Creative and Critical Art Theory class. These talks are open to the public. See below for details on each artist.

 

Briar Craig

Monday, January 15 | BRAIR CRAIG

10:00 am, University Theatre (ADM 026)

Briar Craig is a Professor in the Department of Creative Studies at UBCO. Briar Craig’s studio practice and art making interests focus almost exclusively in the area of screenprinting.

His work has been exhibited around the world in over twenty-five solo and over two-hundred and fifty group exhibitions.  Works are held in the permanent collections of the International Print Triennial Association in Krakow, Poland; the Istanbul Museum of Graphic Arts, Istanbul, Turkey; Purdue University Galleries, West Lafayette, Indiana; the Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada; the Japan Print Association, Yokohama, Japan; Guanlan International Print biennial, Guanlan, China; Penang State Art Gallery, Penang, Malasia; etc.

“One of the reasons that I have become an ardent printmaking advocate is for its ability to amalgamate and synthesize diverse imagery, materials, and approaches to art making. For me, print media allow incredible creative latitude and they perfectly reflect and form the foundations of much of our mass media-based culture.”

Starting in 2009, Briar Craig initiated and continues to co-organized the Okanagan Print Triennial in conjunction with the Vernon Public Art Gallery and the Kelowna Art Gallery.  From 2015 onward the OPT has been fully international.


Monday, January 22 | PUPPETS FORSAKEN (David Gifford)

10:00 am, University Theatre (ADM 026)

Puppets Forsaken is a sculpture/sound collaboration between Natali Leduc and David Gifford formed in 2019. Originally inspired by the intonarumori of Futurist Luigi Russolo, author of the manifesto“Art of Noises”(1913), they construct acoustic noise generators, and perform for old growth trees that are no longer there, theory symposiums, live radio and noise shows.They sold two copies of their first album, Greatest Hits. They also entered a telekinesis competition, which they lost.

David Gifford makes Causality Assembly Machines in his back yard modelling the global, inevitable, cumulative and irreversible. A co-founder of the Ministry of Casual Living artist-run centre, and one half of the noise duo Puppets Forsaken, he is a lecturer of drawing and colour theory at the University of Victoria. Demonstrations of studied mysteries can be made by appointment with the artist.


 

Monday, January 29 | JUDITH SCHWARZ

10:00 am, University Theatre (ADM 026)

Judith K. Schwarz is a practicing artist and art educator, nationally recognized for her sculpture and public artwork.  Over a 30-year career she has developed projects through Artist Residencies including the Paris Studio, France, Open Studio Print Shop, Toronto, the McIntyre Ranch in Southern Alberta, Artscape in Sydney Australia and recently, the Leighton Artist Studios at the Banff Centre for the Arts.

Judith Schwarz is an active Board Member of the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art, Kelowna, and currently is working on an artist book-work zs well as a project for the Kelowna International Airport.


 

Monday, February 5 | MILES THOROGOOD

10:00 am, University Theatre (ADM 026)

Miles Thorogood (Assistant Professor, Department of Creative Studies, UBCO) is sound artist and audio engineer at the University of British Columbia. He is the Principal Researcher at the SPIRAL Lab conducting research in the practice and theory of performance and sound arts.

His research centeres around the practice and theory in media arts for developing interactive and immersive experiences. His work has been featured in regional and international museums, galleries and, and performances festivals. The interactive installation and performance works frame the research in creative practice that brings meaningful contexts of experience and environment to the foreground using algorithmic processes combining art making, audio and visual media, databases, artificial intelligence, and network computing.


 

Monday, February 12 | ERIN SCOTT

10:00 am, University Theatre (ADM 026)

Erin Scott (she/they) is a time-based, interdisciplinary artist who lives on the unceded territory of the Syilx/Okanagan Peoples (Kelowna, BC). Erin is a founding member of Inspired Word Café, a literary and performing arts non-profit.

Their first chapbook, “Atrophy”, won the John Lent Poetry Prose Award 2019 and was published by Kalamalka Press in 2020. “to make it whole again”, their second chapbook, was published in 2021 with broke press. Their award-winning performance work has been hosted on stages across Canada. Moving into digital modes of writing and performance, their recent work features in Metatron Press’s digital edition “Glyphoria”, as well as being presented at the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art in early 2024. Erin holds an MFA in performance and writing and is currently a PhD student in Interdisciplinary Studies, Digital Arts and Humanities at UBCO. Her research and artistic work focus on community art practice, humour, motherhood, identity, and language


 

Monday, February 26 | KATHERINE PICKERING

10:00 am, University Theatre (ADM 026)

Katherine Pickering is based in Kelowna, British Columbia, on Okanagan-Syilx territory, where she is a Lecturer in painting and drawing in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan Campus.

Pickering’s artistic practice investigates the language of abstract painting through assemblages and other sculptural gestures. Pickering received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Arts from the University of British Columbia, Okanagan campus in 2006 and a Master in Fine Arts in Studio Art from Concordia University, Montréal, QC in 2009.


 

Monday, March 4 | SAMUEL ROY-BOIS

10:00 am, University Theatre (ADM 026)

Samuel Roy-Bois was born and raised in Quebec City. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Laval University in 1996 and an MFA from Concordia University in 2000. In 2013, he joined the University of British Columbia, Okanagan, where he currently serves as an Associate Professor of Sculpture in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies.

Roy-Bois’ artistic practice encompasses installation, sculpture, and photography, focusing on the built environment, vernacular practices, and art as an emergent phenomenon. His work has garnered national and international recognition, featured in exhibitions at esteemed institutions including the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the Audain Art Museum in Whistler, and the Esker Foundation in Calgary. Additionally, his pieces are included in numerous Canadian collections, such as the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the Vancouver Art Gallery, and the Simon Fraser Art Gallery. In recognition of his contributions, Roy-Bois was honored with the Vancouver Mayor’s Award in 2012 and VIVA Award in 2021.


 

Monday, March 11 | TANIA WILLARD

11:00 am, University Theatre (ADM 026)

Tania Willard, Secwepemc Nation and settler heritage, is an artist, curator and assistant professor in visual arts at UBC Okanagan, Syilx territories.

Her work as a curator and artist has been shown nationally with curated exhibitions of note, at Vancouver Art Gallery, Beat Nation: Art Hip Hop and Aboriginal Culture (2012-2014), at the Museum of Anthropology UBC, Unceded Territories: Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun and Landmarks 2017 in National Parks across Turtle Island. Willard’s ongoing collaborative project BUSH gallery, is a land-based gallery grounded in Indigenous knowledges in her home territories of Secwepemcúl̓ecw.


 

Monday, March 18 | MICHAELA BRIDGEMOHAN

10:00 am, University Theatre (ADM 026)

Michaela Bridgemohan is an interdisciplinary artist of Jamaican and Australian descent who spent her formative years in Mohkinstsis, also known as Calgary, and now gratefully resides on Syilx territory, Kelowna, B.C. She holds an MFA in Visual Arts from the University of British Columbia—Okanagan and received her BFA in Drawing (with Distinction) from the Alberta University of the Arts in 2017.

Bridgemohan’s artistic research, deeply rooted in her paternal Caribbean heritage, aims to redefine Black identity in Canada, emphasizing its multiplicity and multi-dimensionality. She values cultural ways of making as a legitimate form of artistic expression and creative power. Wood, Indigo and familial objects transform these immaterial anecdotal memories into material shadows—manifesting as domestic spaces, brown bodies and fertile terrain. Theoretical and contemporary writings inform her work on Caribbean-Canadian thought, Black Feminism, Hauntology, Relationality, Indigenous Knowledge and Land-based practices.

Bridgemohan’s work has been exhibited across Canada and Australia and has been incorporated in many community-engaged performances, workshops, artist talks, conferences and panels. Exhibitions include but limited to Grunt Gallery-Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen (Vancouver BC), Fort Gallery (Fort Langley BC), Lake Country Art Gallery (Lake Country, BC), Feminist Art Collective (Toronto ON), Diasporic Futurisms (Toronto ON), Art Gallery of Alberta (Edmonton AB), Stride Gallery (Calgary AB), The Marion Nicoll Gallery (Calgary AB), Whitebox Gallery (Brisbane QLD) and Jugglers Art Space (Brisbane QLD). Bridgemohan’s art practice wouldn’t be possible without the gracious support of the British Columbia Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts.


 

Monday, March 25 | Mat and Lukas Glenn

10:00 am, University Theatre (ADM 026)

Mat Glenn is an emerging artist from Kelowna BC, specializing in sculpture, installation, printmaking and digital media. His research explores materialism and ecological thought in the context of mass extinction. With a focus on visual the languages found in the outdoor-recreation-industrial-complex, Glenn uses action sports as a lens to reconsider vitality of nonhuman things and human-nonhuman assemblages. Glenn is a graduate from the University of British Columbia’s BFA program. Recent exhibitions include Earn Your Stripes at The New Gallery (Calgary), Creative Growth Centre for Spiritual Nourishment at Kelowna Art Gallery, and Equipment-Space at Lake Country Art Gallery.

Lucas Glenn is an emerging artist working in installation, digital media, and drawing. Glenn’s work proposes alternative models for human-nonhuman kinship, speculating in the context of climate collapse. Glenn works with materials like plant matter, snowmobile parts, found footage, reclaimed wood, hiking supplies, and electronics. His installations use play and world-building to explore material realities of extinction and resource extraction. Most recently his work is focused on taking materials designed for ecological domination and repurpose them as objects for ecological support and care; retools imagery, waste, and industrial equipment to create sporty irrigation systems, rugged compost shelters, and detail-rich dioramas. He attributes his resourceful, D.I.Y. approach to his upbringing in small-town BC.


 

Monday, April 8 | SHAWN SERFAS

10:00 am, University Theatre (ADM 026)

Shawn is an Associate Professor of Visual Art and Head of the Creative Studies Department, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies at the University of British Columbia. Although initially drawn to an academic career in the environmental sciences, he pursued Fine Arts and Art History degrees in Saskatchewan as well as a Master of Fine Arts degree in Alberta. He has taught for the University of Alberta and Brock University.

His research interests include contemporary painting concerning relational abstraction, environmental aesthetics, religion, the landscape, as well as issues bordering abstraction and representation. He has been awarded grants from Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and the Saskatchewan Arts Board. Shawn has been professionally exhibiting for over twenty years and his work can be found in public and private collections across Canada, US, Europe, Hong Kong, and the Caribbean.


 

Past Visiting Artists

Fall 2023

Dick Averns is an internationally exhibited sculptor and award-winning artist, Dick Averns has established a vibrant, socially engaged art practice. The content of his mulyi-disciplinary oeuvre recalibrates the commodification of space: probing how mental and physical spaces are valued, bought, sold, exchanged, and contested. Since being deployed as an official war artist with Canadian troops in the Middle East, Averns’ work has toured nationally and been featured in numerous publications. In addition to exhibiting at museums and galleries, he also maintains an active presence through public art.

Donald Lawrence uses combinations of photography, sculpture, drawing, and installation to explore the meeting place of urban and wilderness culture. Several on-water projects, such as the Underwater Pinhole Photography Project (since 1997), Kepler’s Klepper (2011), and the Coastal Cameras Obscura (since 2014), connect Lawrence’s interests in sea kayaking and the ocean environment to a long-standing fascination with early and prephotographic optical apparatuses.

Winter 2023

Wanda Lock’s practice is based in painting and expands into drawing, collage, and installation. Her works often plays with themes of domesticity, nostalgia, and banality. She also has a curatorial practice and has been working as the curator of the Lake Country Art Gallery since 2015.

Austin Clay Willis’s works are inspired by temporary construction, DIY structures, childish forts, East Vancouver alleyways littered with broken cabinets and forgotten bed frames, industrial dumpsters filled with debris from construction sites, and the sorting bins at city recycling dumps. The installation deals with ideas of industrial and personal waste through the collection, recycling, and upcycling of common industrial material. The incorporation of these concepts becomes a source for reimagining and recontextualizing derelict and deteriorating debris. By referencing the processes of building and (inevitably of decaying), the use of found, reclaimed, and recycled material gives opportunity for new life to perhaps forgotten objects.

Hanss Lujan Torres’ research and curatorial practice consider subjugated archives, queer temporalities, and alternative futures in contemporary art. Hanss is the research coordinator for the Indigenous Futures Research Centre. In addition, he has worked with several arts organizations in British Columbia, including Oxygen Art Centre, the Lake Country Art Gallery, Two Rivers Gallery, the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art, and the Kelowna Art Gallery.

Terrance Houle (Niitsitapi/ Saulteaux) is an internationally recognized interdisciplinary media artist and a member of the Kainai Nation/ Blood Tribe. Involved with Aboriginal communities all his life, he has travelled to reservations throughout North America participating in Powwow dancing along with his native ceremonies.

Artists David & Jorden Doody hosted a walking tour of the Uptown Mural Project. The Uptown Mural Project is an inclusive and educative urban art initiative held in Rutland BC that is supported by the Uptown Rutland Business Association.

JJ Levine is an image-based artist living in Tiohti:áke/Montreal, known for his compelling body of work in portraiture. Represented by ELLEPHANT (Montreal), Levine’s artwork has been exhibited at museums and galleries internationally. A major retrospective of his work, JJ Levine: Queer Photographs, was recently on view at the McCord Museum (Montreal).

Lindsay Kirker’s paintings take their cue from the rapid expansion of the urban landscape; surveying a curiosity and fascination with the built environment and a concern for the nature that surrounds us. By utilizing the tools of perspective Kirker reflects on our relationship with nature.

Fall 2022

Julian Yi-Zhong Hou (b. 1980) is a multidisciplinary artist that currently resides in Vernon, on the unceded land of the Syilx peoples of the Okanagan Nation. His work centres around contemporary mystical themes including consciousness, divination, and symbology.

Hannah Rickards’ interdisciplinary practice explores the non-linear dynamic between site, gesture, staging and recording, integrating the language of performance, film, drawing and installation. Rickards has held solo exhibitions at The Polygon Gallery, Modern Art Oxford, the Fogo Island Gallery, Artspeak, The Whitechapel Gallery and The Showroom Gallery, London.

Christine Howard Sandoval is an interdisciplinary artist who lives and works in the unceded territories of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Musqueam First Nations and is an Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Praxis in the Audain Faculty of Art at Emily Carr University (Vancouver, BC).

Amy Fung, Divya Mehra, Kim Ngugen, Asian Brain Trust was founded in 2014 by Amy Fung (Scorpio), Divya Mehra (Scorpio), and Kim Nguyen (Cancer) as an arts research collective. Together they have lectured and presented in international conferences on the topics of race, power, violence, and performance in contemporary visual arts.

RYAN! Elizabeth Feddersen specializes in creating interactive murals, site-specific installations, and immersive public artworks that invite audience engagement.

Ericka Walker’s print works and site-specific murals subvert the propagandistic function of nostalgia in contemporary culture, disputing the civilizing influence and assumed moral authority of nation building in North America.

Diane Borsato (BFA York University, MFA Concordia University, MA Performance Studies, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University) was awarded the Victor Martyn-Lynch Staunton Award from the Canada Council for the Arts, and was twice nominated for the Sobey Art Award.

Lisa Myers (Beausoleil First Nation, born in Oakville, ON, Canada; lives in Port Severn and Toronto, ON, Canada) is an independent curator and artist with a keen interest in interdisciplinary collaboration.

Natalie Ball, “I make art as proposals of refusal to complicate an easily affirmed and consumed narrative and identity without absolutes.”

Nicholas Galanin, who’s work offers perspective rooted in connection to land and an intentionally broad engagement with contemporary culture.

Hellen Reed and Hannah Jickling, who’s collaborative projects take shape as public installations, social situations, and events that circulate as photographs, videos, printed matter, and artists’ multiples.

Krista Belle Stewart, who works with video, land, performance, photography, textiles, and sound, drawing out personal and political narratives inherent in archival materials while questioning their articulation in institutional histories.

Derya Akay, who approaches everyday objects, materials and experiences as rich sites of knowledge and meaning.

Brenda Draney, who’s work visually represents the moment when vulnerability is exposed, while encouraging the viewer to reject the notion to dominate the void where horror, poignancy, or powerful moments exist.

Cedric Bomford’s work often focuses on the power dynamics established by constructed spaces and takes the form of large-scale rambling ad hoc architectural installations.

Tsema Igharas is an interdisciplinary artist and a member of the Tahltan First Nation. She uses Potlatch methodology to create conceptual artwork and teachings influenced by her mentorship in Northwest Coast Formline Design at K’saan (2005/06), her studies in visual culture and time in the mountains.

Mia Feuer is an interdisciplinary sculptor born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She received her MFA from the Department of Sculpture + Extended Media at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Ian Johnston’s current work Fine Line has switched attention from consumer culture to the obsessive-compulsive behavior that appear to epitomize it.

Patrik Andersson, Associate Professor in Critical + Cultural Studies. He teaches contemporary art and ideas which are informed by his freelance activities as an art critic and curator with interests ranging from conceptual art to design disciplines.

Colleen Heslin, explores medium crossovers between painting, sculpture, fibers and photography.

Liz Magor, one of Canada’s most important contemporary sculptors.

Myfanwy MacLeod, who’s work is trademarked by her wry sense of humour, and her layered referencing of consumer and popular culture..

Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes, artist, filmmaker, writer, and designer who explores the resonance of genetic cultural memory through the mystical and the mundane.

Carol Sawyer, a visual artist and singer who works with photography, installation, video, performance, and improvised music.

Brian Jungen, a significant Canadian sculptor and multidisciplinary artist who simultaneously explore traditional and contemporary approaches to art making.

Christian Nicolay, his diverse body of work employs a wide range of media and techniques including drawing, painting, sculpture, video, sound, performance and installation.

Paul Wong, a media-maestro making art for site-specific spaces and screens of all sizes.

James Nizam, who’s art practice investigates photography within an expanded field of operations that consider the relationship between performance, sculpture, and architecture.

Jennifer Stillwell who primarily works with sculpture and installation.

David Kang, who’s work plays with languages – visual, written, and spoken to seek out moments of miscegenation and mistranslation

Althea Thauberger, who’s film/video and performance projects often invoke provocative reflections of social, political, institutional, and aesthetic power relations.

Adam Kuby, who’s work engages the built and natural worlds to foster a sense of connectedness in our increasingly fractured environments.

Raymond Boisjoly works with photographic and video images, text and objects.

Elizabeth McIntosh’s work reveals itself through the multiplicity of visual interpretations and understandings, shying away from aesthetic resolution.

Sarah  Burwash, who works in narrative drawing, watercolor, and illustrational drawing, she is also active in video, animation, ‘zines and artist book works.

Damian Moppett, multi-media artist using photography, sculpture, drawing, video and painting.