“Warm Blossoms” by Lauren Morris. (image courtesy Art Vancouver)
Jewish community members Sky Lilah, Lauren Morris, Taisha Teal, Talin Wayrynen and Lisa Wolfin are among the artists participating in Art Vancouver International Art Fair, which runs until April 27 at the Vancouver Convention Centre. Tickets: artvancouver.net.
– Courtesy Art Vancouver
The new exhibit at the Zack Gallery, “Hope” is the Thing with Feathers, derives its name from the eponymous poem by Emily Dickinson. Gallery manager Sarah Dobbs, who curated the show, was instrumental in coming up with the name, as well as in bringing together the two artists whose works are on display: Ilze Bebris and Barbara Heller.
“I’ve known Ilze Bebris for many years,” said Dobbs. “I saw the works she produced during COVID and said she should submit a proposal for an exhibition at the Zack Gallery. When she did, the art committee and I met and decided she should definitely have a show. But there wasn’t enough work for a solo show.”
Bebris’s submission included a series of 19 drawings, called Ballad of Hope and Despair, and a journal with her sketches of feathers. “That journal is a record of found things; of feathers shed by the gulls in my neighbourhood,” Bebris explained. “Each morning, at least one feather landed on my daily walking route.… I collected them and drew them over a period of a month.”
When Dobbs contemplated Bebris’s feathers, another artist who uses feathers extensively came to mind.
“I remembered Barbara Heller instantly,” said Dobbs. “Heller had created many tapestries with birds and feathers, and I thought their art might work well together. However, once I reflected and looked deeper, it occurred to me that they were both talking about isolation and resilience. And the poem by Dickinson, which I used for the title of the show, also speaks of resilience, hope and feathers, even though Dickinson wrote it more than 100 years earlier.”
For the current exhibit, both Bebris and Heller are presenting art that they created during the pandemic.
“We have a small property on Gabriola Island, a house” Bebris told the Independent. “My husband and I were driving there one day in 2020 when the news of the COVID lockup hit. We became stuck on the island, couldn’t go home or anywhere for months.”
Bebris and several artists she knew who lived or vacationed on Gabriola got in touch with one another and decided to exchange drawings that they would create daily.
“We needed something to do,” she said. “We were all trapped. The news was horrible. My father and stepmother both died from COVID in their care home in Ontario, and I couldn’t go there, could do nothing but wait and hope for a cure or a vaccine.
“I lived in a tumult of emotions: grief, hope, anxiety, boredom,” she shared. “So, I drew. I drew flowers and twigs and rocks I saw on my daily walks; I drew feathers. But, one day, I ran out of things to draw. I had this small wooden mannequin, and I thought: what if I put it into different poses and draw it. Then the black boxes appeared in the images, reflecting our collective feelings of being trapped, isolated. I called the series ‘Ballad of Hope and Despair.’ They were all done during the first summer and fall of the pandemic.”
The 18 images, set in two rows, one above the other, are all the same size and shape. In each frame, there is the grey background, a black box of a window in the middle, and a wooden mannequin inside the window. Every pose is different, like every person is different – different experiences, ages, ethnicities – but the series unites us as human beings. We have the same general body structure and we move in similar ways as the mannequins in those windows. We all went through the pandemic.
There is one additional image beside the original 18.
“I did it a few months later,” Bebris said. “In the first 18, all the mannequins are trapped inside. But, in the last one, the mannequin is outside the window, finally looking in, reflecting beside the viewers.”
“Hope” is Bebris’s first show at the Zack, while Heller has exhibited in the gallery before. Her contribution to this show includes a series of small tapestries called “We Are All the Same….” Each tapestry shows a couple of bird bones with a feather above or below them. We don’t know what species of birds the bones belong to, and neither do we know from which birds came the feathers – they are bright and colourful but mysterious.
“The entire series includes 16 small tapestries I wove when I stayed home due to COVID,” said Heller. “They are small, because my studio on Granville Island was closed and I only had a small loom at home. The tapestries were a response to the killing of George Floyd and the chaos in the world at the time. Not that it is better now!”
She elaborated in her artist’s statement: “We are all the same under our skin, but by focusing on our differences, we have lost our sense of who we are and how we fit into our shared world. This series shows that … beneath the many colours of our skins and feathers, our bones, our organs and our blood are the same. They are what make us human, while the outward differences, no matter what kind, are invisible and irrelevant beneath our skins.”
In addition to the small tapestries, there are two other works by Heller that catch viewers’ interest. One is a big tapestry of a dead gull, called “The Shaman.” It is a skeleton and residual feathers. About 10 times larger than the small ones, the tapestry is bright with colour and infinitely sad – the memory of a bird rather than a living one.
“It is from a series of three tapestries I wove after I found a desiccated body of a seagull with its feathers almost intact, while walking to my studio on Granville Island,” Heller explained. “To me, there was such pathos in the creature that I took it home to photograph. And I wove a tapestry to honour its spirit. ‘The Shaman’ dances to warn of our earth in peril. It has included bits of wire and plastic in its nest, and a vessel for life becomes a warning of death.”
Dead birds and feathers have been parts of Heller’s expressive pallete for several decades. They represent the artist’s appeal for change and, to Heller’s chagrin, they are still relevant today, maybe more than ever. But she keeps trying to inspire people to become less destructive, more considerate of one another.
Heller’s other offering is a real nest abandoned by its avian makers. It is full of feathers she found during her walks. Like Bebris’s journal filled with feather sketches, the nest is a memory. They both tell the same story: the birds were here, but they are not anymore. Should we take such a message as a warning or as an inspiration – each one of us must decide for ourselves.
“I was amazed and very pleased to see how well Ilze Bebris’s art and mine looked together,” said Heller. “We met for the first time on March 4, when we brought our works in to hang, but we explored the same themes. And the fact that we both have depicted boxes within boxes is fantastic. Both her works and mine deal with COVID and isolation and our relationship with the world. They complement each other and amplify our messages.”
“Hope” is the Thing with Feathers opened at the Zack Gallery on March 5 and will be on display until April 11.
Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.
Roots and Wings at Zack Gallery features a wide range of artwork, including the painting “Princess Love” by Grace Tang. (photo by Olga Livshin)
Roots and Wings, the seventh annual exhibition of JCC inclusion services, opened at Zack Gallery on Jan. 30. The show marks February as Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month. Most participating artists are either members of Art Hive, JCC inclusion services’ art branch, or members of similar programs in other localities. Such programs offer people with developmental disabilities art classes and workshops, and help emerging artists with instructions and materials.
The show’s theme is Roots and Wings. On the one hand, roots represent a deep connection to our origins: biological, ethnic and geographic. On the other hand, wings denote our striving to fly towards new beginnings and new understandings.
Many artists responded to the challenging theme. The exhibition includes paintings, ceramics and 3D installations. The images vary from detailed beaded jewelry by Mikaela Zitron to the flowery landscape “Walking through the Meadow Land” by Theresa Kinahan. Small raku ceramics of birds and hamsa (hands) by different Art Hive potters stand beside the colourful and whimsical acrylic “Paisley Cat” by Calvin Ho.
Trees and roots also served as the inspiration for a few pieces. Among them, the most unusual is “Shoes” by Jasmine Winkler Stobbe. Roots painted in a quiet blue palette enhance the standard black fabric shoes’ tops, inviting everybody to try them on.
But most artists went with the subject of birds, so fitting to the theme of wings. Small, everyday birds decorate Jerry Zhou’s charming totes. Strange, fantastic birds look haughtily at the viewer from Hadeeb Hamidi’s painting “Mystical Birds.” A regal peacock with its gorgeous tail struts across a simple landscape in Grace Tang’s “Princess Love.” And, while owls in several paintings are instantly recognizable, the driftwood bird sculpture “Fusion of Nature” by Melody Edgars feels like an embodiment of a proud sea bird with a powerful beak and a curious nature.
Many artists depicted chickens: small and large, yellow and multicoloured, familiar and exotic. Matthew Tom-Wing’s humorous “Nobody Here but Chicken” seems to represent this flock of chicken fairly well.
Some artists have participated in these annual shows before. For others, this is their first time at the Zack. One of the newcomers is Shiri Barak Gonen, the new inclusion services coordinator.
“My career went in a kind of crooked line,” said Gonen in an email interview. “I started working in the Israeli tech industry when I was 23, freshly discharged from military service. I worked with computers in both technical and managerial roles while I completed my bachelor’s degree in psychology, followed by a music therapy program, on evenings and weekends. Afterwards, I worked for a few years as a music therapist with kids of all ages and with a range of challenges. Some years later, I found my way back to the tech industry, until we decided to relocate to Vancouver. We arrived in Canada in 2024.”
Newly hired, Gonen has given lots of thought to her new position. “The inclusion coordinator role is composed of two aspects,” she explained. “First, the managerial tasks such as staff and budget management and strategic planning. The other aspect is the direct and intensive interactions with the inclusion population, which requires sensitivity and a constant awareness of the needs of others. Both aspects are reflected in my personality and in my previous jobs.”
She added: “My current position is very different from my past jobs. In my last role, I was writing software code … and managing teams. Before, when I worked as a music therapist, I had a chance to work with my students and their families, but being a therapist puts you at a different angle than a program instructor. My focus will always be therapeutic, but I find much more pleasure in sharing hot chocolate and a chat with a group rather than analyzing their behaviour as a therapist. The essence of my new job is to establish meaningful relationships and mutual trust. We are building such a connection now.”
Another newbie at the Zack Gallery is an experienced Vancouver artist – Pierre Leichner.
“I have always been artistic,” Leichner said in a telephone interview. “Photography, ceramics, other creative outlets. But, when I graduated from high school, my family and I decided that, for better employment opportunities, I should go into science. I didn’t mind. I liked science too.”
He became a psychiatrist and worked in the profession for more than 30 years.
“In 2002, I decided I couldn’t do it anymore,” he said. “The medical system turned too entrepreneurial, too corporate and dehumanizing.” So, he revisited his first love – art. He enrolled at Emily Carr University of Art + Design and received his bachelor’s in fine arts in 2007. In 2011, he completed his master’s in fine arts at Concordia University in Montreal.
“Mostly I do visual arts,” he said. “Sculpture, photography, videos and paintings. I also do some performing arts, and I dabble in theatre,” he said. “I have my own YouTube channel, which deals with environmental issues.”
A multidisciplinary artist with widespread interests, Leichner considers community involvement of utmost importance. In 2017, he founded the Vancouver Outsider Arts Festival, which provides opportunities to marginalized visual and performing artists. He still serves as its artistic director. He is also a member of the Connection Salon collective and sits on the board of the Community Arts Council of Vancouver.
“I like to explore the possibilities on the cusp of art and science,” he said. “There are similarities between the two, and both examine the foundations of human existence.”
The GrassRoots Project he presented for the current Zack show fuses science and arts and illustrates Leichner’s interdisciplinary approach.
“I saw the call for this show, and it fit my GrassRoots Project perfectly,” he said. “The project started in 2011, when Britannia Community Centre received a grant to celebrate people with the deepest grassroots contributions: teachers, artists, musicians.”
Over the years, Leichner has made about a dozen sculptural masks of those people, plus some of his friends and colleagues, employing a traditional Mediterranean technique. “I use wheatgrass,” he explained. “I make a mold of their face masks and plant wheatgrass within. The roots take the shape of the face, while the grass grows out like hair. It takes about three weeks to grow each portrait. The grass becomes part of the sculpture, the means of my artistic expression.”
Each mask is a symbol, echoing the synergy of humans and nature. “In this way,” the artist said, “nature imitated us in celebrating our community at this time of great ecological concern. We all need roots. We have them within our bodies. We also have them with our family and our community.”
Roots and Wings is on until March 2.
Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.
“Jug Band” by Anita Colman, whose work is on display at the Cedar Hill Recreation Centre in Victoria through March 3. (photo from Anita Colman)
The distinctive, colourful characters that artist Anita Colman creates out of driftwood and various objects she discovers around Victoria are currently on display in hallway showcases at the Cedar Hill Recreation Centre in Victoria through March 3.
Her “wood friends,” as she dubs them, constitute a wide assortment of critters – from avians to insects, canines to felines. There are birds nested on a woman’s head, a jug band and a dog with a beanie. There is also a unicyclist and a schoolboy riding a pogo stick.
Colman grew up in Montreal and studied fine arts at Concordia University. After graduation, with what she jokes were “no applicable skills,” she worked building fences, painting houses and selling produce at an outdoor market.
“Then, in 1980, a friend and I went on an epic road trip from Montreal to the San Francisco Bay and I ended up staying,” she told the Independent.
With a penchant for cartooning, Colman, while getting settled in the United States, freelanced for several greeting card companies, including American Greetings, Marcel Schurman Fine Papers, Andrews McMeel and Hallmark Cards, among others.
One day, Hallmark contacted her to say that they wanted her to work in-house at their headquarters in Kansas City.
“As a single parent at the time, a steady income with a health plan was an offer I couldn’t refuse,” she said. “I’ll never forget the day we landed at the Kansas City International Airport in August. As soon as we exited the airport, we were hit with a blast of hot, humid air. It was an inferno. All I could think was, ‘What have I done?’”
At Hallmark, she was part of Shoebox, an alternative humour studio, where she illustrated not only myriad cards but books and calendars, and designed logos and fonts. Her artwork also was applied to stickers, school supplies, mugs, T-shirts, and dog and cat bowls.
The company, Colman recollected, had a farm where artists would go for what she called “creative renewal.”
“The barn had a fully equipped woodshop and welding area. That’s where I learned woodworking. We built crazy birdhouses and robots that moved and lit up,” she said.
“There was also a small woodshop for artists at headquarters. It was located beside the model shop, where carpenters built displays for shows, etc. I learned a lot from them. Any free time I had was spent in the woodshop.”
As a humour artist, Colman said she was continually developing different characters and critters. Now she does the same with wood.
“The elements of design are the same – line, form, texture, colour. Driftwood already has texture and shape that can look like a nose, ears or tail.”
Accompanying Colman on her hunts for items to turn into art is her rescue dog Bean.
“He’s my sidekick,” she said. “He comes along when I walk the beach looking for good wood or browse ReStore, Value Village and hardware stores with an eye out for objects I can incorporate in my pieces. Bean’s always on the lookout for treats and makes out pretty good.”
The whimsical wooden creations have become an increasingly familiar sight in the capital city. Last fall, they were exhibited at the library in Victoria’s Commonwealth Place. In January, Colman was featured in a CTV News Vancouver Island report by Adam Sawatsky, which showed her, along with Bean, scouring a Victoria beach for things that could be incorporated into her work.
“Some people like shopping for shoes, I like shopping for junk,” she said.
Bean, too, is a recipient of Colman’s artistic flair. In the CTV report, he was seen clad in a denim vest with flames and a dragon embroidered into the back; his hair was molded into a mohawk to make him look “like a tough little dude.”
Colman’s display at the recreation centre is part of a Family Arts Exhibition organized by the District of Saanich. One of the images the municipality’s website is using to promote the event is Colman’s woodwork of a cat ballerina. Other artists whose work will be shown are Tanya Bub, Randy Barron and Susan Wright.
In the midst of the exhibition, the recreation centre will host a Family Arts Festival on Feb. 17 (Family Day) from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in what the municipality is billing as “a celebration of imagination, creativity and discovery.” Among the activities will be mini-quilt design, tin foil sculpture and LEGO robotics.
Colman’s finished products are not for sale. They can, however, be viewed on her website: anitacolmanart.weebly.com.
Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.
Artist Olga Campbell and her grandson Arlo, for whom Campbell wrote her memoir, Dear Arlo: Letters to My Grandson. (photo from Olga Campbell)
Recently, Olga Campbell published her third book, a memoir, Dear Arlo: Letters to My Grandson. Campbell’s new solo show with the same name opened at the Zack Gallery on Jan. 9. It features a selection of paintings and sculptures from the book, as well as a short film.
“The film starts the exhibition,” Campbell told the Independent. “It contains my photographs of Vancouver and its people. It is called Everybody Has a Story. The show and the book portray one of those stories – my story. But millions of other people have their stories, too, and, in the film, in my photos, I tried to tell some of those stories.”
Campbell said, “The book and the show are my answers to the questions my grandson asks. He is interested in our family’s past. We are very close, he and I. We just went to Nepal together. I thought I would write this book for him, as my legacy.”
The book does not concentrate exclusively on pain and tragedy, on the deaths of her family members in the Holocaust. It also celebrates the power of art and writing as a transformational and healing tool. Besides letters to her grandson, the book includes Campbell’s poetry and art, essays written by the artist, and her family’s traditional recipes. (See jewishindependent.ca/a-multidimensional-memoir.)
The Zack Gallery show is a subset of the book, a selection of paintings and sculptures the memoir highlights. The paintings are mostly collages based on the artist’s photographs. Each photo is Photoshopped into infinity, so none of the faces in the paintings have any resemblance to their origins. Campbell likes to experiment with images, looking at them from different perspectives, applying different approaches. Like her inner child who never grew up, she plays with them, making up different stories for different levels of perception.
One of the paintings, “Corridor of Memories,” has a couple of faces looking at the viewer with thoughtful, slightly anxious expressions. Behind those faces, a long corridor stretches into an unknown distance. The memories that come from that distance seem diverse and unsettling, a mix of positive and negative, but different for everyone.
“There is bad there but there is also some good stuff there,” she said. “I played with the faces in that painting. I thought it would be interesting to make them three-dimensional. That’s how I came up with the sculptures in the show. They are the result of the images unfolding from 2D to 3D.”
Another painting that underwent a similar metamorphosis is “Shall We Dance? – self meeting Self.” Campbell explained: “I took this image from the confines of a frame and brought it to life by making it three-dimensional. The title, ‘self meeting Self,’ refers to the small self, the individual, the ego, meeting the Universal Self, and the ensuing dance of Self-discovery, joy and wonder of life.”
The 3D dancers – a thickened silhouette of the flat painted image beside it – rotate. They are accompanied by the song “Shall We Dance,” played by a tiny music box, when someone winds it up.
Sometimes Campbell’s reconstruction of images results not in an additional dimension but in a deepening complexity of the original idea. In “The Sky is Falling,” she took a person’s outline from the painting beside it and embellished it with everything that she felt was relevant to our hectic lives. Unlike most of the other paintings in the gallery, there is no face in this one. The grey danger hangs over all of us, regardless of our facial features or skin colour.
“There are lots of similarities in our world today and the one that preceded WWII,” said Campbell. “That’s why I put a crow in that painting. A crow is a traditional symbol of death, but also of transformation, of change and the future.”
Like the book it is based on, the show is not linear. It reflects the artist’s response to various events in her life, both happy and sad, from her coming of age, to the current war in Ukraine. Both the memoir and the show emphasize Campbell’s personal journey through the beauty and the trauma of life, so inextricably entangled together.
At the gallery on Jan. 23, 7 p.m., Campbell will discuss her book and her art in an event co-presented by the Zack Gallery and the JCC Jewish Book Festival. Campbell’s exhibit will be on display until Jan. 27. To learn more, check out the artist’s website, olgacampbell.com.
Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.
A stained-glass panel in a wood frame by Hope Forstenzer. (photo by Hope Forstenzer)
More than 500 artists are opening their studios, galleries or workshops to the public Nov. 14-17 for the 28th annual Eastside Culture Crawl Visual Arts, Design & Craft Festival. Among the artists are many Jewish community members, including Suzy Birstein, Olga Campbell, Ana Clara Feldman, Hope Forstenzer, penny eisenberg, Lori Goldberg, Lynna Goldhar Smith, Ideet Sharon, Stacy Lederman, Shevy Levy, Lauren Morris and Esther Rausenberg.
“The Culture Crawl offers a unique opportunity to connect with our communities, to support artists in their livelihoods, and to come away inspired and reinvigorated by the countless ways in which artists explore and share their creativity with the world,” said Rausenberg, who is also the artistic and executive director of the Eastside Arts Society, which puts on the event.
Birstein, who creates and showcases her work from her 1000 Parker Street studio, is a figurative artist whose ceramic sculptures and paintings are self-portraits connecting her to women of history and mythology.
“I am merging my own personal narratives with the narratives of inspiring women artists whose lives and art ‘embrace enchanting intrigues’ to transcend life’s challenges,” she explained. “This includes Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington, Leonor Fini, Vali Myers, Artemesia Gentileschi and Niki de Saint Phalle,” as well as figures like Athena and Alice in Wonderland.
Her upcoming solo retrospective, curated by Dr. Angela Clarke at Il Museo, is now scheduled for 2026, rather than next year, which is what was originally planned. The retrospective will combine her Tsipora and Ladies-Not-Waiting series.
“This past year has brought me two profound highlights that resonate deeply in my artwork,” said Birstein. “First, I’ve embraced the idea that the Tsiporas – my Hebrew name, meaning ‘Bird’ – have always been part of the Ladies-Not-Waiting.
“On the personal side, my husband courageously and successfully underwent two major surgeries in 2024, which deepened my appreciation for life and the importance of love and compassion. Additionally, our daughter-in-law became a permanent resident of Canada, allowing our family to thrive together.
“These experiences have infused my art with newfound freedom, imagination, and a willingness to experiment with construction, colour and concept. Each piece I create reflects this journey and the richness of these connections, as with my Ladies-Not-Waiting.”
Birstein and fellow Crawl artist Lori Goldberg spent October in Italy on a self-directed residency, which comprised four segments, each with its own and overlapping purposes, said Birstein.
They explored art at Venice Biennale and other exhibits in Venice. They went to Amalfi, where, Birstein said, “I created a most special and memorable experience – to visit Gianni Menichetti, who was the partner of Vali Myers (one of my artists). In a valley above Positano, Gianni lives off the grid with his family of animals – 10 dogs, ancient doves, chickens, fish, a rooster and others. Gianni himself is a well-known poet, artist, writer, as well as protector and preserver of the land and its natural inhabitants. He’s a most unique human being. Although we were only together for 24 hours, it is as though we have always known each other and always will.”
In Napoli, said Birstein, “within the ancient graffiti-covered walls of this chaotic, lively city, we [were] exploring, experimenting and expressing evolving directions for our art practice.”
Lastly, they went to the island of Ischia for a family celebration, visiting thermal springs, gardens and the sea.
“There are moments in my life when personal and global experiences intertwine – what I like to call destiny with focus,” said Birstein. “My Italian adventure, from connecting with Gianni in Positano, family in Ischia and gallerists in Naples, to engaging with art at the Venice Biennale, inspires every aspect of my life. I sense that I’m in the midst of crafting my next ‘big story,’ which will undoubtedly reflect in my evolving art practice. These experiences shape not just who I am, but also how I create.”
Ceramics and glass artist Hope Forstenzer is also expanding the way she creates.
“I got a grant to learn woodworking throughout 2024, and that’s been a big highlight,” she told the Independent. “I’ve been working to make pieces that use both glass and wood, and it’s been exciting and challenging to learn a whole new medium. My progress has been slow and steady, and some of the work I made will be in the Crawl this year.”
This is Forstenzer’s third year of making clocks for the Crawl, and she said she’s really been enjoying the process.
“This year, I’m experimenting with different colours and patterns, and I’ve also got one that’s in a stained-glass panel in a wood frame I made. I’ve spent more time with clockworks and hand design, as well, and am experimenting with different materials for those aspects of the clocks.”
In addition to the clocks, visitors to Forstenzer’s studio in the Mergatroid Building, 975 Vernon Dr., will see her stained-glass panels in wood frames, blown seder plates, dreidel blown ornaments, small blown lamps with battery-powered LEDs inside, and some vessels and bowls.
“One of my roles at Terminal City Glass Co-op is the coordinator of the Learning Fire Program, and I’ll be doing a glassblowing demonstration with some of our students on Saturday the 16th from 1:15-3:15,” said Forstenzer.
For more about Learning Fire, visit terminalcityglass.com/pages/learning-fire.
Both Birstein and Forstenzer have works in the Culture Crawl’s preview exhibition, which runs to Nov. 29 at Pendulum Gallery, Alternative Creations Gallery, the Cultch and Charles Clark Gallery, with display dates depending on the venue.
For the full list of events and participating artists, go to culturecrawl.ca.
Therese Joseph’s solo show at the Zack Gallery opened Oct. 12, but the official opening reception, which she will attend, takes place Oct. 30. (photo from Therese Joseph)
The new solo show at the Zack Gallery – Women, Words and Wisdom: Therese Joseph – celebrates the power of women in our lives.
Artist Therese Joseph’s mixed media paintings combine imagery and words in her depictions of women she admires. Not any specific woman, but all of them, a symbolic woman, and what she means to the artist. On the walls of the gallery, Joseph’s women are sad or sleeping, doubting or searching, traveling or dancing, but they all represent the artist’s interpretation of “woman,” in all her multifaceted complexity.
Joseph grew up in Switzerland, and her road to Vancouver and an artistic career was a round-about one. When she was in her early 20s, she traveled to England to study English. There, she met a young engineer from Borneo. They fell in love and stayed in touch. A few years later, after he found work in Vancouver, he invited Joseph to join him. She had never been to Canada before.
“At first, I came for three months,” Joseph told the Independent. “I loved it here. Everyone was so open and friendly. I felt free here, felt that I could do anything I wanted. Life here was much less structured, not as many rules as back home in Switzerland. It felt like there could be more than one way to do stuff, and that freedom attracted me.”
Like many others, she was captivated by the nature of British Columbia.
“The mountains, the sea, the forest. It was like Switzerland, but more – more open, more generous,” she said.
Of course, it took time for every document to be signed and she could finally settle into her married life in Canada.
“Home in Switzerland, I had an education as a kindergarten teacher, but my diploma wasn’t accepted here in Canada,” Joseph said. So, she opened an after-school art club for local children.
“I’ve always loved doing art, loved being creative,” she said. “I was involved in several community art projects with my young students in North Vancouver. We painted balconies, murals, created some street banners.”
But, eventually, she wanted to dedicate herself to art full-time, and she felt she needed more education in this regard.
“At about the same time – year 2000 – a couple of my family members in Switzerland died, and it was hard for me. I couldn’t be there with my family as much as I wanted,” she shared.
Creating art felt like a necessity for her then, a balm to her grieving heart. She sold her art studio business and enrolled in art-related continuing education classes at Emily Carr University of Art + Design and Langara College.
“I took many classes and workshops in the next few years,” said Joseph. “Whenever I liked an artist, I found a way to learn from them. Among my mentors were Jeanne Krabbendam, Don Farrell, Lori Goldberg, Nurieh Mozaffari, Steven Aimone and more. I’d call it a self-directed art education.”
She emerged from that time an accomplished artist and art teacher. She exhibited widely in Canada and abroad. She taught both children and adults.
“I love teaching art,” she said. “At first, I preferred teaching children, but, as my own children grew older, I gravitated towards teaching adults and seniors. Everything has its time.”
Through all the changes in her life, Joseph kept making art. She paints figures and faces, flowers and feathers in her Dandelion Art Studio in North Vancouver.
“Women are my predominant subject,” she said. “They inspire me. They embody how strength and resilience can coexist with vulnerability, and how setbacks are merely steppingstones on the path to achieving one’s goals.”
Her technique is often mixed media. “I collect old magazines, newspapers, cards. People bring them to me, too. I rip them to pieces – never cut with scissors – and glue those text fragments to my canvases to see what could emerge. I love the process of creation, love the empty canvas that becomes an image with a meaning and a message. I never know what the current painting is about until it is done. The painting itself guides me.”
At the beginning of this year, Joseph learned about the Zack Gallery’s call for artists and submitted her proposal for a solo show.
“I had enough paintings with text and letters to fill a gallery,” she said. “I wanted to emphasize the texts, so I started searching for quotes from famous women to attach to each painting. I read thousands of quotes on the internet before I made my selection for each painting. It was very interesting and amusing.”
Her palette is colourful and her compositions sophisticated.
“None of them depict a specific woman,” she said. “They all come from my imagination. I wanted to paint something about perfume, and my painting ‘Fragrant Rain’ was the result.” The woman in the painting saunters under her umbrella, while the rain hides the details, though one can make out a perfume bottle in her bag. Coco Chanel’s tongue-in-cheek quote accentuates the painting.
“Wear Your Words” boasts three female figures, in red, pink and orange, their clothing decorated with disjointed texts. We don’t know what the women are doing. Are they dancing? Are they passing each other on the street? The letters filling their clothing jump at the viewers. “Words are the clothes your thoughts wear,” says the quote by Amanda Patterson that accompanies this painting.
Most of the works on display are full of colour, so the one in black and white draws the eye. “Shadows in Motion” is actually a diptych. Joseph explained its roots.
“I’ve always loved traveling, and we traveled a lot. When, after 37 years of happy marriage, my husband passed away, I wanted to prove to myself that I could travel alone, too. I went to Mexico. I walked on the beach and watched my shadow. After awhile, I started posing, jumping and photographing my shadow in every awkward position. My hands were here and there, up and to the sides. I bent. I stretched. The sun was strong and my shadow seemed to dance. I wanted to capture every nuance. The painting was born out of those photos.”
Another travel destination – Amsterdam – inspired a couple of paintings. “Strength Becomes Her” and “Moving On” both have the word “BISON” in them.
“I was in Amsterdam and visited an art show about bison,” Joseph explained. “It was in a warehouse – a huge building with many different artists. They had a catalogue as large as a newspaper, and I asked for two catalogues. When I came home, I tore those catalogues into shreds and used the ripped words in the paintings.”
Both paintings employ bold, punchy colours. Both are rather large.
“The bison is huge and powerful, and I wanted my paintings to reflect that,” said Joseph.
Women, Words and Wisdom opened Oct. 12 and will run until Nov. 18. The official opening reception, with the artist in attendance, will be held on Oct. 30, at 6 p.m. To learn more about the artist, visit thereseljoseph.com.
Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.
Imre Székely, left, gives his artwork to then-prime minister Jean Chrétien. (photo from szekelygallery.com)
From his hometown of Győr, Hungary, a city halfway between Vienna and Budapest along the Danube River, to his studio in Victoria’s Chinatown, Jewish community member Imre Székely has been creating art for more than five decades, primarily in the linocut/monotype style of printmaking.
Linocut, also known as lino print, is a design carved in relief in linoleum. The art form was popularized in the early part of the 20th century. In monotype, an artist presses ink directly onto a plate. The plate is then pressed against paper to transfer the ink.
Székely discovered his calling early in life, under the tutelage of Imre Krausz and István Tóvári-Tóth, both distinguished artists in Hungary. However, Hungary in the 1970s and 1980s was no place for anyone whose views differed from those of the regime.
“The communist regime at the time did not have a role for a forward-thinking, modern artist. There wasn’t much chance of self-actualization,” Székely told the Independent.
Thus, in 1987, he said goodbye to his family and jumped on a westward-bound bus. His first stop was a refugee camp in Austria, then on to France, the Netherlands and, finally, Canada, in 1988. After stops in Winnipeg and Toronto, he set off west where, in 1991, he settled in Victoria, finding the provincial capital to be an ideal spot for his professional and private life. His wife and children joined him shortly after he arrived in British Columbia.
Székely describes himself as a hyper-surrealist artist, who blends “a variety of colours, patterns and shapes that are the spices of life.”
Throughout his career, he has donated his works and given them to people who couldn’t otherwise afford a work of art. He also has presented his artwork to provincial ministers, foreign dignitaries and prime ministers.
In 1999, for example, he traveled to Rome for a personal audience with Pope John Paul II, to donate his work “Abba Pater” to the Vatican.
In 2001, he showed his gratitude to his adopted homeland by donating his art-deco-styled piece “Canada: Past, Present and Future,” to then-prime minister Jean Chrétien, who accepted it on behalf of the government of Canada.
“This occasion was especially meaningful to me, as it presented a way to express my thanks to Canada for accepting so many refugees to this country with open arms,” said Székely, who has also presented a work to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“Gifting Justin Trudeau with one of my art pieces was a highlight in my life … this kind of event was impossible in my home country under communist rule,” he told Senior Living Magazine in 2021.
One of the works of which he is most proud, “Hungarian Conquest (Honfoglalás),” was presented to the Hungarian parliament in Budapest. When, in 2010, Pecs, Hungary, was chosen as the European Capital of Culture, Székely provided the city with 31 of his works for a solo exhibition. His hometown Győr’s city hall houses his artwork and he has donated his works locally, to the City of Victoria and to the Hungarian consulate in Vancouver.
At the height of the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020, retreating to his studio, Székely produced “Satan Sneers,” a work in which, as an artist, he detaches himself from shared circumstances to show pity for the human race as it confronts an undetermined fate.
Székely sent a photo of the work to Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu, director-general of the World Health Organization, in the hope of donating the work. According to Székely, Dr. Tedros (his preferred moniker) liked the piece very much.
“Unfortunately, I couldn’t personally hand it over to him in Geneva at the time because the two-week quarantine was introduced before my departure,” Székely recalled.
In 2021, the artist created a work entitled “Hope and Genius,” dedicated to Katalin Karikó, the biochemist and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, who, together with Drew Weissman, took home the 2023 Nobel Prize in medicine for work leading to the discovery of mRNA vaccines to fight COVID-19.
“She deserves lots of thanks and appreciation from us all,” he said. “My work is recognition and homage to her human and scientific greatness.”
At present, Székely is working on several projects, one of which is called “Magical Artificial Intelligence,” a surrealistic piece on what he views as the issue that offers the most positive potential for humanity – and the most danger.
He hopes to donate works to other notable people in the political and business worlds, such as Bill Gates, Kamala Harris and Ernő Rubik, a fellow Hungarian who invented the Rubik’s Cube.
As he approaches his 70th birthday in December, Székely said he feels freer now than at any time in the past, drawing strength from family, friends and art.
“Artistic creation is the outflow of strength, good mood and joy of life. A true artist enjoys his own creative power. Creation is one of the most difficult things in the world, creating from nothing,” he said.
“I am convinced that art and culture will unite the world again. I know that artistic ability can be viewed as a blessing, but it is worthless without creative work and humility.”
For more on Székely, visit szekelygallery.com.
Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.
On Sept. 28, Temple Sholom unveiled a new group exhibition in its gallery. “This is not a regular art show,” curator Rina Vizer told the Independent. “It is a commemoration of Oct. 7, of its hope and memories.”
Vizer has wanted to organize a show that would act as a fundraiser since the horrific terror attack on Israel last year.
“It has been the theme of my art from the moment I heard about the attack. I couldn’t process it in any other way than through my painting,” she said. “Last year, in September, we couldn’t even imagine that such an atrocity was possible. I wanted the other artists to do the same, to express what was beyond words through their paintings and share it with viewers.”
At first, she contemplated the Zack Gallery as a venue but it had a schedule to maintain, and its shows were booked well in advance. “Then I discussed with our rabbi some other art installation, and I asked him: ‘What about a show commemorating Oct. 7?’ And he agreed that it was a great idea to reflect on this calamity through art.”
The timeline to find other contributors was very tight. “I started the process at the end of August,” she said. “My only condition [to the artists] was: it had to be new art, created as a reaction to Oct. 7. Nothing old would work.”
Vizer contacted several people she knew personally, including Vivienne Davicioni, Sidi Schaffer and Glenda Leznoff. “I’ve also seen the art of Olga Campbell, and I had heard about Zohar Hagbi and her intuitive art studio. I was sure both of them would be a good fit for this show. The Zack Gallery director, Hope [Forstenzer], recommended Brian Gleckman, who agreed to participate. In all, we have seven Vancouver artists in this show.”
Vizer and Hagbi were born in Israel, Gleckman hails from the United States, Schaffer was born in Romania, Campbell in Iran, Davicioni in South Africa and Leznoff in Canada. Regardless of their countries of origin, all of them dedicated their artwork for this show to Israel, and all of the pieces reflect the traumatic impacts of Oct. 7.
Vizer’s paintings are not large, but they pack a punch. She signs her art as Rina Lederer-Vizer. “Lederer is my family name,” she explained. “But I only have one sister. When we go, the name will disappear. This way, I hope to keep it a bit longer.” Her painting “HaTikvah” is full of hope and despair in equal measure. A woman gazes up, her palms together in prayer, but her eyes are sad, her expression stark. Is she praying for the hostages’ return? Is she a hostage herself?
Another of her paintings, similar at first glance, is called “101 Days of Awe.” The woman in the foreground is from the diaspora, but her solidarity with the suffering in Israel is unmistakable. Like the figure in her painting, Vizer stalwartly expresses her solidarity with Israel.
“I have been attending the ‘Bring Them Home’ rallies every Sunday since last October,” she said. “We meet at the Vancouver Art Gallery at 2 o’clock. At first, there were thousands of people there each week. Now, it is a hundred or so, but I go.”
At one of the rallies, Vizer carried a banner with the name and image of one of the hostages, Carmel Gat, a therapist from Tel Aviv. Vizer was so moved by Gat’s plight she used the portrait at her family seder. “I was shocked and angry when I learned on Sept. 1 that Gat was executed in a tunnel,” she said. That was when she painted “Light in Tunnel.” There are darkness and death in those tunnels, but, contends Vizer, light always comes after darkness.
Like Vizer, Campbell’s paintings are mostly figurative. “I See You” depicts a face, fearful and anxious. There is a catastrophe unfolding in front of this person, and they are helpless to prevent it. Another of Campbell’s paintings, a number of shadowed figures on a foggy background, bears a fateful title: “I Didn’t Get a Chance to Say Goodbye.” Campbell’s third painting, a black and white collage reminiscent of an old-fashioned newspaper, has an even more explicit title: “October 7.”
The same title applies to one of Schaffer’s paintings. In a short email exchange with the Independent, she said about that horrible day: “The event had and still is impacting me very much. Early every morning, the first thing I do is turn on the TV to hear what’s happening in Israel. I am a child survivor of the Holocaust, and I hoped nothing like that would happen again, but the reality of today is different.”
Schaffer has two paintings in the show, and she explained her symbolism. “The small one is titled ‘October 7.’ It’s a collage. I have done it this year, not long ago. You can see prayer hands and a memory candle for those we lost. There is a child’s wooden rocking horse left without a child. In one of the videos after the horror, I saw a house totally destroyed. Only this horse alone remained on the front lawn.
“The second work is bigger and is titled ‘The Phoenix Reborn from Ashes.’ I worked on it for a few years, but, this year, inspired by the October tragedy, I finished it. I feel it gives hope of renewal, of better days to come, of freedom and joy.”
Leznoff, who is also a writer, talked about her experience joining this show. “I was invited to participate by Rina Vizer, who I met about a decade ago at Israeli dancing. This year, I have been very active writing letters to governments and organizations about antisemitism in Canada since Oct. 7. I had an op-ed in the National Post last January, when two British Columbia theatres canceled the play The Runner. Rina knew me as both an artist and a writer. She knew I have been very moved by the events, both in Israel and in Canada, so she asked me to contribute works I’ve done in response to the war.”
Leznoff’s two pieces in the exhibit are titled “Shattered” and “Morning Light.”
“The first painting is a mixed media piece that uses black ink and paint, yellow paint, a photo, dried flowers from my garden, and charcoal. The painting is abstract, however, there is a sense of something explosive and raw with the black paint,” she said. “For me, the yellow is a sign of hope, and the falling flowers are in memory of the tragedy of the flower children at the music festival.
“The other piece,” she continued, “is connected to a poem I wrote called ‘Winter Light’ that accompanies the painting. The poem is framed with the painting, and it’s about how the hostages and soldiers are always on our minds, and we are not giving up. Ironically, although I am a published writer, I hardly ever write poetry. I think both abstract painting and poetry handle emotional issues that are sometimes difficult to convey in a straight narrative.”
The Memory and Hope exhibit will be displayed at Temple Sholom until Oct. 28. The art is for sale and all proceeds from the sales will go to Hostages and Missing Families Forum: Bring Them Home Now, and Magen David Adom in Israel.
Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.
