Amy Van Dongen is an Okanagan artist, art therapist and owner of Bloom Art Therapy. As an art therapist, Amy believes that art is innately healing and enjoys the calming ability that an art practice offers.

Dear Diary, explores Van Dongen's inner world and life experiences. Each page is an image of how it felt to be Van Dongen, at that time of making it. Van Dongen also invites the viewer to interact with the work to explore the medium of black-out poetry. Explore Van Dongen's pieces amongst many blank pages where the viewer can interact with the pages directly on the glass. Then, come, sit back and relax, grab some art supplies and deep dive into your own altered book practice, where you will often find yourself writing a diary entry without trying. Books and materials are provided. 

Van Dongen hopes to open the door to creativity, to create quiet moments, and to help ground participants back to themselves. By offering take-home recycled books to the audience and a space for creating. Van Dongen hopes to spark a love of altered books, encourage using art to express emotions and most of all, encourage everyone to create time to just be themselves. The altered book itself can act as a metaphor for you to change an existing story, to create your own story that's uniquely yours. 

Combining words with visuals is Van Dongen's most authentic way of communicating her feelings. Each of us will have our own unique way of expressing our feelings visually. Giving us each the gift of a brand-new perspective. When choosing your book, really think about why you are drawn to it. Make sure the book is the right fit. Happy creating!

Dear Diary, will be on view in the Members’ Gallery from October 11 to November 2 2024.

You can learn more about Amy Van Dongen on her Instagram: @amyloreafineart  and @bloomarttherapy.amy

In New Noise: Okanagan Punk and Metal, Ari Pielecki explores the small but lively subculture of extreme music in the Okanagan Valley through a series of black and white photographs produced between August 2022 and August 2024. These images invite viewers to enter the world of extreme music and engage with subcultures that they may not have known existed in the Okanagan. New Noise is an ongoing project which serves as both a documentation and celebration of the bands and venues who make it possible for these scenes to survive. Pielecki is an independent Filmmaker and Photographer who currently resides in Kelowna, B.C. on the unceded territory of the Syilx Peoples. 

For the general public, Punk and Metal bring to mind images of violent and rebellious youth, or long-haired individuals covered in far too much spiked jewelry (both groups sporting denim vests covered in illegible band logos). While these stereotypes hold some truth, these music genres have historically been misunderstood by those who are not a part of the culture which surrounds them. The “scary” aesthetic of these genres symbolizes a shared musical interest, which helps Punks and Metalheads identify others who are part of their scene. Both the Punk and Metal music scenes share something beyond their intentionally inaccessible aesthetic: a devotion to community building, and a shared love for live music. For those who are immersed in them, these music scenes represent positive connection, as well as a safe space to exist in an ever-alienating world. 

New Noise: Okanagan Punk and Metal will be on view in the Members’ Gallery from September 13 - October 5, 2024.

Jordan Hill is a Coast Salish (T’Sou-ke Nation) new media artist from Vancouver Island whose work alludes to the blurred line between fact and fiction within contemporary culture. Hill questions how we navigate a spatially manipulated world where truth is incredibly difficult to locate both physically and virtually. He juxtaposes unexpected ideas and seemingly unrelated locales, uncovering the intersections between urban and rural facades in ways that transform how we think about both. Hill’s work utilizes our relationship with technology and virtual imagery in a way that helps us foster a deeper connection with the world away from it.

In the piece, Horizontal Vertigo, Hill addresses themes of exhaustion, facade, and transparency in a contemporary society asking too much of our time and energy. In an era where physical and digital environments impose relentless pressure, there is a constant insistence for society and individuals to be producing, to be moving. We find these pressures both in physical and digital environments, becoming increasingly impossible to escape, resulting in perpetual exhaustion. Empathy becomes exhausting through the unrelenting nature of capitalism. We start to become desensitized to this movement, our thoughts and experiences become fleeting. Horizontal Vertigo is a response to facades and spaces relying on the tiredness we are conditioned to accept. 

This interactive installation allows viewers to walk in front of and through the projections, casting a silhouette revealing the brutalism behind the trees. These screens behave as a manufactured facade as a way to question our spatial relationship between the physical and digital. In what ways do we allow our intuition to be undermined by a fast-moving world? In a world of content where the line between fact and fiction becomes blurred, it is important we find moments to slow down. This project gives autonomy back to the viewer, allowing for the time and space to spend with a moment that might otherwise push you through it. 

In Peripheral Loading, Hill addresses themes of memory, growth, the virtual, and exhaustion in a contemporary digital age in which we are overexposed to rapid expansion of information. The world is never truly off; we are subject to constant change at all scales, our attention as a commodity is at a premium and can become as fleeting as the information we generate. This project pokes fun at urban sprawl development sites and the temporary fence around them. Lined with mesh, they host utopic renderings of what's to come--a promise of lifestyle and luxury. Much like headlines and thumbnails in virtual spaces, development facades and renderings rely on immediacy to make quick shallow impressions, in spite of the contents they hold. 

In Peripheral Loading, Hill reconstructs the lifeless and flat qualities of these renderings, and encourages viewers to be critical of their relationship within ever-present rapid growth. How do we effectively keep track of our ever-changing public spaces if our attention is at a constant divide? Hill’s interrogation of the development site comes from living in 3 Canadian cities in 5 years, all going through rapid growth movements. Specifically, he reflects on his experience of watching and feeling space change in real-time, to be replaced with fences, craters, and concrete skeletons -- taking away shortcuts, sightlines, and memories of what was before them.

The Missing Distance will be on view in the Main Gallery from September 13 - October 26, 2024.

This exhibition contains flashing lights, images, and other luminous stimulations which may induce epileptic seizures in certain individuals.

Jordan Hill is a Coast Salish (T’Sou-ke Nation) new media artist from Vancouver Island whose work alludes to the blurred line between fact and fiction within contemporary culture. Hill’s work utilizes our relationship with technology and virtual imagery in a way that helps us foster a deeper connection with the world away from it.

See more of Hill’s work on his website and Instagram.

This exhibition acknowledges the support of Arts Nova Scotia.
This exhibition acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

Think of a child once rescued from drowning, still scared of water as an adult. Think of a traumatic experience that traumatizes the person, now struggling to view the world the same as before. Now think of a white paper void of characters as Locke puts it -the Tabula Rasa. This resembles the mind as it starts blank and all the pieces of reason and knowledge, the perception of a “self”- the identity- are derived from experiences. Then imagine a gateway, the medium that ties one’s experiences to this blank slate. Memory! Memory that not just captures, but ties oneself, one’s identity, to one’s memories; lived, being lived, and still to live. Tavakoli’s practice attempts to re-interpret the Identity-memory relationship. As in the identity that cannot be reachable without being lost in memories, and the memories that cannot be experienced, remembered, or even stored without reflecting on the identity of the person carrying them. 

Tavakoli uses technical strategies to deconstruct her compositions, and then displace and distort the reality as we know it, to articulate that memory and identity cannot be defined separately given the complex overlapping nature of the two concepts. Tavakoli’s detailed and impactful charcoal drawings use collage as a starting point to entertain the interdependence of experiences (memories) and identity. What is collage more than fragments you put together to make sense? In Kentridge’s opinion, that is the very way we go through the world. “As a coherent being, one understands this self in fact is a completely provisional fragile construction of a walking collage of thoughts and ideas and thinking.” How then can a person be defined independent of society? Influenced by the socio-political climate of Iran where she grew up as a female artist, Tavakoli draws inspiration and reflects upon the black marks that are left on this collage that is her identity, that is Tavakoli. 

- Parsa Gooya

بطن The core of my person will be on view in the Project Gallery from September 13 - October 26, 2024.

Maryam Tavakoli (b. 1997, Isfahan, Iran) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Victoria, BC. She received an MFA degree from the University of Victoria in 2023 subsequent to her BFA from the best art university in her home country, Tehran University of Art, Iran. Tavakoli’s practice questions the relationship between identity, memory, and time. In her works, she makes use of a variety of materials that can embody the vague distorted reflections of memory and identity upon one another, through a combination of practices involving drawing, installation, and sculpture. She seeks to explore identity through memories of lived life experiences, personal traumas, and the social/cultural structure of her home country. Tavakoli’s work has been exhibited in over a dozen exhibitions over the two years since her arrival in Canada, including notable juried solo exhibitions at the Fiftyfifty Arts Collective and Xchanges Gallery in Victoria. She has been the recipient of numerous scholarships through the University of Victoria and is currently teaching as a sessional instructor in both the Visual Arts Department and Continuing Studies Department at UVic.

Mariposa, the Spanish word for butterfly, references S.C. Jean’s growth and evolution as an artist. The Okanagan-based artist titled her exhibition Mariposa to embody the theme of change. For the artist, change is one of the most significant forces at play. An ever present element, infinitely occurring on multiple levels, feeding back into itself creating further and deeper expansions. The artist has attempted to capture this sense of change through brushwork, mark-making, colour and composition that, though static in reality, visually continues to change as the viewer observes her work.

Mariposa includes a selection of painting and drawing works, all of which feature Jean’s signature style of mark-making. All the works in the exhibition consider the ways in which the artist has grown as an artist since being involved with the Alternator as a loyal member and active volunteer. The four works on canvas were intentionally created for Jean’s exhibition. Reflecting on her time spent as a member of the Alternator community, Jean attempts to render her gratitude and admiration through painterly mark-making and use of colour. Alongside the large paintings are a series of small ink drawings, many of which were created while volunteering at the Alternator as a gallery host. This body of work reflects on Jean’s time spent participating with the Alternator community; crediting the community for pushing her to be artistically bold and for opening the door of wonder into the world of art.

S.C. Jean is an artist based on Okanagan Sylix territory in Kelowna where she has lived and worked for the past thirty years. A self-taught artist, in 2012 Jean felt compelled to take up painting and has continued in earnest to develop her style. Jean has shown her work in numerous exhibitions throughout the Okanagan region including at the the Lake Country Art Gallery, the Peachland Art Gallery, the Penticton Art Gallery, the Kelowna Art Gallery and the Alternator Center for Contemporary Art.

The Annual Postcard Project is back and this year we celebrate 35 years of the Alternator!

Once again the Alternator is celebrating our diverse creative community through our Annual Postcard Project. To commemorate our 35th year in the Kelowna arts community we invited our members to fill the walls of the gallery salon-style with original artworks and postcards.

The Annual Postcard Project is an opportunity for local artists to exhibit their work in the Alternator’s professional gallery space, creating a grand mosaic that showcases both the people involved with the gallery and the work they produce. This annual members’ exhibition doubles as an exhibition and sale where visitors could take home (or gift!) a part of the Okanagan’s rich arts community. Artists will take home 75% of sales while the remaining 25% supports the Alternator’s programming.

Everything in the gallery is up for sale, from artworks on the wall ranging from paintings, prints, and ceramics to our series of original, handmade postcards made by our member artists. To reflect on 35 years of the Alternator, we also invited artists spanning the last 3 decades to contribute their own unique postcards. Check out our online gallery of these special Alternator Artist Postcards here:

All artworks in the exhibition are unique originals and available for sale with prices ranging as low as $15.00 and up. People are encouraged to visit early, however, as works in the exhibition are sold, they will be removed from the wall and taken home with their new owners.

Kaylyn Hardstaff is an Edmonton-born, Kelowna-based artist. She graduated in April 2023 from NSCAD University’s Fine Arts Program in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Since moving to Kelowna in May 2023, she has worked at the Rotary Centre for the Arts as the Educational Program Coordinator. 

Kaylyn’s artistic practice in recent years has been focused on fleeting time, precarious moments, light, shadow and how all of these concepts fit together into her work. Kaylyn has been particularly interested in the idea of home, what makes a space or city feel like home, and how she can use her practice to become more comfortable in a space. After spending the last several years moving across Canada from Edmonton to Halifax, within Halifax a handful of times, and then from Halifax to Kelowna, her work has become very focused on capturing moments of day to day comfort, discomfort, joy, and awareness found in each new space or city. 

Kaylyn has been working through these concepts and ideas through drawing, writing, painting, printmaking, sculpture and installation.

‘23-’24 / 24-25 will be on view in the Members’ Gallery from June 7 - 29, 2024.

Connor MacKinnon’s artistic practice operates through a framework of imagination, potential, and questioning. Examining the unique qualities in objects as specific markers of material culture, his work explores the physical and conceptual reconstruction of objects using generative algorithmic 3D modeling. Linking these algorithms and speculative framework is the desire and ability to create variability and multiplicity within a defined system which both respects our sense of familiarity with an object and disrupts many of the assumed and expected attributes associated with how that object is perceived. CGish itself has been an examination and investigation into his own relationship to shared authorship, artistic labour, and control in the creation of artwork that is in part computer generated. 

While MacKinnon is currently experimenting with integrating A.I. into his practice in small ways the works present in this exhibition do not make use of any A.I. and instead are the output of generative parametric functions. These functions consist of a long series of instructions and restrictions that dictate the order and methodology of digital 3D construction. Their capacity to generate variability, multiplicity, and strangeness comes from their ability to accept variable input, whether that is from a physical artifact, digital geometry, or a purely numerical data set. Output as digital 3d models these forms must go through a process of digital fabrication or computer-aided manufacturing before they can exist in reality. In some cases, they can be directly 3d printed, others follow a process of molding and casting, and some require a more specific form of digital fabrication as in the case of Computers Generated (2024) which are welded steel forms created from patterns cut out on a CNC plasma cutter. 

While much of his work is driven conceptually and designed digitally, balance and personal satisfaction are maintained through a physical and tangible making practice which strives to create a sense of harmony between learning, experimentation, intellectual gratification, aesthetic pleasure, and craftsmanship.

CGish by Connor MacKinnon will be on view in the Main Gallery from May 10 to June 22 2024.

In this project, Kosar Movahedi approached the exhibition space as a ground for improvisation. Scholar and poet Fred Moten says “improvisation is how we make no way out of a way. How we make nothing out of something.” With this in mind, Kosar sourced photographs from the gallery room and through collage played with common themes in their practice that consider frames, surfaces, and the expectations we have of photography as a medium.

This gallery is a purpose-built space, and like most contemporary art spaces intends to be invisible. For this reason, all the architectural fixtures such as power outlets, vents, and lights are pushed up or down and outside of our sightline. She decided not to add much visual information to this blank horizon and instead highlight its void surface, bringing the attention of viewers to the ignored elements of the room. The resulting work presents itself as a document of the process of rethinking the space through printed photographs. 

The project’s title uses the word ‘folly’ in two meanings: Its common definition of foolishness, as well as referring to ornamental buildings that serve no practical purpose other than enhancing the landscape of a garden or estate. Especially common in 18th Century England and France, these structures often imitated the form of Roman temples, medieval castles, or Gothic towers. This project similarly puts on a gimmick that pokes fun at the indexical notion of photography.

Folly, by Kosar Movahedi will be on view in the Project Gallery from May 10 to June 22 2024.

We Got Mail! is a creative conversation between two high school art classes: one from Mount Boucherie Senior and one from Rutland Senior Secondary. This is a collaborative experiment that was scary, challenging, and fun!

The process started with students generating a number of art pieces and then mailed them off to their counterparts across the lake. Then, they opened the envelope sent to them and was met with the challenge to figure out how to make a new, original piece of art based on the contents inside. Finally, the new piece was mailed back to the original sender for final touches and for them to finish off the visual conversation.

We Got Mail! raised foundational questions for young artists. The high school art process often involves the leap from finding sources of inspiration to creating original art. This project demanded originality from the students. During the art-making process, shared conversations happened at both schools, such as: “What do I send?” “Is my work good enough?” “What if my partner doesn’t like it?” “What do I do with the art that I received?” “How can I transform someone else’s stuff into my own art?” Despite their concern, all of the students were engaged and ready to seek answers to their difficult questions. The result was a meeting in the middle, a culmination of the collaborative creative conversations.

We Got Mail! will be on view in the Members’ Gallery from May 10 to June 1. Join us and the artists from both schools on Wednesday, May 15 from 5-7pm for an opening reception. Light refreshments will be served.

The Annual Postcard Project is back and this year we celebrate 35 years of the Alternator!

Since 1989, the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art has supported a wide variety of Canadian artists through exhibitions, community programming, and collaboration. We foster the arts in our community by supporting and developing the talents of local and national artists. To commemorate our 35th year we once again would like to invite our membership to celebrate with us!

Member artists can create an edition of unique handmade postcards, submit artworks to be sold for the studio sale, or both. You are not required to submit to both aspects but are highly encouraged to. This year, postcard editions are 5 postcards, and participants have an option to sign up for 2 sets for a total of 10.

To encourage the creative flow,  the Alternator will be hosting two postcard-making events leading up to the exhibition. These Members-only events on June 6th and 20th will be casual evenings of community building and postcard making. On June 6th, join us at Kettle River Brewing over delicious food and drink from 6-8pm. Then, on June 20th, join us for our second postcard-making party at the gallery. Basic supplies will be provided, but guests are still encouraged to bring their own art materials. Please RSVP on Eventbrite for the June 6th event!

Our Annual Postcard Project exhibition will open on July 12, with an opening reception taking place that evening from 6 - 8pm - mark your calendars to join us as we celebrate the exhibition, and our milestone 35th Birthday, as a community!

The Postcard Project invites 35 Alternator member artists (one for each year of our existence!) to create 5 or 10 original postcards. The works may be watercolour, collage, photographs or any other 2D media that will fit on the 4x6” postcard substrate (postcard blanks will be provided by the Alternator). In the spirit of the Alternator mandate, we welcome experimental interpretations of this project. A piece of creative writing? A painting made by your pet? Dance instructions? We want to see it! This will be a limited run of 350 unique postcards so don’t delay in registering as spots are limited, first come, first served! 

The numbered, limited edition postcards will be exhibited in-gallery and offered for sale to our visitors for $15 each with 75% of proceeds going directly to the artist, and the remaining 25% to the gallery to support the Alternator’s programming. The public will be encouraged to send their purchased postcard out to friends or family or keep it for themselves.

The Studio Sale is an open call for submissions for Members to submit up to two guaranteed artworks and one juried artwork (any medium / theme) for inclusion in an exhibition taking place in the Main and Project Gallery. The maximum artwork size is 36”x36”. Artworks may be offered for sale at any price with 75% of proceeds going directly to the artist, and the remaining 25% to the gallery to support the Alternator’s programming. Works will be removed from the wall as they are sold so buyers can walk away with their newly purchased art.

How​ ​to​ ​Participate:

Step​ ​1:​ ​Membership

Sign​ ​up​ ​for​ ​or​ ​renew​ ​your​ ​Alternator​ ​membership.​ ​You​ ​can​ ​sign-up​ ​online​ ​​or​ ​in​ ​person​ ​at​ ​the​ ​gallery.​ ​

Not​ ​sure​ if your Alternator membership is still active? ​ ​Contact​ ​us​ ​at​ ​250 868 2298​ ​or​ ​at​ ​info@alternatorcentre.com and we can help you out!

Step​ ​2:​ ​Register​ ​to​ ​Exhibit​ by June 23, 11:59 p.m.

Complete and submit the registration form either through the Alternator website or by completing a printed form that can​ ​then​ ​be​ ​submitted​ ​in​ ​person or​ ​emailed to​ ​info@alternatorcentre.com. Artists can sign up for either the Postcard Project, Studio Sale, or both.

Postcard Project & Studio Sale Registration Form (Online)
Postcard Project & Studio Sale Registration Form (PDF)

Step​ ​3:​ ​Label​ ​and​ ​drop​ ​off​ ​your​ ​artwork

POSTCARD PROJECT
Pick up your blank postcards (if applicable)

Artists participating in the Postcard Project will be provided with 5 or 10 4x6” blank postcards. Cards may be picked up at the Alternator between May 7 - June 22. Any medium is welcome as long as the piece remains 2D and limited to 4x6”. 

Unsure if your medium will work on the provided postcard paper? Not to worry! Folks are welcome to use their own paper as long as they are mounted with archival glue to the provided postcard upon delivery. For example, many photo-based artists have printed their photos and attached them to the postcards. This way, no matter your medium there is a way to participate!

Completed postcards should be returned to the Alternator between June 25 - 29 during gallery hours. If you are unable to drop off your completed postcards during these times, please email info@alternatorcentre.com to make alternate arrangements. Please identify your work by completing the following inventory form and return when dropping off artworks.

Postcard Project Inventory

STUDIO SALE

The public will take home purchased Studio Sale artwork with them immediately. As such, we ask that artwork is dropped off in good condition and ready to hang or install. For instance, artwork that is on warped frames or that does not have required hardware (i.e. wire) for hanging will not be accepted. 

Label​ ​and​ ​identify​ ​your​ ​artwork​ by filling out and attaching labels below.

Studio Sale Label Form (PDF)

Labelled artwork can be dropped off at the Alternator between June 25 - 29 during regular gallery hours. If you are unable to drop off your work during these times, please email info@alternatorcentre.com to make alternate arrangements.

All​ ​artwork​ ​identification​ ​must​ ​be​ ​included and​ ​securely​ ​attached​ ​to​ ​your​ ​art​ ​at​ ​the​ ​time​ ​of​ ​drop-off. Please be sure to note which of your submitted pieces are your 2 guaranteed works, and which is an additional work submitted for jurying.

Step​ ​4:​ ​Sales

75% of any sales go directly to the artists after the end of the exhibition. Cheques are typically delivered in September. Please note, new this year, total payable earnings under $20 will be automatically credited towards future membership payments.

Additionally, participants will have the option to donate their earnings to the gallery.

Important Dates

Exhibition Dates: July 12 - August 10 

Opening Reception / 35th Birthday Party: July 12, 6-8pm

Submissions open: May 6 

Submissions close: June 23

Blank Postcard Pickup: May 7 - June 22

Postcard Making Members Event: June 6 & 20 (more details to be announced!)

Artwork dropoff: June 25 - 29

Artwork Pickup: August 13 - 17

Cheques sent out: September TBD

Still need convincing? Take a look at exhibition photos from previous years!

The Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art, in partnership with British Columbia’s Office of the Human Rights Commissioner, is pleased to present From Hate to Hope, an immersive pop-up exhibition.

This special exhibition is the culmination of more than a year’s worth of work in the BCOHRC office’s annual public campaign which was inspired by themes in the From Hate to Hope report. In August 2021, B.C.’s Human Rights Commissioner Kasari Govender launched an inquiry into the rise of hate in B.C. during the COVID-19 pandemic. The March 2023, findings and recommendations were clear: hate will increase in times of societal crisis unless we are all decisive in addressing it.

The exhibit features an immersive audio-visual experience that captures the voices, images, and art of community youth and painters as well as the commissioner who joined together to draw inspiration from the words of British Columbians across the province. Their hope is to spark important conversations on these themes and ensure they keep breathing life to the stories they heard. This is in addition to their broader work in addressing systemic discrimination in the province, and their continued work to ensure the Government of BC implements the recommendations of the report. From Hate to Hope is a traveling exhibition. First opening in Vancouver, this exhibition will be held at the Alternator before moving onto Fort St. John, and Nanaimo.

From Hate to Hope will be on view at the Alternator during our regular hours from May 2nd - 4th!

This exhibition expands upon a series of four murals that were created by artists across the province.

The Vancouver mural was created by Paige Jung. The Fort St.John mural was created by Raven-Tacuara Art Collective members Stephanie Anderson and Fancundo Gastiazoro. The Keremeos mural was designed by Haley Regan and completed in partnership with the South Okanagan Immigrant & Community Services One World Youth Crew. The Nanaimo mural was created by Humanity in Art members Lys Glassford and Lauren Semple.

BC’s Office of the Human Rights Commissioner exists to address the root causes of inequality, discrimination and injustice in our province by shifting laws, policies, practices and cultures. We do this work through education, research, advocacy, inquiry and monitoring.

B.C.’s Human Rights Commissioner, Kasari Govender, started her five-year term on September 3, 2019. Since then, our Office has been working swiftly to build a strong team, to listen deeply to the concerns of British Columbians, to issue policy guidance to protect the human rights of underserved communities and to lay a rights-based foundation for our work. As an independent office of the Legislature we are uniquely positioned to ensure human rights in B.C. are protected, respected and advanced on a systemic level throughout our society.

While Mohsen Khalili’s work is positioned in dialogue with multiple artistic traditions and techniques, his practice draws inspiration from his deeply personal experiences of love, loss, displacement, disability, isolation, and longing to belong. By merging various artistic disciplines, genres, and mediums, Khalili seeks to build an inclusive visual language that highlights the universality of these experiences and emotions, turning his practice into an opportunity for collective catharsis and finding common ground.

The installation presented at the Members’ Gallery at The Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art belongs to a body of work entitled Planets Visited by the Little Prince (2013–2019). Inspired by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s celebrated novella, The Little Prince, this work deals with themes of loneliness, the joy and burden of creativity, and the longing for understanding and connection. The installation is comprised of 4 black cubic frames, each containing a set of floating Papier-mâché globes and an array of other objects. The collection of objects inside each metal box is perhaps representative of the colourful, cluttered, and defiantly childlike universe inside a creative mind. Contained in their respective frames, these parallel and somewhat similar universes cannot seem to meet or interact, but the shadows that they cast under the gallery lights merge and mingle, creating new patterns suggestive of the potential beauty that would result from the meeting of these minds. Like the novella that inspired it, this work invites its audience to question the reality, validity, and utility of social constructs that divide and isolate us.

Study After the Little Prince and His Little Planet was curated by Vancouver’s Iranian Visual Arts (VIVA) Alliance. The exhibition will be on view in the Members’ Gallery from April 12 to May 4 2024.

In November of 1849, French painter Gustave Courbet wrote the following account in a note to  two of his friends.  

“I had taken our carriage to go to the Chateau of Saint-Denis to paint a landscape. Near  Maisières I stopped to consider two men breaking stones on the road. One rarely encounters  the most complete expression of poverty, so right there on the spot I got an idea for a painting. I  made a date to meet them in my studio the following morning, and since then I have painted  my picture. On one side is an old man of seventy, bent over his work, his sledgehammer raised,  his skin parched by the sun, his head shaded by a straw hat; his trousers, of coarse material,  are completely patched; and in his cracked sabots you can see his bare heels sticking out of  socks that were once blue. On the other side is a young man with swarthy skin, his head  covered with dust; his disgusting shirt all in tatters reveals his arms and parts of his back; a  leather suspender holds up what is left of his trousers, and his mud-caked leather boots show  gaping holes on every side. The old man is kneeling, the young man is standing behind him  energetically carrying a basket of broken rocks. Alas! In this class, this is how one begins, and  that is how one ends”. 

Cited in Albert Boime, Art in an Age of Civil Struggle 1848-1871 (Chicago-London: The  University of Chicago Press, 2007), 158-9.  

Before the Stones Were Broken is a series of oil paintings completed by 2nd year painting students at UBC Okanagan under the instruction of Connor Charlesworth. Introduced through ecologist/ philosopher Timothy Morton’s  concept of hyperobjects, and Gustave Courbet’s painting “The Stone Breakers”, students were tasked to compose small oil paintings that consider elements of time, composition, and land.  In an effort to draw distinction between the real and the sensual, students were encouraged to  approach these forms through Rudolph Arnheim’s compositional notions of centres, gravity,  and weight, in combination with sensual considerations of surface, colour, and material. 

Participating artists include Connor Charlesworth, Rain Doody, Mackenzie Fleetwood-Anderson, Meg Furlot, Talia Gagnon, Dawn Haywood, Neha Iyer, Sheilina John, Hailey Johnson, Madi May, Emily Mills, Phil Patrick, Sarah Prentice, Maya Taki, Amelia Vegt, Wenjing Wang, Peony Wong, and Bernice Yam. 

Before the Stones Were Broken will be on view in the Members’ Gallery of the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art from March 15 - April 6 2024.

Familiar places, objects, images and scents can transport us to other times and versions of ourselves. In this way, our memories are held by the land and our embodied experiences within it. But how does this memory translocate across geographies? For diasporic peoples, where do our memories belong?

How does memory inform geography and provide an alternate way of knowing and imagining the world? 

In embalmed funks, Michaela Bridgemohan draws on her inherited Afro-Caribbean cultural practices to explore this question, inviting viewers into this archive of intimate Black Canadian home life. This methodology is informed by generative and reciprocal forms of care—prioritizing self-sustenance, futurity and creative power. In this austere gallery space, everyday domestic items like silk pillowcases, end tables and wide-tooth combs are recontextualized—here, we are reverent and attentive: these objects are sacred. But this sacredness does not exist out of time and place; it is situated within Syilx and Caribbean lands and holds those relationships with their people and living things. Sculptures are infused with local plant life, while artistic methods incorporate practices of Afro-Caribbean care—oil is massaged into hair and wood; we make salves from the land to moisten our bodies; beeswax forms a comb. By conflating these practices of caring for the body with those of caring for the land, can memory take root here, too?

Bridgemohan responds to scholarly work by Canadian scholar Dr. Katherine McKittrick; Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle, which explores how the practice of resistance to racial domination intensifies Black women’s relationship with land. Bringing attention to spatial acts as forms of poetic expression, resistance and naturalization. In this way, “understanding blackness has been twinned by the practice of placing blackness and rendering body-space integral to the production of space.” Dispossessed bodies and prairie scapes are not passive. Spatial domination is dismissed here, so actions become poetically expressive and remembered as home. The combination of materials, landscape photographs and performances are to “unfix” the one-dimensional perception of black women’s geographic positioning. Embalmed funks insist upon this, recognizing land as home, which insists on naming one’s self and self-history.  

The objects of embalmed funks are representational, but their applications are abstracted: both artifacts of the everyday and relics of distant land/memory; a testament to Afro-Caribbean dispossession and a tribute to Syilx land; an act of cultural persistence and a spectre of what was once remembered.

Michaela Bridgemohan’s exhibition embalmed funks will be on view in the Main Gallery of the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art from March 15 - April 27 2024.

Michaela Bridgemohan is an interdisciplinary artist of Jamaican and Australian descent who grew up in Mohkinstsis, also known as Calgary, but 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. Through her paternal Caribbean heritage, Bridgemohan's artistic research is driven to reinscribe new notions of multiplicity and multi-dimensionality within Black identity in Canada. She includes cultural ways of making as a legitimate form of artistic expression and creative power. Wood, Indigo and familial objects materialize these immaterial anecdotal memories—a corporeal shadow in the shape of domestic spaces, brown bodies and fertile terrain. Theoretical and contemporary writings on Caribbean-Canadian thought, Black Feminism, Hauntology, Relationality, Indigenous Knowledge and Land-based practices inform these conversations. 

Bridgemohan’s art practice wouldn’t be possible without the gracious support of the British Columbia Arts Council, Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art and Canada Council for the Arts, whose work has been exhibited across Canada and Australia. 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).

Heather Savard’s artistic practice is responsive and a process-based exploration of household objects and structures. She makes use of sculpture, installation, drawing, and expanded forms of printmaking to explore how value is assigned in material culture. Her previous research questions have revolved around what it means to be good and what it means for something to hold value.

Savard’s work comprises recurring themes, such as the origins of middle-class objects of luxury, the tension between the duty of safekeeping and the guilt of discarding, and the current overwhelming, abundant need to buy as a form of self-improvement and optimization marketed in consumer culture. The experience of examining what is valuable to them personally has furthered her curiosity into the connection between the individual and societal drive to pursue valuable objects as both an act of living better and a signal to others.

Ethical philosopher Agnes Callard, in her essay 'Who Wants to Play the Status Game,' describes three games played: (1) The Basic Game, (2) Importance Game, and (3) Leveling Game. In the Basic Game, 'you are looking for common ground on the basis of which your conversation might proceed,' and it is a straightforward assessment of your conversational counterpart. She details the more advanced games of determining status via the Importance Game, where 'participants jockey for position,' dropping hints of wealth, connections, or affluence. The Leveling game 'uses empathy to equalize players' and 'reaches down low to achieve common ground' (Callard). Savard is interested in how objects can be used to 'signal enough power to establish a hierarchy' and fit within the Importance Game as described by Callard.

In his collection of essays, 'The Anthropocene Reviewed,' John Green briefly charts the evolution of the American Lawn, where he describes how the 'quality of lawns in the neighborhood began to be seen as a proxy for the quality of the neighborhood itself' (83). Savard’s work in this exhibition explores this relationship using the language of the formal French Garden, with its orderly and hierarchical representations of rules and governance over nature, in combination with contemporary materials used in current home and landscape design. How does the idealized version of the North American lawn fit into the Importance Game played between neighbors while being wrapped up, for Savard at least, inside of the ever-seemingly untenable goal of homeownership?

Heather Savard’s exhibition Greens will be on view in the Project Gallery of the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art from March 15 - April 27 2024.

The overarching theme of Bree Apperley’s work is notions of the feminine within our late-capitalist era. This includes ideas of the female body and motherhood, craft in the form of handwork and textiles, domiciles and lifestyles. Sculptural pieces she has created are centered around the idea of a primordial suburbia, something like a display that a future cave-woman would place on her mantel or use as a shrine. The drawings are totemic symbols that could serve as pre-historic logos or branding from an ancient civilization. Simple black ink characters on paper enable the viewer to freely associate meaning based on the shapes and symbols represented. Apperley’s photography work is based firmly in the post-digital world, embracing and exploiting a new visual language concerned with ideas of intersection and reflection. The photos attempt to bring space and depth into a flat surface, expressing an intimate viewpoint. 

In her work, Bree focuses on the things around us that we throw away and things we look at but no longer see. Old and thin towels, a trail of doilies, a length of chain, wadded up hosiery and clip art, but also silken wool, a humble coconut and light shining through a garden tulip brings a flashing moment of flawlessness. Beauty is witnessed from an oblique angle, and an abstracted spiritual space emanates.

These reconfigured objects and symbols come together in this exhibition to celebrate signifiers of femininity as well as to raise protest at their continued oppression. A beautiful flare of ecstatic feminine energy sent up that also signals a warning that if we neglect to articulate our unique worldview, things will slip back to their default position.

Shrine On will be on view in the Members’ Gallery of the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art from February 16 to March 9, 2024. You can see more of Bree Apperley's work on her Instagram @flowers_for_mom or her website.

In Search of Lost Memories by Ziv Wei deconstructs and reimagines nostalgia by providing new contexts for found vernacular family photos and frames. Central to this series is the intriguing concept of crafting narratives from items whose original stories have been lost to time. These artworks, presented outside of their original context, encourage viewers to engage in a dialogue that bridges the temporal gap, evoking a blend of emotions and recollections. 

Each composition in the series juxtaposes found items with either modern landscapes or curated photographs, creating a narrative mosaic. This approach turns historical items into gateways to a past, one that is simultaneously re-envisioned by the viewer and anchored in an irretrievable past. The act of reimagination breathes new life into these items, crafting a distinct experience that is unique to each viewer. Furthermore, this technique underscores the artist’s fascination with the evolution and persistence of artwork beyond the creator’s presence. 

In Search of Lost Memories stands as a commentary on the dynamic interplay of art and memory in our collective consciousness. It invites viewers into a realm where the lack of definitive stories paves the way for an introspective journey encompassing not just life-altering events, but also the mundane moments that collectively define our human experience. 

Ziv Wei’s exhibition In Search of Lost Memories will be on view in the Members’ Gallery of the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art from January 19 to February 10, 2024. Join us and the artists for a triple opening reception on January 19, 6-8pm to celebrate their exhibition alongside Puppets Forsaken’s The Noisebau in the Main Gallery and Erin Scott’s 9/3 in the Project Gallery. This receptions is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be provided. Pre-registration for attendance is encouraged; please register here!

Learn more about Ziv Wei’s practice by visiting his Instagram: @ziv__wei  and website: www.zivwei.com.

I invite you into my private world, but you are also not welcome there. We can meet at the top of the hour and make love to the land but you won’t understand the language I speak, and so, don’t expect to cum. When you come over, be certain that you know I have children and they are both mine and not mine and when I ask you not to touch them, I mean it, but also can you please love them in ways that allow them to survive? I am unsure of what 9 and 3 mean exactly but I understand that numerologically 9 is sacred and 3 is really just 9’s children divided out of its body and into their own existence, but when combined, they once again become 9. If you follow my live stream, you’ll know what I mean with all of this, and so like, subscribe, and follow to learn more. Also, there is a password and some of the images aren’t mine and so I blur them and the children, who are still not mine, but I get their consent as they pass through my body. And you should know, this is not the real me. 

9/3 is a feminist intervention, digital reimagining, and 21st century meditation by Erin Scott inspired by Allan Kaprow’s 18 Happenings in 6 parts which was presented at the New York Reuben Gallery in 1959. For Kaprow, the original showing of this work is considered an artistic failure. What is often misunderstood about this body of work is the exhaustive textual component which held diagrams, directions, poems, essays, random lists, transcribed conversations, and more. This textual body is much more substantial than what was presented as the 18/6, and lives on as archived documentation. It is this documentation that more actively engages the thin line between art and life, which Kaprow’s happenings would continually seek to dismantle or reveal throughout the 1960-70’s.

9/3 is a videopoem sequence and a series of interactive occurrences that inhabit the often-invisible space between art and life, creating a voyeuristic moment for the viewer as they watch the intimate and every day of children, bodies, land, languages, and personhood. At once elevated in language, images, and metaphor, the poems are also deeply personal and biographic, playing off elements found in documentaries, home movies, and social media content creation. We feel the real and yet see the contrived and we want it all to last, but inevitably, everything fades into a memory or a story we hope our children will tell their children about how we tried to live and when we failed, what we did in the aftermath. 

Every piece in the exhibition appears multiple times across the different mediums. Scott invites viewers to find the interconnections across form, content, and time, and to build the story for yourself. On January 20, January 27, February 3 from 11am-4pm, join Erin Scott in the project gallery to play! Erin will be set up in the gallery with video equipment, projectors, writing materials, an orange shroud, and a kaleidoscope, and opens a generous invitation for anyone to join them to make your own videopoem. This age inclusive event allows anyone visiting the gallery to write, record, and edit your own video with assistance from Erin. Using elements of Erin’s exhibition, such as the projector and orange shroud, participants will make new videos which poetically and visually respond to and play with the ongoing exhibitions in both the main and project gallery.

Come as you are and plan to spend a half hour (or more, or less) playing in this process-led making experience. Dependent on how participants feel, the final product can be emailed to them for private viewing, or they can contribute their videopoem to be edited into the ongoing public exhibition 9/3.

Erin Scott’s exhibition 9/3 will be on view in the Project Gallery of the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art from January 19 to March 2 2024.

Puppets Forsaken is an acoustic noise band comprised of David Gifford and Natali Leduc. 

Puppets Forsaken started to collaborate on a sculpture/sound project in 2019 that they called Nostalgia for Futurism. Inspired by the Intonarumori of Futurist Luigi Russolo, author of the manifesto Art of Noises (1913), they built some acoustic noise generators that they used for performances. These machines contrast with our digital age, and allude to the mechanical age. They produce sounds reminiscent of factories, gears, and machines, which, according to Russolo, correspond to our everyday lives and resonate with our bodies more accurately than music.

Through this investigation, Puppets Forsaken have developed an audience in the regional “Noise” circuit, they have performed for old growth trees that are no longer there, engaged their work in a theory symposium, interloped in a Visual Art Performance and entered a telekinesis competition. They even recorded an album (Greatest Hits). 

While they had a terrific experience building their noise generators and playing them in public, Puppets Forsaken felt that the audience was missing a big part of the experience, since they could only listen, and not play the instruments. For this reason, they decided to build The Noisebau, an interactive and immersive architectural sound envelope, which is the project they are presenting at the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art.

When visitors produce sounds emanating from The Noisebau, these become an extension of the participant, who has a certain control over their rhythm, pitch and intensity. There is an implied resonance between the participant’s interior and what is behind the walls (the mechanism). By building an immersive installation, they want the audience to feel they are part of the work. Being inside the noise generators is not meant as an act of transgression by the designers, or to aggravate or cause discomfort, but for the audience to pause and reflect on those noises that are usually forgotten in the background. Producing the sound themselves, the visitors will feel the noises at a more personal and visceral level. 

Beside being experiments with acoustic noise, Puppets Forsaken’s projects are imbibed with their deep love for trees and their positive impact on the planet. They are preoccupied by facts such as the disappearance of old growth trees. On Vancouver Island, only 2% of the old growth forest still remain. They wanted to pay homage to the ones that fell to humans, and decided to serenade them. In this spirit, they did two concerts and 2 videos in a clear-cut area meant solely for trees that are no longer there (one with our first set of instruments, and another one with The Noisebau). No humans were invited to these concerts. There is in this act some nostalgia for trees that have disappeared, and the anticipation of a greater loss. It is likely only when these remaining ecosystems have been erased that their true meaning and loss to us will be revealed. This is amplified by some of the noises coming from their modular noise generators that allude to saws and other tools used to cut trees. 

Puppets Forsaken are currently working on a new instrument, called Knock-Knock, that mimics sounds of endangered species. 

Puppet Forsaken’s exhibition The Noisebau will be on view in the Main Gallery of the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art from January 19 to March 2, 2024.

The Noisebau received funding from the Canada Council for the Arts & the BC Arts Council. 

Knock-Knock received funding from the Canada Council for the Arts.

Katya Meehalchan, born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, now residing in Kelowna, British Columbia (on the traditional unceded territory of the Okanagan syilx people), is an artist  whose work resonates with the intersection of printmaking, multimedia collage, and  installation art. Her creative journey commenced with a profound sense of curiosity,  leading her to explore the vast spectrum of human expression. 

Graduating from the University of British Columbia in 2023 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Meehalchan's academic journey played a pivotal role in shaping her artistic identity. Her  studies not only honed her technical skills but also deepened her conceptual  understanding of art's potential to communicate complex ideas. 

Meehalchan's work captivates through its interplay of mediums. Her prints evoke a sense of nostalgia, bridging the past and present, while her multimedia collages challenge the  boundaries of traditional artistic forms. Her installations immerse viewers in thought provoking environments, inviting them to engage with her narrative in a tangible way. 

In her artistic practice, Meehalchan’s art invites viewers to question their own perceptions, exploring the boundaries between reality and imagination, and inviting contemplation on the interconnectedness of humanity and the world. Through her art, Meehalchan seeks to ignite a dialogue between the viewer and the work,  prompting introspection and reflection.  

Meehalchan seeks to create an environment packed with delicate details that allows for  many access points for the viewer to relate to through the sense of nostalgia or curiosity. Her work is representative of the feeling of going through a vintage store, or estate sale and experiencing a sense of wonder or curiosity that lies in objects that hold  a personalized history.

In their exhibition Wander, Meehalchan creates depth and dimension through the layering of different mediums and collaged materials. Through the combination of various materials such as paint, found objects, and photographic elements, she aims to create a visual narrative that speaks to the complexities of the human experience. Each included layer serves as a symbol or representation of a different aspect of this narrative, inviting the viewer to engage with the work on multiple levels. The layers serve as a metaphor for the way we perceive and process information in our daily lives, highlighting the idea that there is always more to discover and understand. In this way, Meehalchan’s work encourages the viewer to take a closer look and consider the many layers of possible connections and coincidences embedded into the work. 

Katya Meehalchan’s multimedia installation Wander will be on view in the Members’ Gallery from December 1, 2023 – January 6, 2024.

Natasha Harvey’s artwork consists of a series of collaged landscape paintings and linocut prints, which seek to represent and communicate the effects of human interference on the environment while evoking the participatory spirit of love and beauty of nature. Harvey spends time deepening her connection with the land in the Syilx peoples' unceded territories, walking and connecting through place-based research. Over time, during these walks, she has found the expansion of dwellings, homes pushing up the mountainsides around and over wetlands, impacting wildlife habitat and ecology. Construction cuts into the land. Culture and economy reshape the horizon, thus rendering 'space' as politically complex. Therefore, achieving the colonial sublime is not a simple image of beauty without erasure. Harvey questions whether her depictions of the landscape illustrate this complexity and thus encourage a conversation about our expanding contribution to the detriment of the land.

The beautiful, wild landscapes of the Group of Seven contribute to the Canadian identity. The most well-known paintings by this group depict a pristine land, devoid of human evidence. This interpretation and representation of landscape omit industry and human interaction. As an artist, Harvey feels an urgency to try to depict a comprehensive version of landscape art in this time of climate crisis and environmental emergency. This version of landscape depiction illustrates a vista that is manipulated and used for human development. It emphasizes land commodification and colonial capitalism to encourage discussion about our impact on natural spaces.

Harvey’s family has a local construction business. They participate in manicuring and manipulating the landscape. Green grass, geometric ponds and infinity pools replace indigenous habitat. Her family’s livelihood comes from the commodification and development of the landscape. At the same time, Harvey observes the detrimental construction management and practices happening in the Okanagan and recognizes her part in it. Harvey’s position within the construction industry is difficult. Her love for the environment and local landscape has always been sincere however she recognizes the paradox.

Juxtaposing images and attempting to combine found materials, photographs and painting techniques is endless play, exploration and discovery; moments of tight and linear alongside messy and chaotic to construct or weave a layered poetic narrative. Collaged layers are built up and create meaning. She intends to illustrate the many contextual layers within a landscape. She uses found construction materials that have been salvaged from worksites encroaching and overtaking the forest trails where she walks. The construction materials are juxtaposed with the photographic images of forests and living things she has documented during such walks. Building her paintings is laborious. It is physical work that mimics the labour involved when constructing a home. The paintings reflect industry with their large scale and overbearing proportion. These constructed landscape paintings are large in scale. It is meant to feel both encompassing and obstructive. A push and pull, as though you could physically enter the landscape however, it may also feel like a barrier. This implied barrier operates when the recognizable elements of the landscape are interrupted with abstraction and collaged found materials. The linocut prints depict a forested wild landscape. The trees illustrated no longer exist, in their place, houses have been built or are in the process of construction. The prints are large and detailed. The process is meticulous, it takes time, love and care. Documenting forests that have been clear-cut through the slow process of relief printmaking is like a memorial of sorts.

Veneration is created to motivate discussion and awareness concerning our impact on ecology. This discourse could potentially encourage choices of care and contingency towards the environment. Rather than seeing the environment as a resource to be used, love and connection could alter this perception from resource to relative, as we are all elemental.

Natasha Harvey’s exhibition Layered Landscapes: Landscape Art, Politics and Love is on view in the Main Gallery from November 3 - December 16, 2023.

Cameron Gelderman is a self-taught emerging, interdisciplinary artist currently living in Kelowna, BC. His process-based practice embraces spontaneity, breaking through one's inhibitions, worry, and self-doubt to enter an intuition-driven state. The result of this process is large webs of woven textile installations and artworks. While considering themes of mental health, Gelderman creates an immersive environment using yarn and thread in his exhibition Yarnlandia. 

Following his instincts, Gelderman creates site-specific installations as a means of working through depression and anxiety by entering a flow state of creation. These transformed spaces, while chaotic, create an intimate space that invites viewers to engage and collaborate. Yarnlandia fosters an exchange between artist and viewer by inviting guests to add their own knots and weaves into the large-scale web of yarn, thread, and textiles, and attempts to empower gallery guests to work through inhibitions, worry, and self-doubt by embracing their creative instincts. 

Through scale, the installation invites visitors to move around the work, experience the works through touch, and to contribute to the installation. Through playful creation, curiosity, and experimentation, Gelderman encourages audiences to trust the process and trust in themselves. As he explains, “these works are there to be touched, satisfy the sense of curiosity, and connect the visual stimulant with the sense of feel. Enter Yarnlandia enthusiastically yourself and if you care to tie a knot, add some yarn, there are pieces highlighted for you to do so.”

Through the artist's experimental approach, Yarnlandia encourages exchange with audiences, and highlights the beauty of the unpredictable and spontaneity. Over time, the installation will evolve with each unique contribution of gallery guests, reflecting the impact community and collaboration can have on one’s individual growth.

Cameron Gelderman’s exhibition Yarnlandia is on view in the Project Gallery from November 3 - December 16, 2023.

It’s a world where vanity and self-obsession obscure our genuine selves, and where we are lost in the mundanities of media, commerce, and the uncertainties of our daily lives. Stacy Lundeen makes work that attempts to offer a candid reflection of and reaction to our shared humanity. He entices the viewer to engage with both fundamental and minute aspects of human nature, embracing our vulnerabilities and imperfections as the unique complexities they are. Imperfections are interesting. Perfection is not, it’s boring and it doesn't exist. Lundeen’s paintings are a tribute to all the little complexities of existence, weaving humor and narratives that delve into the abstract and subjective themes of human frailty, failure, guilt, shame, and vanity.

The paintings are created with loose, loopy, gestural mark-making, where he hopes to capture the essence of moments and emotions and render them quickly and with little preplanning. Each work is a new exploration, not only of a new subject or object or situation, but in a sense, how to even paint. As Lundeen describes, he feels like every time he approaches a new work he’s learning how to paint again, and learning to like and appreciate the imperfections he produces.

Lundeen largely uses vibrant pastel colors. Sometimes this is a deliberate choice in an attempt to infuse the compositions with a sense of optimism and attractiveness, even when he’s dealing with heavy or grotesque subjects. Subconsciously it may be that he lives and works in Vancouver BC, a frequently dark, gray, and rainy city, and that bright palette is a coping mechanism to battle his S.A.D.’s.

Making a painting or any work of art is an effort to offer viewers an opportunity for introspection and self-discovery. Lundeen often thinks of one specific person or people he knows who he wants to respond to his paintings in an ongoing, imaginary and inconclusive conversation. His hope is that whoever views his work will turn into that person, get the joke, relate to the shame, feel the guilt or at least empathize with it, and all become friends and help each other. 

Lundeen’s paintings are a reminder that it's our flaws that make us beautifully human. Let's bridge the gap between the mundane and the profound, and embrace the complexities of life with a smile and an understanding heart.

Stacy Lundeen’s exhibition Keep it Together, Man is on view in the Members’ Gallery from October 20 - November 25, 2023.

Stacy Lundeen Born 1979  is a contemporary artist who lives and works In Vancouver, Canada. Lundeen moved to Montreal in the early 2000s and studied at Concordia University working toward a BFA and spending much of his 20s and 30s working in and around Montreal's Art community . Lundeen had his first solo Exhibition in 2010 at the Khyber In Halifax, NS. and has exhibited at multiple venues throughout Canada. Currently a prolific artist who deals with humor, failure, and themes of empathy in his colorful paintings, Lundeen is also the director of SLENDER, a contemporary art space in Vancouver, BC dedicated to group exhibitions with themes and work centered around the idea of Levity.

Learn more about Stacy Lundeen by visiting their Instagram.

Through her work, Christine D’Ornofrio negotiates the tensions and promises of power found in acts of humour, virtue, narcissism, humiliation, desire, technology and community. The moments she exploits point to intuitive effects and ideologies, sometimes seen as ‘accidents’ to reveal characteristics of mediation that tie personal and political agency.

A focus of her practice is to build dialogue between subject position and the histories, achievements and fallacies of feminist art via mediation and technology. In former works, she has implied that a change in perspective can present an alternative to a rigid systematic structure, or she has confronted her fear of depicting the female body in the conditions of representation by utilizing the gesture of falling that carries both potential and failure. D’Onofrio revealed the contradictions between subversive and derogatory effects of humour, and revealed the power of codes as attributed to tears as simultaneously material and simulated existing within the same referent, or the generative nature of intuitive and tacit connections that influence and are foundational to a creative community.

D’Onofrio struggles with the notion of liberty and its limitations within structures, whether; representational, conceptual, social, economic, political. She reveals the forces of capitalist patriarchy, individualistic neoliberalism and colonial practices that ultimately direct and exploit potential fluid ‘grey zones’, and expose what further facilitates and perpetuates power. Since we working within the system, how can one imagine the potential act of liberty? How can new meaning be created, produced and organized or how can one erupt the production of meaning altogether -and still survive? For subjects to not belong to something, free of titles, codes and limitations, it would exist in crisis. In her work she asks for some concept of liberation to be realized, but liberation only exists when it does not know its end.

At the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art, D’Onofrio exhibits a new work that critiques agency as it ‘belongs to’ representational systems, in this case a white female spinster, crazy “cat lady”, pseudo-feminist icon. Her inquiry into the function of social and cultural oppressions to ensure perpetuating power structures perform themselves is to discover new portrayals of the ageing white female embodiment and privilege. Because co-opted depictions of rebellion make revolutionary actions defunct of their power, she questions our place in an intersectional self-aware social, cultural and political theory and deliberately engage both the triumphs and perils of feminist art practice, history and visual culture.

cat cat cat will be on view in our Main Gallery from September 8th - October 20th, 2023.

Christine D’Onofrio (she/her/they) is an uninvited and grateful guest on the unceded ancestral territories of šxʷməθkʷəy̓əmaɁɬ təməxʷ (Musqueam), səl̓ilwətaɁɬ təməxʷ (Tsleil-Waaututh), Skwxwú7mesh-ulh Temíx̱w (Squamish), and S’ólh Téméxw (Stó:lō) nations that some refer to as Vancouver.  She has exhibited work across Canada, including; Eyelevel, Modern Fuel, deluge, Gallery 44, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, and La Centrale. She has given artist talks and served on panels in various institutions, including the Vancouver Art Gallery and “Art Now” lectures at the University of Lethbridge.

Active in her art community, she has served on the Board for Access Gallery and set up over a hundred engaged learning placements for students. As the second generation of European immigrants, she was raised as a guest on the traditional land of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinabewaki and Mississaugas of the Credit First Nations. D’Onofrio has a BFA from York University and an MFA from the University of British Columbia where she currently teaches.

 Learn more about D’Onofrio’s work by visiting her website.

I could just take you. And I become you. And you become me

-Breyer P-Orridge

Becoming a medium—a setting, a subject, an object has enfranchised artist Wilson S. Wilson from the discomfort and alienation of gender, sex and script. The Pandrogyny Project offers a personal realisation of pandrogyny as Wilson takes in the materials of objects and furniture around them, and begins to not only become these items, but to replace them, forming a third entity which is neither furniture nor individual, but a pandrogyne of domestic subjects. This concept of pandrogyny has evolved from the work of Genesis and Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge and their decades long Pandrogeny Project in which two people make surgical changes to their body, appearances and identities, becoming one unique, shared self.

Romantic and uncanny, The Pandrogeny Project is a body of work that explores the shifting of identity occurring as one comes to resemble and even function as an object of their space—as a pandrogyne of object/self—in distinguishing the object-subject and the human-object. In the exhibition, the pandrogyne materialises as a collection of furniture chimaera pieces and performance documents: an artist's publication that takes the form of a magazine spread, and a non-linear film where intimate gestures are captured in a series of surreal, pseudo-erotic scenes.

The Pandrogyny Project will be on view in our Project Gallery from September 8th - October 20th, 2023.

Hana Hamaguchi is a second generation Japanese artist born in Banff and currently based in the Okanagan. She completed her BFA at UBCO in 2022, with a focus on printmaking and painting. Hana is interested in themes of maliciousness hidden in the mundane. Her work often takes her throughout her own personal journey, navigating her childhood within a family that never grew up within Canada.

Entwined is a mural highlighting her experience with her hair while growing up within such a household. Growing up Hamaguchi was often mocked for her hair, it was always too messy, dry or frizzy. She had a nickname at home which translated to “messy head” but she internalized that it was purely a language and cultural difference at home to call her by that nickname. It took a long time for Hamaguchi to realize that being mocked for her hair was not fair nor was it justifiable within the means of differing cultures and languages. She grew up around peers that had a different hair texture than she did, and she did not have the support at home to navigate her thick Asian hair. This experience is an extremely isolating one, as it is very difficult to have someone understand both the nuances of her language and culture within the same context of being second generation to first generation parents.

Hamaguchi’s mural piece Entwined will be on view in the Members Gallery from September 8 to 30, 2023.

Once again the Alternator is celebrating our diverse creative community through our Annual Members’ Exhibition, The Postcard Project & Studio Sale. To commemorate our 34th year in the Kelowna arts community we invited our members to fill the walls of the gallery salon-style with original artworks and postcards.

 The Postcard Project & Studio Sale is an opportunity for local artists to exhibit their work in the Alternator’s professional gallery space, creating a grand mosaic that showcased both the people involved with the gallery and the work they produce. This annual members’ exhibition doubles as an exhibition and sale where visitors could take home (or gift!) a part of the Okanagan’s rich arts community. Artists will take home 75% of sales while the remaining 25% supports the Alternator’s programming.

Similar to last year, we invited 34 Alternator members (one for each year of our existence!) to create 10 unique postcards in any visual medium to be sold at $10 each. As part of the Studio Sale, gallery visitors will be sure to find something that speaks to them. With over 50 participating artists, and works ranging from paintings to ceramics, lino prints to bleach designed T-shirts, there is something here for everyone. All artworks in the exhibition are unique originals and available for sale with prices ranging as low as $10.00 and up. People are encouraged to visit early, however, as works in the exhibition are sold, they will be removed from the wall and taken home with their new owners.

SAVE THE DATE! on July 28, from 6-9pm we will be hosting a fundraising party to celebrate the launch of this exhibition and our 34th Birthday. Joins us for food, desserts, door prizes and more. Click here for all the details!

The exhibition will be on from July 7 to August 12 and will utilize all 3 of our exhibition spaces; the Main Gallery, Project Gallery, and Members’ Gallery.

Artists participating in the exhibition included: Fredrik Thacker, Jaine Buse, Beverly Thacker, Vanessa Arcana, Marguerite MacIntosh, Sharon Duguay, Wynne Leung, Paige Gagnon, Katya Meehalchan, Mariah Miguel-Juan, Maud Besson, Shauna Oddleifson, Susan Bizecki, Bailey Ennig, Bramble Lee Pryde, Nathalie Coulombe, Annie Zalezsak, Angel Mamaril, Bonnie Anderson, Moira Roberts, Jesse Roode, Brandon Teigland, Shirley Addams, Patty Leinemann, Joanne Gervais, Eric Macnaughton, Sandra Cook, John Leinemann, Carrie Mitchell, Stacy Crane, Kimberly Crane, Paul Lewendon, Christina Knittel, Connor Charlesworth, Laura McCarthy, Madison Bohnet, Carly Sivasankar, Lesley Dalin, Peyton Lynch, Wanda Lock, Amy Van Dongen, Isabella Ford, Michelle Woods, Ceren McKay, Jolene Mackie, Chandler Burnett, Dawn Brauer, Angela Hansen, Avery Ullyot-Comrie, Asahna Hughes, Moozhan Ahmadzadegan, Hana Hamaguchi, Arianne, Tubman, Celeste Jackson, Alexa Tozer, Paula Schneider, Claudia Paquette, Elisa Roth, James Bergan, John Roberts, Jordan Lige, Kassidy Rutledge, Kat Gerhardt, Kathryn Pooley, Kathy Townsend, Kellen Grayston, Kirby, Lisa, Lucy Long, Matt Nakayama, Ricky, Robert Farley, Sam Mayer, Scott Gould, and Walid Waitkus.

Mariah Miguel-Juan is a Kelowna-born artist residing on the traditional land of the Syilx  Okanagan People, and a student of UBC Okanagan's BFA program. Her artistic practice delves into the depths of memory and personal connection. Through her art, she explores the transformative power of fragmented narratives and invites the viewer to find familiarity within.  

Remnants by Miguel-Juan includes multiple collage-based screen prints that use layering and translucent elements to mimic the elusive nature of memories. Her artwork is infused with personal significance as it references moments in her life and offers a glimpse into her own imaginative realm. This series has become a way for Miguel-Juan to create a map of where she has been and the paths she has walked. Through the incorporation of distorted images depicting windows, hallways, and street views, Remnants presents a captivating challenge to the viewer,  urging them to unravel the meaning and forge personal connections that resonate with their own lives.  

Miguel-Juan’s creative process includes digitally collaging found imagery from magazines and her own photography. During the screen printing process, she works intuitively to create a series of prints that embrace spontaneity and result in unique qualities and compositions. To push the boundaries of her art, she experiments with various printing surfaces, including fabric, silkscreen mesh, and different types of paper. By layering images and incorporating translucent elements,  she creates veils that capture the ephemeral essence of memories. 

Remnants will be on view in the Members’ Gallery from June 16 to July 5, 2023.