2024
2024 Ambassadors
Harmeet Kaur Virdee (Surrey)
Harmeet Kaur Virdee is a double bassist, composer, music educator, and arts administrator based in Surrey. She holds a diploma in Arts and Entertainment Management from Capilano University, and graduated from the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra School of Music (VSO SoM) Performance Prep Program.
As a musician and composer, Harmeet gains inspiration from the sounds of nature, as well as visual arts and human emotions. She strives for her music to connect to something bigger than herself, and for it to resonate with and touch any listener. Harmeet believes that music is a powerful form of expression and communication. Music has the ability to express thoughts, emotions, and feelings that words lack and can connect us with others on a deeper level.
In addition to performing, Harmeet is the founder and organizer of Surrey Jazz Nights and a passionate teacher. She teaches a variety of ages at the VSO SoM and Queen’s Academy of the Arts. Harmeet enjoys working with students of all ages as they explore the wonders of music and hopes to inspire them to find their passion whether that is music or another medium.
Culture Days event: "Everyone is a Composer!” was an interactive composition workshop that used visual arts as a medium for composing music. Participants of all ages were guided in creating a visual composition called a graphic score. Harmeet and her fellow musicians interpreted, improvised, and performed the visuals created as musical pieces. Learn more about the event here!
Pronouns: she/they
Website: https://hvird33.wixsite.com/harmeetvirdeemusic
Instagram: @harmeetvirdee_music
Mentor: Nikola Tosic
Learn more about Nikola
Nikola Tosic is a trumpet player, composer, and workshop facilitator from Belgrade, Serbia.
Nikola’s musical activities include improv-based performance (Rory Cowal, NDT), Balkan cross-genre (Super Krystal, SMVA), collaborative composition (Youth Empowerment Program at Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, University of British Columbia, National Arts Festival South Africa) and music production for dance (Korzo, NDT, HCMA, Springboard, PReP - Arts Umbrella).
Mr. Tosic holds a Masters degree in Music (New Audiences and Innovative Practice) and Bachelor degree in Jazz Trumpet Performance from The Royal Conservatory in The Hague, as well as a Bachelor of Education from the University of British Columbia.
Pronouns: he/him
Website: https://www.nikolatosic.net/
Mackenzie Perras (Kelowna)
Mackenzie Perras is a contemporary painter whose work explores the social history and ecological future of the materials all around us. Fascinated by mythology, history, and our shared material culture, Mackenzie's works are often strewn with ruins and relics meant to be excavated by the viewer. While at first glance strikingly contemporary, much of the work contains historical motifs and patterns, architectural references, or subtle nods to cultures past and present. Mackenzie embraces the dizzying breadth of contemporary materials while exploring what substances have meant to different cultures through space and time. Completing detailed research while living and working alongside different cultural groups in locales like Nepal, India, and Mexico, and exhibiting in Italy, UK, Germany, and more, Mackenzie's work espouses a sensitive, curious, and globalized point of view. Their highly sedimentary approach to painting creates seething, complex painted environments imbued with highly codified historical and cultural information. Mackenzie’s world of dynamic textures and heavily encrusted colours pulls viewers into asking ‘what’s this really made of?’ and keeps them wondering about the inner nature and deeper spirit of those materials long after they’ve left the gallery. In 2023, he founded The Creative Exchange, a monthly speakers’ series that invites artists, architects, designers, and creatives across diverse disciplines to share their work and build community at Kelowna's Rotary Centre for the Arts.
Culture Days event: Mackenzie hosted a day of storytelling, paint making, and creation. At the Rotary Centre for the Arts, participants engaged in making ochre, clay, and lake pigment paints from natural materials sourced from the Okanagan. Using the paints made during the workshop, everyone helped to create a large-scale, collaborative artwork that celebrated the local landscape and its natural resources. The final mural was auctioned and proceeds went towards keeping the unhoused warm and safe during the 2024 winter months in downtown Kelowna area. Learn more about the event here!
Pronouns: he/they
Website: https://www.mackenzieperras.com/
Instagram: @rottingcolours
Facebook: @mackenzieperras
Mentor: Pierre Coupey
Learn more about Pierre
Pierre Coupey (b. 1942) was raised and educated in Montreal. He graduated from Lower Canada College, received his BA from McGill University, and studied drawing at the Académie Julian and printmaking at the Atelier 17 in Paris. He received his MA in English and Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, and a Certificate in Printmaking from the Art Institute, Capilano University.
He was a founding Co-editor of The Georgia Straight and the founding Editor of The Capilano Review. His work has received awards, grants and commissions, including grants from the Conseil des Arts du Québec, the Canada Council, the British Columbia Arts Council, and the Audain Foundation for the Arts. In 2013 he received the Distinguished Artist Award from FANS. He was inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 2018. In 2019 he received the designation Faculty Emeritus for his service to Capilano University and his ongoing contributions to Canada's literary and artistic communities. His archives (Pierre Coupey Fonds) are held in the Contemporary Literature Collection at Simon Fraser University Library in Vancouver.
He has published several books of poetry, chapbooks and catalogues, and exhibited in solo and group shows nationally and internationally. His work is represented in numerous private collections in Canada, the United States, Japan and Europe, and in numerous corporate, university and public collections across Canada. He has received private and corporate painting commissions, notably for 745 Thurlow in Vancouver and Fifteen 15 in Calgary. Major public collections include the Belkin Art Gallery, Burnaby Art Gallery, Canada Council Art Bank, Kelowna Art Gallery, Simon Fraser University Art Gallery, University of Guelph Collection, University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, Vancouver Art Gallery and West Vancouver Art Museum.
Pronouns: he/him
Website: http://www.coupey.ca/
Instagram: @pierrecoupey
Judy Woo (Victoria)
Judy Woo is an emerging multidisciplinary and disabled artist. They were born and raised on Vancouver Island, the unceded territories of the W̱SÁNEĆ, Songhees, and Esquimalt Nations. Judy is interested in street art culture, exploring their heritage as an artist Indigenous to Hong Kong. Her work spans many mediums, including murals, installation work, painting, printmaking, textiles, sculpture, and creative writing. Judy is a founding member of the intergenerational BIPOC arts collective, Meltshot Brownie, which reimagines spaces for disabled, BIPOC, and non-binary artists. They are a self-taught artist who believes that both the production and enjoyment of art should be accessible to all.
Culture Days event: Judy guided participants with various levels of experience in creating multilingual, collage-style cento poetry. The workshop encouraged participants to explore their own ancestry while building connections between individuals. At the end of the workshop, there was an opportunity for participants to share their work, open-mic style. Learn more about the event here!
Pronouns: she/they
Instagram: @judy_woo_art, @meltshotbrownie
Mentor: Marie Metaphor Specht
Learn more about Marie
Marie Metaphor Specht is a multidisciplinary artist, poet, and educator living on the unceded territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən- and SENĆOTEN-speaking peoples. A long-time member of the Canadian spoken word scene, she is currently serving a two-year term as the 6th Poet Laureate of Victoria, British Columbia. In addition to her independent practice, she has collaborated with filmmakers, lighting engineers, dancers, and musicians to create immersive and interactive works. Marie believes in the transformative power of this art form and has had the privilege of coaching and creating space for youth poets for nearly two decades.
Marie’s poetry has been published in Oratorealis, Untethered Magazine, Chestnut Review, The Hellebore, and Room Magazine, among others. Her debut poetry collection, Soft Shelters is out now with Write Bloody North Publishing (2023).
Pronouns: she/her
Website: www.mariemetaphor.com
Instagram: @mariemetaphor
Jesse Medrano-Ramos (Vancouver)
Jesse Medrano-Ramos draws from the Filipino act of Talambuhay, to “tell one's story” to foster solidarity. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba to an immigrant mother who arrived alone at the age of 12, Jesse's work delves deep into the unseen struggles of immigrant and low-income Canadians, and the exploited realities of immigrant families. Her primary goal is to educate and agitate, firmly believing in art as a revolutionary force.
Utilizing a variety of mediums, Jesse's work spans from digital pieces exploring the internet as immigrant spaces, to intricate collages and sculptures dissecting class disparities. However, her true passion lies in creating and curating events that foster therapeutic storytelling and liberative engagement with art.
Jesse is pursuing an undergraduate degree in Visual Arts and Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice at UBC, and has engaged with academic opportunities such as the PHIL LIND POP series, studying the intersections of pop culture and politics in her first master seminar. She has also attended a global exchange in Berlin surrounding the connection of activism and art.
Among recent achievements, Jesse directed a month-long festival at UBC called “ARTIVISM: Madness in the Masses,” which brought together communities of activists and artists. This event served as a platform for groups like UBC’s Hatch Art Gallery to collaborate and focus on the connection between mental illness and class.
Jesse's own life becomes a lens through which she shares the harsh realities of gender and racial oppression. Through her art and activism, Jesse Medrano-Ramos strives to uncover our interconnections to each other and our systems.
Culture Days event: Jesse hosted a unique and healing multimedia scrapbooking/journaling workshop at the University of British Columbia campus that delved into the rich tapestry of shared cultural histories and personal journeys. The goal of the workshop was to acknowledge and celebrate the principles that underpin our cultures, emphasizing care as a shared responsibility and a fundamental aspect of the cultures we resonate with.
Learn more about the event here!
Pronouns: she/they/he/any
Website: https://jessenmramos.wixsite.com/website
Instagram: @jssmedra
Mentor: Marissa Largo
Learn more about Marissa
Dr. Marissa Largo is an Assistant Professor of Creative Technologies in the School of Arts, Media, Performance & Design of York University. Her research and creation focus on the intersections of community engagement, race, gender, and Asian diasporic cultural production. Her forthcoming book, Unsettling Imaginaries: Filipinx Contemporary Artists in Canada examines the work and oral histories of artists who imagine Filipinx subjectivity beyond colonial logics. Dr. Largo has received numerous awards and grants for her research and creative practice. Her 2021 curatorial project “Elusive Desires: Ness Lee & Florence Yee at the Varley Art Gallery of Markham (September 2021 to January 2022) was recognized by the Galeries Ontario/Ontario Galleries (GOG) awards for best exhibition design and installation, and best curatorial writing text between 2000 – 5000 words). Dr. Largo also collaborates with community organizations that connect policy engagement with creative and social practice.
Pronouns: she/her
Website: www.marissalargo.com
Annabelle Bail (Nanaimo)
Annabelle is a multidisciplinary artist living and creating on the unceded traditional territory of the Snuneymuxw Nation. They create mixed media, figurative artwork focused on self acceptance and self actualisation along with the process of healing—illustrating in their own way the emotional, physical, and spiritual changes that manifest within these shared human experiences.
Using soft pastel colours and symbolism as a visual storyteller, Annabelle represents the gentleness and tenderness of loving one self. In their work, this softness is contrasted with dark, sharp, chaotic, and bold lines to express the complexities and challenges that also come with continuous growth. With a focus on designing a wide range of diverse bodies through an expressionist lens, Annabelle illustrates self discovery as an ongoing beautiful yet tumultuous journey and outlines vulnerability as a strength and power.
By portraying intentional non-binary themes in their compositions, they’re recognizing the concept of identity and sexuality as something that is constantly changing and evolving, more importantly deeply worthy of celebration, respect, and care. They’re looking to showcase the beauty seen in everyday people living authentically through vibrant paintings and layered drawings, as shown in her first solo exhibition “The Unmentionables,” at the Good Gawd Gallery located in downtown Nanaimo. As a queer artist, they strive to create raw, multidimensional pieces that are relatable and inspire connection. Annabelle honours artistic exploration by playing with acrylic paint, recycled materials, ceramics, and collages mixed with digital media and photography to bring their pieces to life.
Culture Days event: Community members collaborated with Annabelle in creating a community mural at the Nanaimo Art Gallery. People in the community and from outside of Nanaimo came together to work on a large canvas. Using paint and mixed media, participants young and old created a vibrant community mural showcasing the beauty and power of diverse voices and perspectives. As an artist, Annabelle believes we can build understanding and empathy across different social and cultural divides through visual storytelling. This project provided a space for all to embrace the uniqueness of their different perspectives by collaborating on an art piece, exploring the themes of what joy, happiness, and safety look and feel like to each of us in symbols, patterns, and colours. The completed mural now resides at the Nanaimo Harbour Front Public Library. Learn more about the event here!
Pronouns: she/they
Instagram: @Fleshandlines
Facebook: @Anaevisualart
Mentor: Russell Morland
Learn more about Russell
Russell Morland (AKA LURK) is a Vancouver Island, BC-based artist whose work ranges from detailed, psychedelic paintings and illustrations to digital drawings and collaborative products. Born in the UK, Morland attended Barnsley College of Art and New College Durham, obtaining degrees in graphic design, art and design, and fine art. Since then, he’s remained active as an independent artist and freelance designer.
Morland draws inspiration from the worlds of lowbrow, street art, skateboarding, and board games. Throughout his career, his work has been featured on shoes, underwear, skateboards, card games, for prominent clients including Britney Spears, Avenged Sevenfold, Etnies Shoes, and Mastodon.
Pronouns: he/him
Website: lurkarmy.com
Instagram: @lurklovesyou
X: @lurklovesyo
Shauna Kay (Kelowna and Armstrong)
Mother to four daughters, a banker, and a partner to Lee—raising a family and paying the bills coexist with art in Shauna’s everyday life.
Shauna will enthusiastically tell you that she “wants to be an artist when she grows up.” In a world where dreams often fade with the realities of day-to-day living, Shauna’s sincerity and passion for art shines.
Shauna’s portfolio includes acrylic and watercolour commissions, plus what she affectionately calls art ‘gigs’ (doing art gigs even before the term “Gig-Economy” was coined!), such as birthday party face-painting, holiday window painting, and mural painting for her local community.
Community art with a focus on accessibility best describes Shauna’s art practice. She creates physically accessible and publicly visible art such as window paintings and murals. Her work is emotionally accessible, connecting people to the culture of their community through urban sketching. Shauna’s most recent artistic endeavour is the establishment of an Urban Sketching Group in the Okanagan Valley, which is open to any and all would-be creators, regardless of abilities, financial means, or education—you don’t need an arts degree to create an urban sketch!
Accessible community art gives people the chance to enjoy art—seeing it and creating it—in the course of their normal everyday lives. Urban sketching in particular encourages participation by emphasizing the journey of the creative process rather than focusing on the end result.
Culture Days event: Shauna facilitated an all-day Urban Sketching event that wove together a simple walking tour of downtown Kelowna’s Cultural District with helpful instructions for creating on-location sketches and watercolour prints of culturally significant public art sculptures in Kelowna. Participants could choose to join a single 90-minute sketch stop, multiple stops, or even the full day of sketching locations. Through participating, they learned about the stories and historical significance behind specific art installations in Kelowna and gained supplies as well as how-tos for practicing Urban Sketching. Learn more about the event here!
Pronouns: she/her
Instagram: @smrk_art
Facebook: @SMRK:Art
Mentor: Linda Lovisa
Learn more about Linda
Linda Lovisa paints Alla Prima. This type of painting keeps the colours fresh and vibrant while mixing directly on the canvas. Her techniques include Impressionism, symbolism, and abstraction. Although she works primarily in acrylic, she continues to explore a wide range of media including pastel, watercolour, and mixed media. It is the freedom of expression working with other mediums that energizes her.
Linda’s paintings have appeared in exhibits across Canada and the United States and can be found in private and public collections nationally and internationally. Linda has been presented by The Federation of Canadian Artists, a Gold Award, Third Award and an Award of Excellence.
Linda regularly teaches an online demonstration class which focuses on different techniques as well as individual coaching. Topics vary each week. She has also developed a children’s art program that commences in September till June called “Art on the Yacht,” in West Kelowna.
Pronouns: she/her
Website: www.lindalovisaartcanada.ca
Instagram: @llovisa58
Facebook: @Linda Lovisa