Jess Portfleet Curator/Education Director
Jess Portfleet is a Vancouver-based artist utilizing her sculptural practice to investigate and rewire the structures people build with and for, Things. By casting, displacing, repurposing and collecting, she creates arrangements that question social concepts of control, investment, value and identity as they move through perceived connections with (and between) things. Portfleet reinterprets objects through exhibition strategies centered around staging and play. Using space and place as scaffolding, and props that provide alternative modes of support; these objects explore and articulate complex human moments.
Portfleet received her MFA from Emily Carr University of Art and Design and works as a sessional instructor in sculpture and ceramics at Michigan Technological University, Kwantlen Polytechnic University and Emily Carr University. She currently lives and works in the DTES of Vancouver, the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, where she enjoys shopping the landscape for lost objects, found furniture and industrial salvage.
Jess Portfleet is a Vancouver-based artist utilizing her sculptural practice to investigate and rewire the structures people build with and for, Things. By casting, displacing, repurposing and collecting, she creates arrangements that question social concepts of control, investment, value and identity as they move through perceived connections with (and between) things. Portfleet reinterprets objects through exhibition strategies centered around staging and play. Using space and place as scaffolding, and props that provide alternative modes of support; these objects explore and articulate complex human moments.
Portfleet received her MFA from Emily Carr University of Art and Design and works as a sessional instructor in sculpture and ceramics at Michigan Technological University, Kwantlen Polytechnic University and Emily Carr University. She currently lives and works in the DTES of Vancouver, the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, where she enjoys shopping the landscape for lost objects, found furniture and industrial salvage.
Jennny Hawkinson
Jenny Hawkinson’s artistic process is best characterized by place-based research and a methodology of gathering. She works with a range of media including video, textiles, soundscape, sculpture and installation art. Her work poetically transforms gathered/found materials to embellish their original contexts. She explores themes of contested territories, nationalism, anti-monuments, border politics and psycho-geography. Her interests in borderlands came from years of ‘unlearning’ as an expatriate of the United States of America. She has since followed her curiosity to lead independent artist residencies in Northern Ireland and Israel/Palestine. Alongside her art-making is a commitment to a socially engaged and community focused practice.
Hawkinson received a BA in Visual Arts from Trinity Western University and is currently enrolled in Transart Institute for an MFA in Creative Research. She lives and works in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, BC on the unceded and traditional territories of xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ /Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations.
Jenny Hawkinson’s artistic process is best characterized by place-based research and a methodology of gathering. She works with a range of media including video, textiles, soundscape, sculpture and installation art. Her work poetically transforms gathered/found materials to embellish their original contexts. She explores themes of contested territories, nationalism, anti-monuments, border politics and psycho-geography. Her interests in borderlands came from years of ‘unlearning’ as an expatriate of the United States of America. She has since followed her curiosity to lead independent artist residencies in Northern Ireland and Israel/Palestine. Alongside her art-making is a commitment to a socially engaged and community focused practice.
Hawkinson received a BA in Visual Arts from Trinity Western University and is currently enrolled in Transart Institute for an MFA in Creative Research. She lives and works in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, BC on the unceded and traditional territories of xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ /Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations.
Wade Comer
Wade Comer is a photographic artist and a maker of things. His core belief is that there is beauty everywhere, and that photography has the power to make the ordinary extraordinary.
Through photography and visual arts, Wade investigates two main concepts: how we see; and, what we leave behind.
Wade’s background in, and connection to, the local arts community reaches back over thirty years to his careers in graphic design, broadcasting, and the music industry.
Wade Comer is a photographic artist and a maker of things. His core belief is that there is beauty everywhere, and that photography has the power to make the ordinary extraordinary.
Through photography and visual arts, Wade investigates two main concepts: how we see; and, what we leave behind.
Wade’s background in, and connection to, the local arts community reaches back over thirty years to his careers in graphic design, broadcasting, and the music industry.
Peter Sickert
President/Programming
Peter Sickert is a Vancouver based multidisciplinary artist whose practice ranges widely and draws from many sources finding expression in painting, sculpture, video and installations.
Peter holds an MFA and an Advanced Studies Certificate in Painting from Emily Carr University of Art and Design, as well as a Degree in Architecture from the University of British Columbia.
President/Programming
Peter Sickert is a Vancouver based multidisciplinary artist whose practice ranges widely and draws from many sources finding expression in painting, sculpture, video and installations.
Peter holds an MFA and an Advanced Studies Certificate in Painting from Emily Carr University of Art and Design, as well as a Degree in Architecture from the University of British Columbia.
