Diana Thorneycroft is an artist from Winnipeg and has had her work exhibited all across the world. Her exhibition Black Forest (dark waters) is a series of photographs and a large diorama that tell a dark tale about mutant creatures, their herdsmen and the town they live in. In these works Thorneycroft continues to embrace the grotesque.

View pieces from the VPAG Permanent Collection. Works from Joyce Devlin, Leonhard Epp, Liz Ingram and Derek Besant. Our permanent collection doesn't come out very often, and this is one you don't want to miss!

The exhibition titled First Impressions contains 21 prints produced by former and current students enrolled in the printmaking courses at the UBC Okanagan Campus. The body of presented prints consists of UV screen-prints, lithographs, and lino-cuts. The works in the exhibitions present a variety of approaches to printed images and ranging from traditional modes of printmaking to incorporation of photo-based elements, digital manipulation and printing. The artists’ works address various topics regarding the human condition, including the human body and its connection to identity and environmental and existential concerns.

The exhibition Emergence features works of eight artists who have completed their studies at UBC Okanagan’s BFA program in 2019. This exhibition exemplifies various approaches to research and studio practice and asserts an active hands-on attitude while creating their work. This exhibition also includes video and photography asserting the presence of digital technologies that are used in the contemporary means of artistic production.

For the most part, the works in the exhibition were hand-made and as such carry strong associative elements. The works communicate ideas based on human experience and existence, our apprehension of physical and psychological spaces, but the conceptual strategies used by these artists also highlight the materiality of an art object. The exhibitions Strangely Familiar (2019 UBC Okanagan BFA Graduation Exhibition) and Emergence mark the end and the beginning of the young artists’ journeys into the realm of individual creativity, critical thinking and an active studio practice.

Artwork created by secondary students from School District #22, displays a maturity of handling various mediums and more importantly, demonstrates a strong conceptual approach.

The Board of Directors and Executive Director, Dauna Kennedy, invite you and a guest to the opening reception of Art and Soul-Identity by School District 22 Secondary Students on Thursday, April 18th from 6-8 p.m at the Vernon Public Art Gallery. Enjoy an evening of art, music, appies, and punch at the opening reception for Art and Soul-Identity.

Teachers and Educators who are interested in participating in the exhibition are invited to view the 2019 Art and Soul Submission Letter for all the important dates and details on how to submit student work.

Kama? Creative Aboriginal Arts Collective, is an Okanagan-based collective of Indigenous artists. In this group exhibition Decolonizing our Table: Indigenous Food Sovereignty members of the Collective address the issues of colonization, the appropriation of their lands, forced assimilation and the need for reconciliation in all aspects of cultural, political, and social existence.

Heidi Thompson’s exhibition The Light Within You includes a body of non-objective paintings related to the Colour Field Painting movement. Thompson’s paintings are an inquiry into the properties of colour, light and visual perception of the artwork devoid of recognizable forms.

VPAG creates an annual exhibition EXPOSED! to showcase the works of art produced by the VPAG members. The exhibition will be installed in a professional gallery setting, highlighting local artists working in a variety of mediums. The members’ exhibition is also a small annual fundraiser for the gallery with members’ artwork for sale.

While the exhibition Fallen is about memory, it is not about a specific event, but rather an essence of time and place. Based on Hofer’s memories of growing up in Vernon, the installation calls to mind the instances of natural memory and examine what it means to try and hold onto a particular part of the past in the face of the ever-changing present.

The exhibition Emergence is produced by selected graduating students from the UBC Okanagan BFA program. This exhibition consists of a selection of works of six emerging artists which include painting, screen printing, sculptural installation, photography and fibre art.

The artwork in the annual exhibition by elementary students from School District #22, delights viewers with their creations, under the guidance of their art teachers.

The Board of Directors and Executive Director, Dauna Kennedy Grant, invite you and a guest to the opening reception of Art From the Heart by School District 22 Elementary Students at the Vernon Public Art Gallery on Saturday, March 17, 2018, 1p/m – 3;30 p.m.  Enjoy an afternoon of art, music, coffee, tea, cookies and punch at the opening reception for Art From the Heart.

What’s Around the Corner? is an exhibition inspired by the formal elements of design and consists of a large geometric mural painted directly on the wall of the gallery complemented by small to mid-size collages. Distilled to the basic simple design element – a line – Spetifore uses actual colour swatches of commercial paint products.
The Board of Directors and Executive Director, Dauna Kennedy invite you and a guest to the opening reception of Words on Paper (and other things) by Briar Craig, What’s Around the Corner? by Kevin Spetifore, Planes of View by Sage Sidley, and Appropriation by Kama? Aboriginal Art Collective at the Vernon Public Art Gallery. Enjoy an evening of music, contemporary art, locally crafted beer, wine, and appetizers, on Thursday, January 11, 2018, from 6 p.m – 8 p.m.

VPAG creates an annual exhibition to showcase VPAG members and to present their works of art in a professional gallery setting, highlighting local artists working in a variety of mediums. Join us this year for an exciting new theme For the Love of Art and check out what local Vernon artists are creating! All artworks in For the Love of Art will be for sale and each piece will retail at $150.00 or less.

Sheldon Louis’ exhibition of paintings tells the story of the Columbia River stewardship in not so distant history and its impact on the First Nations’ traditional fish harvesting sights, culturally important gathering places and trade. As Louis points out in his statement, “This exhibition is a revisioning of the old stories; it speaks of the need to understand the relevance of the First Nations’ perspective in today’s ever growing industrial complex”.

Laura Ashton’s exhibition focuses on a grassland study area near Vernon. Watercolour illustrations and a video compilation highlight the beauty and frailty of nature through changing seasons.

The Vernon ADHD Task Force is a group committed to spreading awareness of ADHD. “Our mission is to enhance educational resources and treatment options for those living with ADHD in the North Okanagan.” For this collection of works, artists were asked to create a piece based on what ADHD means to them. This exhibition is a collection of their humorous, vibrant, thought-provoking and unique responses. 

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Terri Heinrichs is a self-taught artist with experience in multiple different mediums. As she often is experimenting and learning with her artwork, her work is constantly evolving. She finds most of her inspiration from nature, other artists and her own photographs, a technique she used in this exhibition. Her process for creating these paintings was to interpret the surrounding nature and scenery, first through photography, then she used her photographs to inspire her art.  The works in Impressions of the Valley consist of paintings directly influenced by her experiences and perspective of the surroundings of Mackie Lake House.

Opening Reception July 25th, 2019 

Through Our Eyes… is a unique community based project by the youth at the Teen Junction Youth Centre in partnership with the Vernon Public Art Gallery. The Vernon Public Art Gallery strives to connect the art and the community and supports emerging artists working outside of mainstream of artistic production. The focus of the exhibition is to give voice to youth and make statements about their lives and experiences in Vernon. We all have a unique voice and presence in our community and Through Our Eyes… is an affirmation of the importance of recognition, representation, collaboration and the arts.

Teen Junction Youth Centre is an after-school drop-in centre that offers a safe space for youth to unwind, connect and learn. The Centre works with community organizations to connect youth with support and resources when they need it.

Schulz will exhibit paintings executed in hard edge geometric abstraction. Schulz’s art practice is aligned with the movements known as Post-Painterly Abstraction and Non-Objective painting which emphasize visual structures devoid of signs of brush marks and a narrative. “Before the Sun Goes Down” alludes to the period at which the sun crosses the horizon. Often regarded as a magical time of day, it’s when colour and light appear to be most luminous and vibrant.

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​Todd Schulz, Before the Sun Goes Down, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 36″ x 54″

Art from the Heart is the annual exhibition by elementary students from School District #22. Their artwork delights viewers with their creations, under the guidance of their art teachers.

The Board of Directors and Executive Director, Dauna Kennedy, invite you and a guest to the opening reception of Art from the Heart by School District 22 Elementary Students at the Vernon Public Art Gallery on Saturday, March 16, 2019, 1:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.  Enjoy an afternoon of art, music, coffee, tea, cookies and punch at the opening reception for Art from the Heart.

Keith Harder’s exhibition titled Children of Icarus brings together two distinct bodies of paintings, both of which directly and indirectly reference aviation and the human condition. The most recent large-scale paintings in the series titled ILL Winds portray the meteorological phenomena of cloud formations while the small-scale, intimate paintings from the series titled Anamnesis highlight the details of decrepit fuselages of vintage airplanes. Harder’s work is executed as a highly realistic rendering, yet his work is not an illustration of an object, the natural phenomena, or a portrait of a person. While interested in the natural world, Harder has produced work referencing landscape, still life and portraiture, but the tension in his work is created by what cannot be depicted; it is the context within which each work was created.

Keith Langergraber’s exhibition Betrayal at Babylon is an installation which consist of a video, suit of drawings, and sculptural elements. It references the transient nature of language, changing landscape as a consequence of natural resources extraction, and the groups of people living at the edge of the cultural mainstream. Betrayal at Babylon: Keith Langergraber is organized and circulated by the Burnaby Art Gallery, curated by Jennifer Cane.

Myron Campbell’s exhibition Ghosts of Robert Lake is a visual essay addressing concerns about the sensitive environments and unique habitats in the light of the ever-expanding development of urban and rural communities.

For Campbell, the inspiration to explore the environmental issues at Robert Lake, a small lake in close proximity to the University of British Columbia Okanagan where he works, came from the building of what is now named John Hindle Drive which connects Glenmore Road and Highway 97 in Kelowna, BC. Robert Lake is now a conservation park containing a sensitive environment which acts as a temporary home to a great number of migrating birds. The lake is an example of a dry and salt mud flat in the Central Okanagan, a place with a unique habitat for waterbirds and shorebirds including an endangered American Avocet. Robert Lake is a conservation park owned by the surrounding landowners. There are no trails or roads, only a modest observation kiosk near the lake’s shore. Despite Campbell’s environmental conviction, the exhibition is an expression for careful consideration of “… a balance of human and ecological life.”

Through installation, sculpture and printmaking Sean Caulfield’s work considers the ways our environment is transformed by forces of urban and industrial growth. The visual images and environments he creates blur boundaries between the biological and the technological, the organic and the mechanical, and challenge viewers to consider the implications of this merging.

Derek Besant stages a site-specific installation of printed shaped veils and a large scale 15-minute looping video projection. The out-of-focus close-up images of trees and forest flora create a dense visual environment for the viewers to decode possible hidden narratives suggested by text fragments incorporated in some images.

Tara Nicholson’s photographs in her exhibition titled Cultivate investigate the quickly changing landscape of cannabis growing operations within BC and their placement within rural and urban communities.

Sidley is an artist working almost exclusively in large-scale drawing. Drawing directly on the gallery walls, Sidley will reconstruct the view outside the gallery, including the portraits and movement traces of their bodies. The viewers will be able to interact with the artist drawing and composing her drawings between January 3rd and 10th during regular gallery hours.

Tara Nicholson’s photographs in her exhibition titled Cultivate investigate the quickly changing landscape of cannabis growing operations within BC and their placement within rural and urban communities.

Stellar, an exhibition consisting of paintings intends to explore the interface between art and science, representation, abstraction, and embodiment.

Arctic Sojourn consists of oil paintings, created by the artist who spent a winter in Nunavut. These paintings document a short period in Iqaluit’s twenty-year history as a Canadian capital.

The Annual VPAG Member’s Exhibition will be exhibited in the gallery from November 7th to December 19th 2019. Their exhibition titled Exposed! focuses on creating exhibition opportunities for Gallery members. Art in various mediums, forms and sizes will be presented

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This exhibition titled Leave a Light on in the Wild presents several vibrant oil paintings by Julian Forrest. Julian is an artist based in Edmonton Alberta and has been an Associate Professor in Fine Arts at the University of Alberta since 2008. The subject of the majority of his work is male identity and masculinity. He continues to explore this subject in this exhibition where he  “addresses issues of human existence and attempts to unravel a story that has no fixed beginning or end”.

Gary Dewhurst’s exhibition, I Learned I Wasn’t Seeing Clearly, consists of a suite of black and white photographs which address the topics of phenomenology of light and human perception of space.

Of Space & Reality, 2018, archival Ink-Jet print on paper, 21″ x 17″

Overcoming the Darkness is an exhibition by the youth at the Bridge Youth and Family Services Express Yourself group, a therapeutic art program. For the past 8 weeks, youth have been exploring the healing power of art and community as they participated in weekly expressive arts workshops. Express Yourself provided a safe space for youth to share experiences of homelessness, substance use, mental health concerns, marginalization and loneliness.  

The artworks in the exhibition focus on mental health; specifically the power of community and the freedom associated with artistic expression of pain. 

Art from the Heart is the annual exhibition by elementary students from School District #22. Their artwork delights viewers with their creations, under the guidance of their art teachers.

The Board of Directors and Executive Director, Dauna Kennedy, invite you and a guest to the opening reception of Art from the Heart by School District 22 Elementary Students at the Vernon Public Art Gallery on Saturday, March 16, 2019, 1:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.  Enjoy an afternoon of art, music, coffee, tea, cookies and punch at the opening reception for Art from the Heart.

Keith Harder’s exhibition titled Children of Icarus brings together two distinct bodies of paintings, both of which directly and indirectly reference aviation and the human condition. The most recent large-scale paintings in the series titled ILL Winds portray the meteorological phenomena of cloud formations while the small-scale, intimate paintings from the series titled Anamnesis highlight the details of decrepit fuselages of vintage airplanes. Harder’s work is executed as a highly realistic rendering, yet his work is not an illustration of an object, the natural phenomena, or a portrait of a person. While interested in the natural world, Harder has produced work referencing landscape, still life and portraiture, but the tension in his work is created by what cannot be depicted; it is the context within which each work was created.

Jolene Mackie was selected to be the Artist in Residence 2018 program at the historic Mackie Lake House. We are pleased to host a solo exhibition Curious Reflections created by the artist during her residency at the Mackie Lake House, a historic 1910 heritage house on Okanagan Lake in Coldstream, BC. Her prolific studio practice and focus on the settings and interior of the heritage house allowed her to assemble a visually rich exhibition. The images will allow the viewers to glimpse into the current state of the house and its surroundings and contemplate its historical significance in Vernon. The Artist in Residence Program is a collaborative partnership between Mackie Lake House Foundation and Vernon Public Art Gallery since 2012. The artwork produced during residency will be exhibited at the Vernon Public Art Gallery in a solo exhibition.

Vernon Camera Club members exhibition. 

A preview of artworks submitted by local artists for Midsummer’s Eve of the Arts fundraiser auction this year at Turtle Mountain Winery on July 18, 2018. Stop by the Gallery to see all of these works on display until July 11, 2018.  This is an excellent chance to see what will be in the auction this year and decide which pieces you want to bid on! For more information about the auction call the Vernon Public Art Gallery at 250-545-3173.

Artwork created by secondary students from School District #22, displays a maturity of handling various mediums and more importantly, demonstrates a strong conceptual approach.

The Board of Directors and Executive Director, Dauna Kennedy Grant, invite you and a guest to the opening reception of Art and Soul by School District 22 Secondary Students on Thursday, April 19th from 6-8 p.m at the Vernon Public Art Gallery. Enjoy an evening of art, music, appies, and punch at the opening reception for Art and Soul.

This exhibition of text-based artwork consists of monoprints, UV screen prints, flickering neon signs and a large magnetic board with words which can be manipulated by the viewers in order to create sentences and statements. The works highlight the concept of chance and accident as a strategic concept in creating works of art.

Four members of the Collective address the issues of colonization, the appropriation of their lands, forced assimilation and the need for reconciliation in all aspects of cultural, political, and social existence.

“The Breastfeeding Art Expo is a three-year arts-and-health project that celebrates and supports breastfeeding. The project  involves artists and community members from across the Interior Health region who work to explore the topic of breastfeeding, through art.”

http://breastfeedingartexpo.ca/

“Interior Health and Kelowna Community Resources (KCR) are excited to work together on this community project and provide in-kind financial support and professional expertise in coordinating the development of the project and it’s roll-out.” http://breastfeedingartexpo.ca/about-us/

You Are Here is a unique community-based project by the youth at the Teen Junction Youth Centre in partnership with the Vernon Public Art Gallery. The Vernon Public Art Gallery’s Education Coordinator facilitated five educational and collaborative workshops where eleven participants from Teen Junction had the opportunity to learn about contemporary art, the role of a public art gallery, how to write an artist statement, and how to curate and hang an exhibition. They were also allotted time to work on artwork that will be displayed for the duration of the exhibition in a gallery setting. Entering a public art gallery can be daunting, but by providing an accessible and welcoming space within the art gallery, the Vernon Public Art Gallery aims to build a future audience that is comfortable engaging with contemporary art and understands the importance and value of arts and culture.

The exhibition Emergence introduces a new format of presentation of works at the Vernon Public Art Gallery produced by selected graduating students from the UBC Okanagan BFA program. This exhibition consists of a selection of works of six emerging artists which include painting, screen printing, sculptural installation, photography and fibre art.