August 1 – August 25 | SUZAN MARCZAK | Watershed (mixed media) & JEFF WILSON | North by Northwest (painting)

Watershed explores the primal landscapes of high mountain passes and headwaters, illustrating the awe inspiring yet fragile nature of these water towers and emphasizing the need to protect and preserve them. As life giving water falls as rain or snow it slowly accumulates in mountaintops as glaciers, gathering on the passes to flow as rivers, or collecting in alpine basins to feed small tarns and rills. These are watersheds, barren lands of little value for timber or human habitation, but absolutely vital to the preservation of water systems, our ecosystems, and our lives. Through acrylic paintings and 3D models Marczak finds a beauty and poetry in these small beginnings where life-giving water falls and life starts. This process of transfiguration from snow to river, however, is changing. Glaciers are shrinking, basins lose their snowpack earlier, and passes dry out in the heat of summer as less and less water flows into the rivers and wetlands. The Sunshine Coast is particularly vulnerable, and Suzan has included dioramas and paintings of its’ watersheds from the Tantalus range, Tetrahedron, and the Chapman Lake reservoir. In the watershed, it is a watershed moment of changing climate and adaptation. In this exhibition both the function and the incredible beauty of watersheds is recognized with the aim of changing perceptions and creating action to protect them.

Suzan Marczak has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions throughout the Lower Mainland and in Quebec. Marczak holds a Bachelors of Fine Arts from Emily Carr University and a Diploma in Studio Art from Capilano College. She is an avid hiker based in Vancouver who is creatively guided by the changing seasons, the light, the amazing forms and shapes, and the cycles of life in the backcountry.

Illustrating narratives around the history and life cycles of the North coast of BC, Jeff Wilson’s exhibition is inspired by his time spent immersed in the landscapes of BC’s coast during his 2023 Cassiar Cannery Long Art Residence. The North coast economy has long revolved around natural resource exploitation and trade, leaving the area susceptible to changes largely out of the control of its residents, and creating a particular and unique history of boom and bust economics. Wilson’s large scale acrylic paintings illustrate how this boom and bust pattern expresses itself in a natural and built legacy unique to this part of BC. The continued presence of traditional North coast industries, the legacy of unsustainable practices, the evolution of modern resource-based industries, and the adaptations of wildlife to modern patterns of land use, critical components of all maritime communities’ histories and landscapes, are explored in the unique context of BC’s North coast.

Originally from Edinburgh, Scotland, Jeff Wilson trained as a structural geologist and worked in mineral exploration before settling in Vancouver. Working as a full-time artist since 2013, Wilson has exhibited his work in solo exhibitions throughout BC, Alberta, and Washington State, and in group exhibitions in BC, Washington State, and Italy. In 2016 Wilson exhibited a collection of paintings based on a previous artist residency in the Shetland Islands at the Gibsons Public Art Gallery.