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Visual Artists
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John Clinock
Contact: johnclinock(at)gmail.com
I’m a visual artist in Vancouver, BC. Canada.
I work in a variety of media including painting, drawing, and mixed media.
I teach and workshop the creative process in my community with a belief in the healing, revealing and transforming power of the act of art.
Making art enchants me.
The sensual and quintessentially magical process of making something from nothing animates my life.
I play and lose myself in the act of art.
I work until I disappear.
Each new piece I make is a deeply personal journey, a dance with those aspects of consciousness that are mysterious and elusive.
I approach each working surface as I would a new relationship, a Fun-House mirror or a dream, in search of another disclosure of self.
My art is an unfurling path of exploration, a dance of flesh and spirit, a river of serendipity and a conjuring of magick on the edge of the unknown.
Linda Haftner
Contact: lhaftner(at)gmail.com
I am a Vancouver based visual artist, born in Guadalajara, Mexico. I started painting at a young age as I discovered that art was a way that I can express my feelings.
My early pieces were oil paintings influenced by Post-Impressionist artists, then inspired by my favourite artists: Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso I then tried surrealism.
Some of my latest art pieces are influenced by Frida Kahlo and are a reflection of my Mexican culture and heritage. It was then that I started experimenting with a series of Mexican folkloric paintings; each artwork relates a story through images of animals, people, and villages with vibrant colours in acrylics.
My goal is to make pieces that liven up a room, create conversation, and display vivid colour. It is also my dream to grow as an artist and be able to find an audience.
If you are interested in commissioning my work for private projects based on your own ideas and subject matter, please inquire by email at lhaftner(at)gmail.com or visit my Facebook page: Linda’s Vibrant Art.
Emily Hjermstad
Contact: emhjermstad(at)gmail.com
Emily Hjermstad is a digital artist based out of Vancouver Canada. A career in videogames and 11 years of digital art has led her to embrace a passion for fantastical storytelling in illustration. Her work conveys a sense of whimsy with legend through natural forms, imaginative creatures and fantasy worldbuilding.
You may have seen her work in Mechwarrior 5, Paragon Kingdom or her tiny Vancouver apartment filled with treasure and artifacts.
Saori Hoshi
Contact: cilantrolover(at)gmail.com
I see my artwork as an incarnation of being a life-time nomad. I would rather identify myself as a nomadic artist who could find a sense of comfort by not belonging and feeling a bit out of place all the time. That’s how I started to make art. For me, art making is making myself at home in an unfamiliar place where I can yawn, do stretches, make myself a cup of tea, and most importantly, feel a true sense of who I am.
I am a person with an art degree who can neither draw nor paint. I started by working in 3-Ds as an undergrad and finished by making films at art school. As much as I enjoy working with different mediums, 2-D work is most challenging for me. But I have always wanted to work on paper that integrates drawing and painting. I first started with printmaking (ok), then lithography (incompetent), and lastly, screen printing (YES!).
My print here represents a conglomeration of who I am, where I came from, and what I have experienced away from home. There is a residue of origami, kimono patterns, calligraphy ink blot, mural paintings…and I defamiliarized it into something else, something new. I choose not to name it and leave it up to the viewer.
I had long hibernated from art making for about 6 years and now am I slowly waking up to resume my life-long commitment to it.
Martin Hunt
Contact: martinhunt03(at)gmail.com
It’s terribly strange to be 70. Really. But it’s good.
I spent about 15 years where photography was my medium
Then another 15 years where lithography and printmaking was my medium.
For the last 20 I’ve been working digitally. I write programs that produce a visual output and then use that as the starting point for pictures.
I can draw, but it’s not what excites me as an artist.
The media I’ve worked in are what I think of as process oriented media. For instance, to make a photograph you need to master the processes of using the camera and developing film and making prints.
For me, working with processes frees up my aesthetic thinking. That is my conscious brain is handling the process and my aesthetic brain is watching what happens.
The media I work with are what you might call ‘selective’ media. With photography I didn’t create the scene that I photographed. I’d select the scene I wanted to show. There are lots of selective controls in photographic art. You can choose the scene and the lighting and the angle and developing techniques.
When I was a printmaker I worked a lot with washes where the texture was created by letting tusche dry on a stone.
Digital work is a very long process with creative control at each step.
But there is a new dimension in digital for me. The programs I write are inspired by processes in nature, ranging from the electromagnetic field to growth processes in plants. Writing the program involves a pretty intense exploration of those processes.
It’s out of those intense intellectual investigations that my present pictures emerge.
Montana King
Contact: snoopyvmontana(at)gmail.com
Montana is Canadian born and lives a Bohemian lifestyle. Montana’s main influence for rendering works of art is the illusive nature of Nature and humans. Montana is like a magnet and draws in her environment. Montana writes, cooks, makes candles, preserves, paints acrylics and watercolors, draws, executes a multitude of numerous crafts and quilts,photographs,and is a poet of DTES situations.
As an artist
I think of waste!
Wasted paper, tree….exists
Wasted time that does not exist!
Wasted environment
Wasted humans
Are YOU waisted?
Alex Lavrov
Contact: aleklav(at)gmail.com
My name is Alex Lavrov and I’m a visual artist. I work mainly with oils and use improvisation as my main method for creating art. I don’t pre-plan what an artwork will look like in advance, rather the subjects of my paintings unfold by themselves during the creative process.
In 1997, when I was 16, I left Ukraine, where I was born, and went to Israel as a student. It turned out to be a permanent move. The detachment from family and friends and the culture shock of the unfamiliar environment proved to be quite a challenge.
In those days art became an integral part of my life, it helped me to deal mentally with the challenges of daily life and to process the emotional struggles. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that my art career was born out of pain.
Since those difficult times though, my involvement in art developed into something else, more of a tool for self-knowledge, a tool for understanding the workings of the mind.
In 2007 I permanently moved to Canada and currently live and work in Vancouver, BC.
When I was 15 I began to explore various philosophies and religions of the world. As I grew older though, my interests shifted more towards psychology and recently I had become captivated by the available literature on neuroscience.
My intent as an artist is to share with others my insights into the subjects of psychology and philosophy depicted through the symbolic imagery in my artworks.
Penny Lim
Contact: mrpintail(at)hotmail.com
Drawing. Making marks. Just doing it. That is what matters more than the finished product or result. “Let the bud blossom daily,” advised the Japanese artist. Be creative. While working, inspiration may grow exploring new pathways. Some days, the plans fail to materialize though happy accidents do happen!
Art materials and tools may guide me to new explorations. Flip the paper around leading to another perspective! What angles!
A few strokes speak volumes. Easy on the eyes. Overworked becomes too busy for me. Indeed, I love negative space. (My Oriental background?) Pulling the blacks, whole range of grays, out of Chinese ink onto soft rice paper. The magic of living contact.
A great variety of components form a personality. Visible in our work. Draw big or small, fast or slow, colour or pencil/traditional pen and nib, what medium to use? I make choices and think about what to do. Observe surroundings, physical (nature, sounds) and human aspects. Flora and fauna are interconnected by the oxygen we share by breathing.
Ah, the days of pencil and paper.
Yes, a Vancouver-born artist. Loved drawing in school. On European working holiday, developed serious interest in art. Art surrounded me!
Enrolled in classes. Back home in Vancouver, trained at Capilano and Emily Carr Colleges majoring in Printmaking (awarded “honours.”). Finally, a post-grad year of Fine Arts in Hangzhou, China. China being my Father’s birthplace.
Taught Drawing and Painting to children, Drawing with adults at Vancouver School Board night school.
Art is important in my life.
Jacqueline Primeau
Contact: jprimeau333(at)gmail.com
Jacqueline Primeau was born in Edmonton, Alberta. She is mostly a painter and mixed media artist, but also draws and writes poetry. Her expressive paintings celebrate her deep connection to the land. She is more interested in capturing the mood or essence of the landscapes that inspire her than in realistic depiction. Most often her paintings are abstract or semi-abstract. Her approach is spontaneous, exploratory and intuitive. She likens her creative process to going on a journey or adventure, with obstacles and surprises along the way. For her, creating art is therapeutic. To get more in touch with her Metis ancestry she has taken several courses in First Nations History at the University of Victoria. She also has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Concordia University in Montreal. She has shown her work at the Community Arts Council of Greater Victoria, at the North Vancouver Cityscape Gallery, at Saanich Municipal Hall, at the Outsiders Art Festival, the Kettle Society and at the Lost and Found Café galleries in Vancouver. She lived in Victoria BC for twenty years and moved to Vancouver last year.
Kim Ridgway
Contact: klr.artist1105(at)gmail.com
Kim Ridgway works in acrylics whose predominately a self taught artist from Vancouver, BC. She attended Sheridan College in Ontario for Art Fundamentals intended to enrolled in the photography program but life got in the way and never pursued her interests. Five years ago she made the decision of making art a priority again. Photography was her first love and the start of her artistic journey. As a highly sensitive person, she used it as a safety net because for her it was easier to view the world from behind the lens than having to interact with the people in it. Painting is her main focus now and creates intuitively from the soul getting inspiration from animals and nature. For her, painting is a form of meditation that helps combat and deal with depression from a life time of bullying. Kim’s last exhibition was at Melriches Coffeehouse in June 2009 and is honored to be participating in the Vancouver Outsider Arts Festival.
Olivier Salvas
Contact: oli(at)createiiv.com
Olivier Salvas is an artist and educator who specializes in arts education and the maker movement in a second language setting. Originally from Montreal, QC, Olivier moved to Vancouver, British-Columbia shortly after completing his Bachelors of Education in Teaching French as a Second Language from University of Montreal. As he embarked in his Graduate Studies in Media Studies and Curriculum at the University of British-Columbia, Olivier merged his two passions of artist and educator and he began to create artistic work based on educational research. Olivier uses abstract paintings, photography and various media to bring light to social causes and to foster conversations about identity and arts education. Olivier’s area of research and of creation are inspired by graffiti art, street art, urban culture and contemporary artists from Les Automatistes in Quebec. Olivier was chosen as an ambassador for the Canadian Culture Days 2019, representing British-Columbia. In 2019, Olivier had his first solo exhibition called “Rebel with a Cause” that was showcased over a three month period in Vancouver. Olivier has collaborating with Vancouver Biennale as an educator for the Big Ideas in Schools project since 2015 and he has recently joined We Are Ocean Vancouver, a project commissioned by Vancouver Biennale and curated by ARTPORT, making waves acting as an artist-educator alongside local indigenous artist Cease Wyss. This project is part of the global WE ARE OCEAN art project contributing to the Preparatory Phase of the Unesco ocean Decade for Sustainable Development (2021-2030). You can frequently catch Olivier on Outlooktv on OutTV and in the media, speaking about education or supporting LGBTQ2S+ causes across Canada.
Sam Salvat
Contact: samanthasalvat(at)gmail.com
My Artistic path is about finding reconciliation, integration and connection.
Feeling a deep connection to our selves and others and being at peace with who we are, is an inspiration behind my work.
Exploring my work you will find themes such as bliss, connection, integration, reconciliation, peace, introspection, contemplation.
My current work is about naturally occurring patterns, land art, sacred geometry and nature-inspired abstract spaces.
I believe Art has the power to change us. Which is why I like teaching workshops of art as a tool for personal transformation.
Melanie Stuparyk
Contact: cultivatingmind(at)hotmail.com
Melanie Stuparyk grew up in a small Northern town, Mackenzie, BC. She was handed her first Kodak instamatic when she was 12 years of age. At that young age, she would often lose herself in the surrounding nature whilst capturing plants native to the area such as Indian paintbrush and honeysuckle. She is inspired by capturing the subtle moments such as when the morning dew rests on a flower or a leaf in the morning, or when a flower opens up its petals to reach for the sun. She is driven to share these special glimpses of nature to bring her viewers into varying states of emotions. As the yellows, oranges and pinks bring on a state of happiness, whereas the greens, blues, and purples calm the mind. She is a recipient of the Downtown Eastside Small Arts Grant, and has had her art shown at the Gallery Gachet, and the Mad Universe at the Connections Salon at Lost+Found Café.
Tadafumi Tamura
Contact: ttfotoworks(at)gmail.com
Tadafumi Tamura was born in Yokohama, Japan, and moved to the unceded, traditional and ancestral homeland of Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, which is also called Vancouver. He is a photographer whose works cross over the boundary between social documentary and fine arts. This still life series The Plastic World encourages viewers to imagine hidden stories behind the subjects that appear on the images: How many factory workers are involved in manufacturing these products? How many hours do they work in the factory, assembling disposable items, to make a living? How do they perceive their work and the products of their labour? While celebrating the colorfulness, texture and shape of the plastic products, he attempts to suggest an additional viewpoint to the discussions of the plastic products in western countries that tends to be exclusively centred around environmental concerns and consumer choices.
Karen Vanon
Contact: karenvanon(at)gmail.com
I was born and raised just outside of Montreal, Quebec. My excursions to Montreal resulted in my love for the diversity, vibrancy, culture, and intrigue of the urban landscape. Since then I have lived in Toronto, Ottawa, and now, Vancouver. These cities, as all cities, have their own characters and stories to tell. This is the very subject that compels me to draw, documenting my time and place. Last year I completed my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at Emily Carr University. Throughout my time at ECU, I developed my conceptual, technical, and historical knowledge in relation to visual art practice and exhibition. I drew with a variety of materials, painted with oils, acrylics and watercolours, did ceramics, made installations, sculpted, and did mixed media. Currently I have a visual column in my local community newspaper and exhibit my work in the Metro Vancouver area. I’m most intrigued by documenting my time and place. Of particular interest are subjects that are not typically imaged. My practice focuses on capturing these subjects spontaneously as they go about their daily lives, depicting the events and personalities of the ordinary world. The fleeting moments and secondary scenes that I witness are suggestive of a larger narrative that underlies and informs the moment, presenting sophisticated layers through which each drawing can be perceived. These four drawings from my Noticed in Vancouver… series presents some of these fleeting moments and are mounted on maps of Vancouver.
Sara Yeomans
Contact: sara.yeomans(at)hotmail.com
Sara Yeomans is a visual artist who lives and creates on the unceded ancestral territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Over the past three years Sara has been particularly interested in the use of wire and thread to create contour line sculptures that can be viewed from various angles, evoking multiple layers of movement and expression. Her work has been shown at the toast collective and what lab studios for showcases from this is what collective and July project. Sara’s work uses unconventional materials and techniques— her art comes from a place of earnest creation and grows from a space of love.