Opening March 13th in the Alternator Members’ Gallery is Dear Diary by Kel Taylor!
How many diaries have screamed agony or sighed relief as they were shredded and burned? Ken Taylor has lost count of the self-inflicted carnage deemed imperative after witnessing her father's devastation, and imagining her stepmother turning in her grave, when he found and read her journals. Determined never to leave records unattended, abandoned, without being present to deny, defend, or choose the page number, Kel is taking control, deciding where in her Dear Diary pages you can look.
This is a reckoning, a welcoming home for all those disenfranchised parts of herself destined for the shredder and the pyre. Dear Diary will expose chosen stories through visual images, select words and actions. Oh Yes! This exhibition activates. Responding to memories and emotions that show up, sparks may fly! After all, “If not now then when?” as Tracy Chapman has sung so beautifully. “If not now then when?”
She invites you to witness. Energy generated and gathered, in the relationship of seeing and being seen, has the power to transform. “Transform what?” you may ask. Well…a deeper richer compassion for self and others, a greater lived sense of shared humanity, a state of grace.
Join us on March 20th from 6 - 8pm for a triple exhibition reception, as we celebrate alongside Woojae Kim in our Main Gallery and Samantha Wigglesworth in our Project Gallery.
Vancouver born artist Kel Taylor lived, worked and studied in five provinces and the UK before settling on the stolen ancestral lands of the Okanagan Syilx Peoples. Her formal art training began with her Occupational Therapy degree and continued through a variety of coursework over the next four decades. Since 2016 she has focused on figurative acrylic and mixed media painting, has been a finalist in the 2025 Salt Spring National Art Prize, shown her work in group curated exhibitions including the Federation of Canadian Artists, Lake Country Art Gallery and Headbones Gallery and was artist in residence in Similkameen.