Exhibitions

VISAC offers 6 to 8 exhibitions each year.

The exhibitions are carefully planned to support and promote emerging and established artists from the Boundary/Kootenay region.

The gallery and studios have grown had many different renovations happen over the years. Have you seen it recently? Come check it out we are very proud of our upgraded facilities. 

The Gallery and workspace is available for meetings and events!

To inquire about rental space please email:  info@visacgallery.com

 Contact us with any questions or interest you have in exhibiting: info@visacgallery.com

Current Exhibition - Energy Futures

Eveline Kolijn

Jacqueline Huskisson

Heather Urness

Jill Ho-You

Exhibition Opening Date: March 25, 2024

Guest Workshop for Visual Exploration Club: April 11 @ 3:30-4:30pm

Artist Talk during Business After Business: April 11 @ 5:30-7:30pm

Artist Talk and Workshop @ VISAC: April 12 @ 3:30-5:30pm

Tidalectics Workshop: Developed by Eveline Kolijn, this workshop pairs with Energy Futures. Please reach out to info@visacgallery.com to organize a workshop for your school group.

Exhibition Closing Date: May 2, 2024


About Energy Futures:

In this unique fine art print portfolio, 20 Alberta printmakers and 20 Alberta writers created their vision on sustainable energy transition and climate change in Alberta. The portfolio contains twenty hand-made fine art prints, and twenty texts (poem, short story, essay) printed on 13 x 19” sheets of archival letterpress quality, forming a tangible vision of Alberta’s Energy Future. The portfolio edition is 25. It has also been published with expanded text as a book: Reimagining Fire. The Future of Energy.

The desire to curate this project originated from the necessity in our society to combat climate change and preserve biodiversity. My practice operates in the transdisciplinary space of art, science, and social activism. This path has led to a Fellowship with the Energy Futures Lab (EFL) in 2018. The non-profit Lab is based in Alberta and consists of 40 to 60 Fellows and support staff. They are a network of innovators and influencers with diverse views and come from government and communities, the energy sector, First Nations, non-profits, academia, and the arts. The EFL supports change-makers as they collaboratively explore the following question: How can we leverage Canada’s assets and innovation capacity to accelerate an inclusive and equitable transition to a prosperous net-zero future?

Past Exhibitions

Rewired: Transform from Within by Sab Curtis

Exhibition Opening Date: January 29, 2024

Artist Live Painting Demo @ The Josie Hotel: February 2, 2024 at 4PM

Artist Talk @ VISAC: February 10, 2024 at 3 PM.  Registration required - sign up here. Light refreshments to be provided.  

Exhibition Closing Date: March 7, 2024

Artist Statement

"My adventures mold me and each canvas becomes my journal to translate what I discover through my wanders. My art practice began as a way to feel nurtured by nature’s magnificence when I was experiencing physical and cognitive limits due to injury, and it continues to immerse me in what I love most. 

“Rewired” is a collection expressing the transformation I experienced through my brain injury recovery and discovery of my creative self. Observing nature’s paths and patterns helps me better understand myself and my creative process has helped me comprehend the unplanned pivot in my life. Each piece replays real scenes that I have experienced throughout my recovery and represents milestones that influenced my metamorphosis. 

This journey has been confusing and chaotic, emulated by the varied mood of this series. From the calm to the complex, the seemingly ordinary to the surreal, by patiently reflecting nature’s diverse palette onto canvas I have gained conviction that the ability to adapt through any type of adversity is within us."

About Sab

Sab Curtis is a self-taught acrylic landscape artist and a self-powered adventure enthusiast. Her affinity for the outdoors and deep respect for the natural world stems from a life of exploring mountainous terrain around the world, including her own backyard in the Kootenays where she has found inspiration for the past 20 years. Her lifelong hobby of photographing the vistas she encounters provides ongoing reference material for her more recent passion for painting.

Art became the unexpected silver lining for Sab while recovering from a traumatic brain injury. In 2020, she put brush to canvas for the first time in her life as a therapeutic outlet and she has not stopped since. An engineer by profession, she has converted her problem-solving skills to her creative practice through cognitive “rewiring”. Her neural pathways have transformed from analysing data to construing the mixing of hues and tapestry of brushstrokes. 

Mother Nature is Sab’s greatest muse, and she continually motivates her practice through extensive adventures by foot, bike or skis, acquiring inspiration for her next body of work. 

Visit Sab's website to see more of her work. 

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Everything Became Beautiful by Erica Konrad

Exhibition Opening Date: September 14, 2023

Youth Class led by Erica: October 12, 2023

Evening Reception: Friday, October 13, 2023 6 - 8 PM at VISAC

Exhibition Closing Date: October 26, 2023

Artist Statement

My current body of work is based on my interpretation of animal and plant cells. The work is inspired by my recent journey through breast cancer and healing, with the core of my work being a contradiction between fragility and strength. The direction I took marks a paradigm shift in my work, with a focus on installation, colour, forms and patterns linking the micro and macro worlds.

After facing my own mortality, all things around me became beautiful, the natural world and its beauty was amplified. I went into nature to heal, hiking mountains and visiting the ocean, taking photographs of plants, shapes and colours. Because plants have rigid cell walls and do not die from cancer, I felt particularly drawn to studying them. This paired with research on microscopic images of cells, led to the inspiration for this body of work. Exploring the connections between science and art, I focussed on merging the rational with the abstract. As everything happens at the cellular level, I was acutely aware of the profound effects these tiny cells have on human consciousness and how one cell gone wrong can alter someone’s life. Dissecting the cell structure and reassembling the elements into something beautiful is my attempt to document the journey.  

Pairing natural material (paper and wax) with plastic (plexiglass and mylar) was deliberate to contrast healing to the disease. Rigid forms that morph into a flowing mass signifies the tension between order and chaos and the feeling of being out of control, and the importance of letting go. These cells could belong to anyone and everyone. “Everything Became Beautiful” is a love letter to healthy cells, and a personal testament to courageously moving forward into new territory.  

Funding for this work was generously provided by:  Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance and the Columbia Basin Trust

About Erica

Erica Konrad is a visual artist, living, working and creating on the traditional unceded territory of the Ktunaxa, Sinixt (Lakes), and Syilx (Okanagan) Nations, in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada.  Her background is a formal University education in Environmental Studies, which has laid the foundation for her intense inspiration from the natural world.

Konrad is mostly self taught, working in oil, acrylic and encaustic, having attended international workshops on encaustic and local and provincial courses on painting. She has taught children earth art, teenagers painting and adults encaustic. 

When not painting, she is engaged in supporting other artists. Konrad founded and runs The Narrows Art Retreat - an Artist Residency centre, focussing on artist residencies, workshops and gatherings to promote and encourage artistic innovation.

She maintains an active studio practice creating artwork for public and private collections.

Visit Erica's website for more information and to see her other work!