Artful :

The Gallery

Living An Artful Existence

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Current Exhibition

Naked...as in Vulnerability

Featuring Victoria artist Lisa Hebden, including works by Wesley Clark and Kristina Campbell, three talented BC artists exploring the human form in all its naked vulnerability.
Exhibition runs till October 24, 2020

Upcoming Exhibition

Naked...Act II

Featuring Kristina Campbell's 'Sappho Series'
and Wesley Clark's 'Derivative Women Series'

Opening Hours

Come Visit
526C Cumberland Road, Courtenay BC

Wednesday Through Saturday
12 - 5 pm

Contact

526C Cumberland Road
Courtenay, BC

2508966000

About the Artists

Who’s on Display

Kristina Campbell

Mixed Media

KRISTINA CAMPBELL is a Comox BC based multimedia artist. She graduated from the University of Victoria in 2009 with an Honours BFA. Her multimedia art practise explores themes of mythology, archetypes, memory, biography, feminism and agency.

Using an intuitive aesthetic of sensual imagery she conveys her personal version of the human, and particularly feminine, experience. Campbell gravitates towards images and events occurring in her daily life, gently and insistently inviting the viewer to join in her questions. With a blend of playful, sensual and haunting images, the work comes together to create an image of the life of the artist.

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“I have learned that ultimately it is a point of reference that is far less about me as an individual and far more about what it means to be human, in this world, at this time.”

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Whether she chooses video, performance or shamelessly pretty paintings, each project starts with a burning question that sends the artist off searching for an answer. Her intuitive process, trusting in the veracity of the question, leaves final outcomes for the piece and the viewer to decide. Campbell’s willingness to reveal the personal, often including herself in her work, supports her efforts to make the personal political.

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Campbell’s relentless fascination with the power of words, the power of naming, of defining and refining meaning through the use of text in her works, is her way of subtitling the visual imagery, adding another layer of meaning to the work. Campbell’s work employs an aesthetic that resonates with the archetypal, deeply beautiful and emotionally provocative.

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As a video artist, Campbell is a collector. Capturing imagery that calls to her, often without any clear end purpose in mind, she adds it to her collection, like a painter amassing tubes of colour. To Campbell, her work is a visual metaphor for her life.

Campbell’s work has been collected and exhibited throughout North America, Denmark and Bhutan.

Wesley Clark

Painting

Former resident of the Comox Valley, Wesley is now living on Salt Spring Island.

Wesley is a graduate of The University of Victoria (BFA & M.Ed). He has established himself as an important collectible artist in both the private and corporate sectors. His detailed landscape watercolours are inspired by the natural wilderness of BC. His dedication to preserving this beautiful landscape led to commitments in various environmental expeditions including Carmanah, Tsitika and Kitlope Rivers. 

In 1994, Wes was invited as the expedition artist, joining 12 scientists, river guides and writers to raft the uncharted Kitlope River near Kitimat, BC while conducting an environmental impact study during this remarkable journey. West Fraser Timber later relinquished their timber farm license on the Kitilope watershed, resulting in a 317,000 square hectare provincial park. 

More recently Wesley’s works are larger, acrylic and mixed media canvases that explore multi-cultural themes. This work is wildly colourful and inspired by pre-history, indigenous peoples, art making processes, artifacts and culture. Wesley emulates the qualities and aesthetics of these ancient artifacts, creating a sense of the archaic. Arranging powerful pre-historic images into a new personal visual statement inviting the viewer’s insight into what makes us human…a distant view of the strangely familiar. 

Large and dynamic, Wesley Clark originals are being added to the already impressive art collections of a diverse international clientele.

Lisa Hebden

Painting

Award-winning painter Lisa Hebden was born and raised in Victoria BC.  

Lisa is passionate about people. Her work is populated with figures in relationship to one another and in solitary reflection.

The Swimmers are about the joy and sensuality of being submerged in water. Lisa is fascinated by the patterns of light that illuminate the spaces between us. She says, "When people swim, there’s often a return to playful, child-like behavior. Even adults can revert to five year olds for a few moments in a pool: splashing, jumping, being silly. There’s posturing and strutting too, but also an abandonment of the restraints of land. We shed a bit of our egos when we are neck-deep in water. We are more vulnerable, but we can lie on our backs and feel like we can fly. Who do we become when we are weightless?”

Lisa recently won a Juror’s Choice Award at the 2019 Sooke Fine Art Show, as well
as the People’s Choice Award at the 2010 and 2013 Sooke Fine Arts Shows.
She received a Painting on the Edge Award from the Federation of Canadian Artists.

She has exhibited in solo and group shows throughout BC, notably at Two Rivers Gallery in Prince George, Victoria’s Gallery at the Mac,and the University of Victoria. Her work has been featured in International Artist, Applied Arts Magazine, Art Avenue, Ceramics Art &
Perception, The Vancouver Sun, The Halifax Herald, the Claremont Review, Victoria News, and she has been spotlighted on A Channel News. She is also a published poet.

Her paintings can be found in private and corporate collections in Canada, the United States, Germany, and Australia.