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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Curated by Victoria Jaenig, Looking at Ullus is an exhibition highlighting the individual artworks representing the different styles, backgrounds and artistry of Ullus Collective Artists. This exhibition features the work of Franchesca Bell, Ann Doyon, and Hayley Reagan.

ULLUS is a collective of professional Indigenous artists living, working or residing within the traditional territories of the Syilx or Secwépemc nations. ULLUS Artists are youth, emergent, mid-career and established indigenous artists practicing and developing their crafts.

ULLUS is a word translated from the nsyilxcən language and translated as “a gathering of people for a common purpose”. ULLUS originated in 1982 under the Okanagan Tribal Council as the Okanagan Indian Curriculum Project and was formally named ULLUS Collective in 1997. Ullus Collective recognizes the unique arts practices of Indigenous artists & artisans living as descendants or guests within the traditional syilx or secwepemc territories & beyond.

Looking at Ullus will be on view in the Members’ Gallery from May 19 to June 10, 2023.

Studio 9 Independent School of the Arts is a unique educational collective specializing in mentoring students through self-directed, project-based, collaborative learning, from Kindergarten to Grade 12. Through intergenerational connections, They’ve fostered a unique community where different ages and grades come together to support, guide, and lead, based on their own passions, abilities, interests, and ideas. Students are involved in numerous forms of creativity, from dance, theatre, and music, to digital, experimental, and fine art. 

Grade 6/7 Teacher and Artist, Jesse Roode, and Directors Michael Guzzi and Patricia Rockwell, have come together and initiated this installation to complement Studio9's production of “The Little Mermaid Jr.” They proposed to explore the theme of water and asked the students what they think is most important about our aquatic realms. Preservation and sustainability came forth. They imagined all the water in the world, where it is, where it came from and all its purposes. They then imagined the creatures and what their homes may look like. Considering the unique intelligence of these mystical animals, one specifically stood out, the majestic octopus. How stunning their gardens were and how sad their gardens have become. Making homes from trash and decorating the bleached coral with it. They realized that we must consider the well-being of those beyond ourselves. The worlds beyond human. Life not only on land, but below it, and how we’re all connected. The well-being of our waterways ultimately reflects and mirrors the well-being of ourselves. Water is life.

Under the Sea, Beyond Human utilizes upcycled materials such as cans, plastic bottles, video cassette tapes, and more to create a large sea-based installation in the Alternator’s Members’ Gallery. This collaborative installation features contributions from Akira Abaku, Enzo Abaku, Salem Adrian, Sarah Adrian, Matteo Alterio-Smith, Juliet Arango, Isaac Armer, Emmett Arnason, Freya Arnason, Kendell Azama, Sydney Azama, Keira Baker, Tavian Bessette, Brynlee Bishop, Elijah Bishop, Jersey Bloomfield, Emily Brolund, Becca Burr, Gemma Byrne, Cad Cameron, Noah Chapman, Eleorah Cipes, Calliana Coble, Aaliyah Cooper-Peel, Mateo Delgado Serna, Nixon Diduch, Tia Diduch, Jace Doucet, Harlow Elliot, Fletcher Fisher, Sawyer Fisher, Cali Flores, Leila Francis, Letty Francis, Ruby-Lynn Francis, Kevin Gheeraert, Enzo Guchardi, Andrew Gunning, Siena Hasler, Cailen Hobbs, Sabriel Hopkins, Starling Jude, Joseph Kalenchuk, Chloe Kershaw, Damon Kershaw, Elise Kershaw, Salvador King, Dominic Klingspon Hein, Daniel Komlos-Szilagyi, Noemi Komlos-Szilagyi, Khloe Kostiuk-Cates, Selena Kuhlen, Cheree Lisher, Sofia Locke, Carson Lusted, Aria Martinello, Molly Mason-Brown, Tayanna Meier, Alexa Miller, Julia O'Neill, Tyson Paley, Jantina Pollack, Ariana Preston, Tsaylah Preston-Walker, Arianna Prive, Owen Prive, Chloe Pulfer-Rempel, Sarah Rueda, Sebastian Rueda, Karsen Sampson, Liberty Sanderson, Itsuki Sato, Avital Shapiro, Odin Sherback, Emma Simpson, Jack Tober, Brooklyn Woodhall, Cole Wynsouw, Ari Zelickson, Layah Zelickson, and Zev Zelickson.

Under the Sea, Beyond Human will be on view in the Members’ Gallery from April 28 to May 13, 2023.

COPY - CUT - PASTE was an exhibition that includes 44 UBC Okanagan painting students and their instructor, David Doody. Together they explored how Google Image Search and the ‘meme’ culture have impacted imagination, image making and storytelling in the post-digital era. 

Hito Steyerl's essay, ‘In Defence of the Poor Image’ was used as a reference point to guide the students’ search for value and meaning within the rising tide of imagery that subsequently submerges and defines contemporary culture.

Individuals were asked to collect 12 images from the internet. This collection of 528 digital images were then pooled together and rendered real by printing on paper. Students were then tasked to sift through the material of flotsam and jetsam of ‘poor images’ for a glimmer of inspiration. 

“Search for things wild, weird or whacky, search for things serious, scientific or sad…These images can be sampled from anywhere online whether photographic, digitally animated or artistically rendered sources. These images can be sampled from 90’s television shows, classic movies, famous paintings, AI generators or your favorite Memes…”  

Working intuitively by remixing these images and relying on the nature of collage, the group discovered dynamic constellations of narrative emerging from the shared pool of sampled images. Over 300 new and unexpected compositions were generated through this process. 

In the continued spirit of collaboration, and to further question notions of authorship and originality of the “poor images” of the internet, students were encouraged to choose any one of the group's 300+ collages as the basis to create a painting. Over the next three weeks students were guided through the painstaking process of constructing their paintings using thin veils of acrylic washes on watercolour paper.

Once the painting process was complete, students turned back to Hito Steyerl's written wisdom and compiled a series of fragmented excerpts from the text. The students worked  in tandem with the UBCO technicians and started experimenting with decoupage as they used a laser to directly cut out sections from their paintings. Textual voids were carved away from their painting compositions and once again new and unexpected sequences of value and meaning were born.

COPY - CUT - PASTE was on view in the Members’ Gallery from March 24 - April 22, 2023.

COPY - CUT - PASTE featured work by Audrey Allan, Serena Arsenault, Eunis Au, Abigail Wiens, Amy Bugera, Chandler Burnett, Faith Bye, Taylor Carpenter, Gabe Cipes, Paige Coleman, Emily Cornwall, Ella Cottier, Nadia Fracy, Cadence Gau, Hailey Gleboff, Elly Hadju, Asahna Huges, Stephen Ikesaka, Chloe Jenkins, Bella Jiang,  Lauren Jonhson, Rhea Kjargaard, Peyton Lynch, Connor McCleary, Sarah McNeil, Katya Meehalchan, Mariah Miguel-Jaun, Carrie Mitchelle, Karina Nardi, Grace Nascimento-Laverdiere, Kate Nicholson, Dama Ozkalay, Julia Pearson, John Prendas, Anna Semenoff, Nick Tai,  Fredrik Thacker, Katya Torin, Delainey Vogan, Christine Wakal, Odelle Walthers, and David Doody

Sofie Lovelady is a British Columbia-born artist and recent BFA graduate from UBC Okanagan (traditional unceded territory of the Syilx), currently working out of Montreal (traditional unceded Tiohtià:ke territory).

Lovelady is interested in the representation of bodies in popular media, and the archival of found images from vintage and contemporary magazines/advertisements and mass-circulated graphics. Working with found images offers insight into evolving beauty ideals that are reflected through media, as well as the apparent objectification of female bodies for capitalist visual strategies. Combining images and text allows Lovelady to express her experience maturing during a highly digital age with overly-exploited public female figures. Re-appropriating images acts as a process of addressing the ideas of possession and gaze; while still expressing the ever-present discomfort and uncertainties that accompany navigating self-image in the hypersexualized world of popular media.

What’s Mine is Yours will be on view in the Members’ Gallery from February 24 - March 18, 2023.

Through the Rush depicts a dichotomous view of public everyday life by local photographer Mike Lennon. This installation is a collection of 40 photographs divided into two parts: 13 colour prints framed on the gallery wall and 27 black and white translucent vinyl prints installed on the enclosing glass. These documentary-style photographs were taken on the street in the heart of downtown Kelowna from October 2020–August 2022. 

How Lennon creates his work mirrors the classic method of candid street photography. Throughout history, capturing public life in this way has produced some of the most influential and widely reproduced images of all time. These iconic photos and the method of capturing them has steadily fueled Lennon's work to capture life at its most delicate and raw. While there is an acknowledgement between photographer and subject that their images are being taken, there is an understanding that Lennon is on the peripheral. As an observer, Lennon engages his subjects but is careful not to disturb the moment in time he aims to capture.

The two sets of photos contrast each other in printed material, visual aesthetic, and conceptual content. Thus, forcing viewers to examine the work closely and (literally) from different angles to see clearly. The work attempts to act as a vehicle for self-reflection, contemplating how we live our lives in the present moment and where happiness lies.

Through The Rush will be on view in the Members’ Gallery from January 27 to February 18, 2023.

Mike Lennon is a street & documentary-style photographer based in Kelowna, BC, Canada. Since 2018 his work has focused on capturing candid portraits, serendipitous everyday moments, and landscapes all within the downtown core. Photographing on film and digital, he works to create striking and intriguing images that document his fascination with public everyday life. For more about Mike and his work, visit mikelennon.myportfolio.com or his Instagram.

Chandler Burnett, also known as Strawberry Juice, is an Ontario-born artist, UBCO student, and tattoo artist, currently based out of Kelowna, BC. Strawberries' artistic practice is influenced by the artwork of traditional tattoo flash and vintage prison artwork. He has always taken an interest in the illustrative techniques associated with tattoos including the notable line work, compositions, simplistic imagery, and intricate shading methods. Strawberry incorporates his own style into this work to create new and unique compositions and continue the tradition of vintage tattoo art and design.

Strawberry is largely inspired by artists such as Briar Gates, Ed hardy, Huck Spaulding,  Paul Rogers, Prof Zeis, and Thomas Kirschner. While influenced by the rich history of the medium, Strawberry does not attempt to create a singular narrative, but rather opens up space for diverse interpretation for viewers. In addition to this, he attempts to achieve his goal of  “putting his personality onto paper”, to explore and create the subject matter and style that inspires him, and hopefully leave an impact on viewers.

Strawberry Juice, the artist's first solo exhibition, will be on view in the Alternator’s Members’ Gallery from November 25, 2022, to January 19, 2023. Learn more about Chandler Burnetts practice by visiting his Instagram at @strawb3rryjuic3

“Most of us move now in such a thicket of excess that we can no longer make out the real contour of things.” 

- John O’Donohue

Closet Meditations emerged as a project following Marguerite MacIntosh’s participation in the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art’s online exhibition The Assembly: Sustainability earlier this year and her reading of The Journal of John Woolman. Woolman was an eighteenth-century Quaker whose writings challenged issues of his day that continue to plague contemporary life, often speaking of how the lure of luxury manifested in possessions, clothing, and travel can so easily override sound judgment. Black clothing is historically related to the Quakers and other Christian religious orders and is also symbolic of death and mourning. Closet Meditations follows the seventeenth-century Dutch still-life vanitas tradition in which artists remind viewers of the imminence of death and the futility of worldly possessions.

In this installation, MacIntosh examines the contents of her own closet and its preponderance of black clothing.  She considers how she uses the clothes she buys and wears to inform her identity in myriad ways, usually distracted and detached from the implications of this consumption in terms of environmental destruction and worker exploitation.  For MacIntosh, the process of inventorying these clothes with photography and documenting them through pencil drawings was an experience of embodied contemplation. In presentation, the drawings are arranged in a grid formation, a recurrent device in her work that relates to her architectural and spiritual sensibilities.  The clothes themselves are also displayed, the folded favourites versus the overflowing excess, necessitating the artist’s fast from wearing black during the exhibition.

Closet Mediations will be on view in the Members’ Gallery from October 28 to November 19.

Marguerite MacIntosh is an artist and retired architect in addition to being a wife, mother, and grandmother.  Her works in acrylic, pencil and mixed media contemplate her own experiences of time and place and point to an awareness of the present moment and the liminal spaces in which we find ourselves.  She lives with her husband and their dog Beau in Summerland, British Columbia.

‘Youth culture’ is a term generally reserved for negative conversations, almost always dripping with a condescending tone, and regarded as something not worthy of a more meaningful conversation. What makes youth culture? Has it changed since the 70s? Since the 50s? What is it about young people that is so simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating?  

In MAKE A RUCKUS, Fredrik Thacker explores his own interpretation of youth culture in the 2020s. By using popular iconography paired with bold colours and patterns, he shifts the view of today’s youth to highlight the power that young people have in shifting societal progression, as well as the beauty and ease in which collaboration can take form through digital spaces.  

Considering how COVID-19 affected artists’ ability to work with models in person,  Fredrik decided to lean on social media for the answer, asking his peers and friends to send him their favourite selfies. This created a space where figurative art is equal parts documentation and collaboration; communication was important throughout the process, with an understanding that the selfies people chose to send were what they thought to be the most accurate representations of themselves. Both factors greatly influenced the composition of each painting.  

So, to answer the question of ‘what the **** are kids doing?’: they are moulding a space in society where your physical form can be whatever you want it to be and you can be as loud as you need. They are telling us to support our peers, embrace our eccentricities, and make a ruckus.

MAKE A RUCKUS is on view in the Members’ Gallery from September 30 - October 22.

Fredrik Thacker is an artist based on the unceded territory of the Syilx people, whose artistic practice is mainly focused on surrealist portraiture. As a queer and transgender man, his work revolves around the social portrayal of masculinity, gender identity, and sexuality, as seen through an uncanny and humorous lens. His present goal is to depict the important role youth culture plays in progressing society into a beautiful, fluid future. Thacker drinks too much coffee, uses the ‘hang loose’ emoji way too often, and is currently studying for his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus.

In the Members’ Gallery from September 2- 24 is Processing… by local artist, Christina Knittel. Knittel is an artist living in Kelowna BC, who creates abstract paintings using mixed media.  She graduated in 2006 from UBC Okanagan with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, where she studied drawing and digital media. Her work has been on display at many local venues and has participated in art shows for over 15 years.

Colour and mark-making are distinctive elements in Christina’s work.  As an intuitive, process-based artist, she usually begins with a single colour applied with a gestural mark. She then responds with another, working with the movement and choosing colour combinations that feel right in the moment. By working this way, allowing the moment to determine what happens next, Knittel makes room for the unexpected.  This process produces a vibrant and gestural style that reflects the ebb and flow of everyday moments, their transitions, and our emotions in them.

In the last 2 years, overwhelming uncertainty in the world often made it difficult for Knittel to work in her usual process.  The paintings included in Processing… are special because they represent moments of reconnecting with calm and joy within that uncertainty.  These paintings are dynamic and vibrant pieces of art that feel light and dreamlike, capturing the complexities of moving from moment to moment.  They radiate a calm, joyful energy that she hopes people feel when they experience her work.

Processing… will be on view in the Members’ Gallery from September 2 - 24, 2022. You can learn more about Christina Knittel and her work by visiting her website or her Instagram.

According to the World Economic Forum, 85% of all textiles go to the dump each year. Fashion production makes up 10% of humanity’s carbon emissions, and pollutes rivers, streams and oceans. This raises the questions: why buy new when we can renew?

Beauty What! is a collection of upcycled wearable art and design costumes created for the 2022 Art For Change 2022 Beauty WAD (Wearable Art and Design) Competition curated by Hanna Karin for the Members’ Gallery of the Alternator, on view from August 8 to 27, 2022.

Showcasing well-known and unknown designers from Canada and Myanmar, all of the submissions are made from repurposed fabric, natural fibres, packaging, and other discarded materials.

These entries exemplify the value-added potential of extending the lifespan of post-consumer waste. Trash becomes treasure, as a viable commodity and as a means to reduce our environmental footprint.

The entries also exemplify the incredible talent and ingenuity of trash artists. Inconsistencies that exist in unusual or weathered products mean costume preparation time is significantly longer than when starting with new materials. However, in the right hands, these irregularities create exciting potential for unique fashion and art, as demonstrated in this exhibit.

Beauty What! celebrates diversity in design and in designers. Marginalized artists from ChuChu and divergent artists from Cool Arts are represented side-by-side with their creative peers.

Beauty What! is part of the Art For Change exhibition — a series of five exhibits and three events that focus on using art and inclusive collaboration to create positive environmental change. Exhibits are located at the Rotary Centre for the Arts and at the Okanagan Heritage Museum. Find out more at artforchange.earth.

The artists featured include: Becky TenVeen from Summerland BC; Erica Bee from Kelowna, BC; Hanna Karin from Kelowna, BC; Hla Hla Yee from Dala, Myanmar; Julia Soleski from Kelowna, BC; Leslie Leong from Whitehorse, Yukon; Martha Ritchie from Haines Junction, Yukon; Ryan Williams from Kelowna, BC; Sen Sen from Dala, Myanmar; Sustainable Rave from Kelowna, BC; Trish Chung from 100 Mile House, BC.

For more information about Art for Change visit their website or follow them on Instagram and Facebook.

AR Bernard is back! Seven teams of local artists including illustrators, animators, and musicians collaborated to create a collection of augmented reality artworks that were on display as part of the City of Kelowna’s ‘Meet Me on Bernard’ events in the summer of 2022. 

Funded by the City of Kelowna Temporary Art in Public Spaces program, and facilitated by the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art, Kelowna Art Gallery, and Maud Collective, the works presented as part of AR Bernard explore topics ranging from the natural environment and whimsical beasts to hypnotizing figurative work. 

Augmented Reality technology allows the viewer to add an enhanced layer of images, movement, and sound to their immediate surroundings by looking through their smartphone.

The seven artworks were created by artists Jesse Roode, Zohreh Rastkerdar, Bo Higgs, Moozhan Ahmadzadegan, Reuben Scott, Will Hoffman, Ashleigh Green, Jamal Pollack, Ken Ackerman, Kristi Clarke, Emily Stubbs, Michael Averill, Emmah Farrell, Jacen Dennis, Branchroot Ensemble, Shauna Oddleifson, Joanne Gervais, Alison Beaumont, Liz Ranney, Jacen Dennis, and Shera Kelly. They are displayed between the 300-500 blocks on Bernard Avenue from July 1 – September 6, 2022. After downloading the AUGLE app, viewers could point their smartphone at the artworks to see the illustrations come to life!

Using the shopping cart and the helium balloon as found objects, Discotheque, by Avery Ullyot-Comrie examines the glamorization of consumer culture. The shopping cart is a recognizable form that serves the single purpose of carrying goods. This function has been disrupted through the severing of the cart into two main halves, rendering it motionless and unable to fulfill its intended purpose. Attached to each half is a helium balloon that mimics the form of a disco ball; an object typically known to hang from the ceiling and cast an eye-catching hemisphere of light. The helium disco ball balloon supports the severed cart, referencing the glorification of unsustainable and destructive realities within consumer environments. Glamorization is used as a tool to distract from the unmendable issues that arise from consumption on a mass scale. The balloons appear to uplift the cart, while also being held down by its weight, creating tension between the two objects. 

Join us on Saturday, June 25th, from 3-5pm for a closing reception and a chance to meet the artist. Light snacks and refreshments will be available.

Avery Ullyot-Comrie recently finished her Bachelor of Fine Art degree at UBC Okanagan in the spring of 2022 and is currently living and working in the Okanagan area. Working primarily in sculpture, Avery uses found objects within the context of the gallery space to question the pre-existing relationships between object and viewer. 

Her work occurs in a ‘material first’ process where objects are sourced and then continually experimented with over time, often in large quantities. The found objects are commonly prefabricated plastic items or brightly coloured geometric forms that Avery finds while engaging with the consumer environment. These objects are chosen initially from aesthetic attraction and gain conceptual direction in the creative process over time. Avery is influenced by her daily experiences with pre-fabricated objects in consumer environments that make her question the conceptual nature of consumer goods. This is one of Avery’s first exhibitions as an emerging artist.

Jackie McLaughlin is an artist based in the unceded territory of the Syilx/Okanagan people. She works primarily with florals and natural materials at this time; sourcing most of her materials from the local landscape through sustainable foraging or from her private garden.

McLaughlin’s work is an ongoing exploratory practice into the diversity of florals, organics, and at times fruits and vegetables, and their artistic potential. When working with florals, she plays with various design elements, weight distribution and colour theory to create a piece that is both well-balanced and experimental; carefully curated yet playful.

The inherently impermanent nature of the materials plays an important role in McLaughlin’s work. Each piece is meant to be viewed within a short window of time, making them more of an experience, and an opportunity to appreciate the materials and their relationship to the at times “unnatural” space where they are being viewed.

McLaughlin’s exhibition, Solarium, includes ‘Chandelier’ and ‘Self-Portrait’. These works utilize natural materials that have been studied and found purpose through experimentation and association.

‘Chandelier’ is an exercise in repetition and play. The shapeshifting curly willow is tremendously malleable, allowing it to be twisted and formed into various designs, shapes, or patterns. Here, it abstractly makes up the ‘bones’ of the chandelier, while the maple leaves hang draped across their spindly arms like long strings of gems. Time is very relevant in this exhibition. The leaves in ‘Chandelier’ are stacked on top of one another, over and over, and threaded together to create several long strings. One might say that the time invested adds value to the piece, much like a chandelier may be valuable or expensive.

‘Self-Portrait’ directly alludes to representation of the self through floral work using dried clematis, roses, and craspedia. While the creations will vary day to day, each piece is a window into the florist’s soul and mind. Time is referenced in this piece as well. After the portrait is completed and time inevitably passes, allowing the flowers to wilt and die, as does the artist’s mental and emotional state at the piece’s conception. While this is true of any floral piece the artist creates, it is especially relevant in the making of the self-portrait, as we are also constantly changing.

Learn more about Jackie McLaughlin’s work by visiting her website, Instagram, and Facebook.

Reflection is a topic artist Myrna Button has been ruminating on for some time now. Once something predominantly the domain of thinkers, philosophers and perhaps, those ‘of a certain age’ expanded now in 2022 to seemingly include everyone. In the artists’ newest exhibition, Upon Reflection, she challenges viewers to consider what has shifted, been framed and reframed, examined, and reflected upon in their personal journey.

Influenced by her time spent travelling throughout the Arctic, Button has been experimenting with mirrors as an extension of her work with stained glass. The mirrors have been deliberately cracked and fragmented to mimic the natural patterns that appear in the ice of the Arctic. Rather than the traditional reading of cracked mirrors as broken or negative, Button re-considers them as imparting a sense of safety and freedom by referencing her Arctic travels across frozen rivers and lakes.

Button’s artistic process can be described as hands-on in that the artist allows materials to guide her direction. The cracked patterns created in the mirror impart a guide for the artists’ hands with colour and embellishments supporting the patterns. In some instances, Button has flooded the surface with colour and in others more deliberately followed the pattern. Through the use of mirrors, Button demands the audience face themselves and contemplate ideas of introspective reflection. By implicating the viewer into the work, the artist aims to encourage and guide viewers to embrace self-reflection and to consider how the last few years have exacerbated how we look at ourselves and the things that shape us.

Upon Reflection will be on view in the Members’ Gallery from April 8 - 30, 2022.

Myrna Button grew up on a cattle ranch in Southwest Saskatchewan. In her early twenties she moved to the MacKenzie Delta, Northwest Territories where she lived for the next 43 years. She traversed her environment by driving her own dog team. She remains a lifelong learner; reading her environment, and weaving contemplation and reflection into her artistic practice. Button is curious and experimental in multiple artistic practices which include pottery, watercolour, acrylic, fibre, and mixed media. She now resides in the Shuswap where she continues to find artistic expression.

Homescape is a presentation of student work exploring the interior landscape of one’s “own space”. A portrait of physical and psychological residuals left in the wake of life lived indoors, during a year of global pandemic and self-isolation.

These works were created by Introduction to Painting (VISA 215) students at the University of British Columbia Okanagan under the instruction of David James Doody during the September 2021 semester.

Artists involved in Homescape include Caity Dueck, Nick Tai, Chandler Burnett, Amy Marui, Peyton Lynch, Lauren Johnson, Hannah Palomera, Jenna Cooper, Serena Arsenault, Ella Cottier, and David James Doody.

In the Members’ Gallery starting February 11, Reuben Scott presents a selection of paintings and screen prints informed by his experiences seeing and feeling a variety of conditions in the daily human experience. In Highly Skilled, Scott depicts situations of everyday scenes, such as hitchhikers waiting for a ride, blue-collar workers taking out the trash, or convicts obligated to do community service; scenes that are typically not artistically thought-provoking on the surface and brings them to life in a cartoony realm to unearth trace amounts of humour lying underneath an average perception of ordinary experiences.

Scott’s artistic practice originates in the cartoon world. At an early age, he was inspired by the works of Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes, Gary Larson’s The Far Side, and Jim Davis’ Garfield. He observed the art style of these newspaper cartoonists on how they drew, the ideas they conveyed, and replicated their work to the best of his ability. The subsequent exposure over the years to Dav Pilkey’s book series Captain Underpants and most recently the diverse cartoons in The New Yorker Magazine helped refine Scott’s work up until his foray into a formal education in visual arts.

It is what led him to choose painting and screen printing as the mediums to express himself. The ability to achieve a cartoon-like quality with acrylic paint, and the possibilities to play with large scale presents a playful profoundness that has resonated with Scott. In addition, he found the technical process of screen printing immersive in allowing for the production of multiple originals. The medium’s ability to be displayed in many places at once shares the essence of the distribution of cartoons in print media.

Scott’s paintings and prints are his reactions to events he sees daily. Like many of his artistic peers, it is common that they work non-art inspiring day jobs (typically in the service industry) to subsidize their art education or artistic practice. It takes away from the time and energy needed for being motivated to make art. Scott repurposes some of this energy used in his side-job and its crude workplace culture into the humorous messaging of his paintings. He likes to find humour in places people would least expect it.

Highly Skilled will be on view in the Members’ Gallery from February 11 to March 5, 2022.

Opening January 15 in the new Members’ Gallery space is local artist Yuliya McMahon with a series of colourful, fantastical pieces titled Beyond the Sea.

Throughout her career, McMahon has been involved with a variety of artistic endeavours, most notably, her career as an animator for various studios such as Disney and DreamWorks. Inspired by her time working in animation for over 15 years, McMahon takes on a playful, illustrative approach towards her artistic practice. In Beyond the Sea, McMahon depicts a series of characters inspired by tropical plants, animals, and colours. She creates an underwater dream world, populated by pin-up mermaids, ultra-hip, hat-wearing octopuses and a wild assortment of their blowfish friends, each depicted with unique and individual personalities.

This ongoing series is influenced by the colours of nature and the rich, unique sub-sea world. McMahon is fascinated by the myriad shades of blue of the undersea world and imagines what lies beneath the ocean, allowing this curiosity to fuel her imaginative world. With Beyond the Sea, McMahon aims to explore her interest in the fantastical and bring a smile to someone's face.

Beyond the Sea will be on view in the Members’ Gallery from January 15 to February 5, 2022.

You can view more of Yuliya’s work by visiting her Instagram, Facebook, and website.

Yuliya McMahon has been drawing and sculpting since she was very little. Throughout her career, she has been involved with a variety of artistic endeavours including painting portraits and caricatures, decorating store window displays, theatre set design and having an over a decade-long career in animation. In 1999 Yuliya graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Kiev, Ukraine and after moving to Canada in 2004, graduated from the Toronto Film School in 3D Animation. Since then, she has been working in animation on movies and TV shows. In 2018, between work and family, Yuliya decided to find the time to pursue her passion of creating tropical fantasy paintings and sculptures. Since 2020 Yuliya's work has been displayed in galleries and shops in the United States as well as in Canada.

Kelowna-based artist Alberto Azzi’s paintings are characterized by an intersection of realism and fantasy. Azzi is a self-taught artist with no formal art education who developed his unique and recognizable style of extreme details, brilliant colours and precise technique throughout the years. After retiring from a forty-year-long career as a dentist, Azzi was able to deepen his engagement with art-making; most often working with oils and acrylics both on canvas and masonite. His interests lie in the nature around him and is often referenced in his artistic practice. Azzi creates detailed, complex pieces that draw from the natural, oftentimes fantastical, beauty of the world.

In Eternal Love for Nature, Azzi takes inspiration from the work of the masters and depicts a variety of subject matter such as landscapes, people, fauna and flora. His love for the mountains and nature has stayed in his heart, as noticeable in this exhibition. He finds pleasure in painting and thus the never-ending search for chromatic and formal harmonies, a privilege and gift from the Creator.

Alberto Azzi was born in Cles in 1926, a small mountain town in the Italian Alps. He relocated to Port Coquitlam, BC, Canada in 1993, where he frequented the Senior Centre Painting Club guided by the late painter, Tim White. Since 2003 he has lived in Kelowna, BC, where he regularly participated in the Painting Club of the Water Front Senior Center. In 2012 he became a Supportive Member of the Federation of Canadian Artists. That same year he was accepted as an Active Member of FCA, and in 2014 he became a member of the FCA - Central Okanagan Chapter. Alberto has been a long-time member and supporter of the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art. He has exhibited in the Members’ Gallery on several occasions and will be the last artist to have a Members’ exhibition in the current space.

Eternal Love for Nature will be on view in both the Members’ Gallery and Window Gallery from December 3, 2021, to January 3, 2022. Please note the Gallery will be closed between December 19, 2021 to January 3, 2022. Visitors will still have the opportunity to view some of Alberto’s works in the Window Gallery as the Rotary Centre for the Arts will remain open until December 24th, 2021.

Mary Enyit Guaw Jong’s exhibition of paintings brings together her identity as a second-generation Chinese Canadian and her experience growing up as a market gardener in the agricultural community of Armstrong, B.C. 

Through using the circle, her canvases act as portals to sublime valleys and lakes, dreamscapes of a world not unlike our own. In Chinese cosmography, the earth is thought of as flat with four corners, while heaven exists above in a circular canopy over the earth. Meanwhile, In Chinese symbology, the circle also represents perfection and completeness. It is often a cultural reference to the moon, a significant character in Jong’s work. 

Scenes of speckled moons appear, rising out of a swell of the clouds billowing over the mountain ranges of an autumn’s dusk. The completion of an auspicious moon often signifies prosperity and a reunion of a family as a whole. Together with her sisters, Jong’s name “Enyit Guaw,” is named after the Chinese moon goddess, and here, the moon becomes a self-portrait and reference to her family. 

In working the rich fertile bottomland to grow vegetables alongside her family, Jong also draws upon her inspiration of the earth, sky, water and mystical beauty of the Okanagan Valley. Colourful quilted valleys, ascending celery stalks, and gnarled apple trees, vacant of leaves from the first frost of winter, appear in otherworldly scenes that reference Jong’s life. Through her series of paintings, a unity is found between the grounding of the earth and the heavenly sky above.

This exhibition is curated by Asia Jong and will be on view from November 6 - 27, 2021 in the Members’ Gallery.

Mary Enyit Guaw Jong is a second generation Chinese Canadian born and raised in Armstrong, BC. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Victoria where she majored in printmaking, etching and serigraph and she is now exploring the medium of acrylics.

She has been featured in many exhibitions throughout BC such as Vancouver, Victoria, Kamloops, Prince George, Kelowna, Vernon, and Armstrong. 

Asia Jong is Mary Jong’s daughter. She is a curator and arts facilitator based on unceded Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territories (Vancouver, Canada). She co-runs Ground Floor, a collective that supports early emerging artists and operates through the values of care, hospitality, and a positive approach to failure. Recent curatorial projects include If we say things simply: Phoebe Huang and Stephanie Gagne at Or Gallery (2021) and Chiasmas: Rina Lyshaug featured in the 2021 Capture Photography Festival. Her writing has featured in ArtAsiaPacific and she was also a participant in Para Site Hong Kong’s 2020 Workshops for Emerging Arts Professionals.

‘The idea of the African is strange. I have never seen him. He was conjured up in a book and is often sought after in narrative 
The African is becoming strange to me. 
I don’t know who they are. 
My ancestors were not African until someone settled on this name. Who is the African 
Who made them? 
What was the name of the continent before the colonists came?’ 

As a diasporan, Trophy Ewila is on a journey to re-‘member'' stories of his ancestors hidden by the conditions of the global colonial project. He questions what constitutes ‘Africanness’, the authorship of the character, and the role of the character to the author’s culture. Ewila is inspired by the Akan symbol and concept of Sankofa in looking at Re-Membering as a form of agency to one’s liberty by granting access to the Contemporary African to Re-Member Their-story in order to determine the direction of their future. 

Using faces as a symbol/metaphor of Identity, Ewila explores the strangeness of the ‘African’ character. He uses the compositions/concoctions in these pieces - arranged through quasi shamanic spiritual practice- to exorcise the true identity of the ‘African’ from the imposition of Western/Capitalist/Colonial/White Supremacist cultural values as universal norms.

“Every day, I think about LIBERATION. 
I think about DECOLONISATION. “

-Trophy Ewila

What Was the Name of Africa Before the Colonialist Came? is on view in the Members’ Gallery from October 8 to October 30, 2021.

Trophy Ewila is best understood through his interest in finding the ‘name of Africa given by its Indigenous inhabitants before European Colonialism’. He is a graduate of UBCO (BA General studies, Economics concentration), a member of the founding executive committee of the UBCO African Caribbean Student Club and the first Black (and international) student to be president of UBCSUO. Trophy is co-founder of the African Ubuntu Association and he is a founding member of Kinfolk Nation- an African, Caribbean artist group who tell their story through singing, poetry, storytelling, theatre and art forms of all kinds.

Grounding was a body of work that documented Reitzel’s process of grounding herself through creating site-specific artwork on the unceded traditional lands of the Syilx nation. As a settler, Reitzel worked directly on and with the land to open her body to ‘touch’ and be ‘touched’ by the land, and provide a direct translation of the sensations she felt. She created works bare-foot and traded paint brushes for her hands and other body parts, which related to the mindfulness theory of ‘grounding’, a process in which our bodies “electrically reconnect to the earth when our skin is in direct contact with it”.

Like the permeable boundary of the body, the canvas and clay are places of ‘encounter and transformation’. Through clay, Reitzel could explore the softness of material, the absence and presence of the body, and the movement from matter to object. The growth and decay of nature and the body's natural cycles are Reitzel’s inspiration. Using her hands as the primary tool to create, the work revealed the material’s relation to her body and its movements. The hand was exaggerated in her work leaving pinches, mini recesses, and fingerprints. With her hand emphasized, connections could be made to the process and the resulting final form revealed its own creation.

The work spoke to her role in that creation and bore vulnerability to the presence of her own body. It commented on the interface of herself and other natural forms. Prying open raw material as grounds to discover the interwoven relationship between her body and other natural phenomena. Like a flower in bloom, the sculptures revealed the gradual opening between herself, the material and the land. Recording the stages of growth and transformation as she became further attuned to the Okanagan valley.

Brittany Reitzel is a multidisciplinary artist who holds a Masters of Fine Arts from the University of British Columbia Okanagan on unceded Syilx territory. She is passionate about working with clay for it's malleability, earth-bound origin and alchemic properties. She also specializes in land art, painting and performance.  Her continued artistic practice is dedicated to the relationship between art, joy and wellness.

You can learn more about Reitzel at her website, here.

Alongside the Annual Members’ Exhibition, Cool Arts has taken over a whole wall for a Members’ Spotlight with a body of work titled Imagination.

Cool Arts invites you to let your mind wander with this new series of work that evokes a visual escape from reality. A landscape where you can explore a playful world of fairy houses, gnomes, and a tree. While journeying into this colourful landscape one may drift off and fantasize about what once was and what might be, like being in a dream.  

Imagination is critical when it comes to letting your artistic voice come out to play. Cool Arts artists did just that this Spring in the studio by imagining what it would be like to create a different world and escape from reality.   

This pandemic has squeezed us into a box but now we have to stretch our minds into new shapes only IMAGINATION can unleash.  

Imagination will be on view from July 16 to August 28th. You can see more work from the Cool Arts artists in the Postcard Project & Studio Sale, also now on view.

You can learn more about Cool Arts here!