Current Studio Artists
Sandy Voldeng
I create my sculptures in clay from my heart rather than my head. I am constantly inspired by those around me, by my own experiences, by social and political events and through my travels throughout the world. I do hope that people connect with the feelings I’m trying to evoke through my work and thus give it life.
laura feeleus
Laura works mainly as a painter and textile artist, with forays into printmaking, sculpture and installation. She graduated with a Diploma in Fine Art from the Vancouver Island School of Art.
Laura worked for many years as a librarian and in business, and now devotes most of her time to an art practice. She is a founder of arc.hive artist run centre and is active in arts administration on Vancouver Island.
FB laurafeeleusart
Karina Kalvatis
Karina Kalvaitis depicts a parallel world full of personable, loveable, odd and awkward creatures that are familiar yet strange.
In graphite drawings and in mixed media sculptures these silently expressive oddballs act as metaphors for our own states of mind – expressing stoicism, uncertainty, hope, and wonder. She is interested in creating art that gets to the heart of human emotions and experiences – while also embracing a sense of the mysterious and unknowable.
Always interested in physically crafting work with a variety of materials, Karina majored in sculpture at the Alberta University of the Arts, and later studied theatre prop building at the Banff Centre in Alberta.
She lives in Victoria on traditional lək̓ʷəŋən (Lekwungen) Territory and in addition to being an artist she works as a props builder and scenic artists for theatre and opera productions.
Regan Rasmussen
Regan is a contemporary artist whose process is informed by the phenomenology of living experience and human interactions. Themes and narratives are explored through drawing, ceramics, printmaking, and installation. She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in studio and visual arts-based research from University of Saskatchewan, University of Winnipeg, and University of Victoria.
In addition to her studio practise, Regan teaches at University of Victoria and is committed to arts advocacy in the community. Her art has been exhibited in public and private collections across Canada and in the UK and she is the recipient of national and international teaching awards. She has served on the arc.hive Board of Directors since 2018.
As a fourth-generation settler of Ukrainian and Polish heritage, Regan gratefully acknowledges the Lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking peoples on whose traditional territory she lives, works and creates.
Lisa-Scarlett Cruji
I am a mixed media writer whose most recent project is “The Recollection Experiment” which asks the viewer to consider who the narrator is in each piece. Is it a person in the photo speaking to us, or is it someone else remembering the image? Whose voice do we hear when we read the words, and does our own personal experience influence this?
“The Recollection Experiment” plays with the notion of memory and how its shreds become ghosts who speak to us, sometimes factually and other times through filters of love, fear, ecstasy, and regret. The question is, what’s real and what isn’t?
I have exhibited widely through both solo and group shows in Toronto, Vancouver/lower mainland, and most recently Victoria. I’m very grateful to be part of the talented, and always inspiring, Arc.hive community.
Website: www.thecollageapothecary.com
Jo Roueche
Jo is a queer artist/educator who grew up on these beautiful unceded lək̓ʷəŋən and WSÁNEĆ territories. In her work, she is drawn to unselfconscious, spontaneous gesture, and how it can connect to expressive mark-making and resistance to linearity. Inspired by the work of Cy Twombly and Julie Mehretu, Jo uses gestural mark-making as a means of feeling her way, exploring new (to her) ground, and shedding too-small skins. Her “asemic calligraffiti” is an exploration of what happens when previously meaning-laden marks stray from the path to revel in the pleasure of their own becoming.
Jen Wilson
Jen is a photo based artist.Her current body of work , 2023 ongoing is
“Meditations on Stillness”
Being present with “beginner’s mind”, within the natural landscape, gifts me the opportunity to record the still point in a sea of perpetual transformation and metamorphosis.
Website www.jennwilson.ca
chantal solomon
is an Artist who practices screen printing, painting, film and sculpture. Her creative drive is influenced by her work with the plant relatives, listening to the stories of her communities and her commitment to a regenerative lifestyle. In showcasing various aspects of her experiences on the land she hopes to highlight the beauty that is naturally present. While creating a reflective space for how we engage with the land as modern humans. Chantal is currently inspired to host opportunities to mend, vision & create through her podcast “Resilient Creatives”. www.instagram.com/
Board members with studios elsewhere:
Natasha van Netten
Natasha van Netten is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice focuses on marine science and cetology (the study of whales, dolphins and porpoises). She uses a variety of mediums such as oil paint, ink, seawater and metal to conceptually explore scientific information. Her art practice is strongly influenced by growing up along the BC coast and by her experiences at sea. Natasha received a Diploma of Fine Art from the Vancouver Island School of Art in 2016. Her work has been exhibited in Canada, the Czech Republic, Iceland, Finland, New Zealand, Norway, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States.
https://natashavannetten.com/
Alison Bigg
As an artist with degenerative hearing loss, Alison Bigg starts a conversation about new ways to navigate this quickly fluctuating and information-saturated world. Working with sculptural assemblage, printmaking and ceramics, Bigg offers the viewers fresh ways to engage with the world by sparking a sense of curiosity using humour and irony.
Alison Bigg is an interdisciplinary artist working in the traditional territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən speaking people, otherwise known as Victoria, BC. She graduated from the Emily Carr College of Art and Design and has had several solo exhibits. Her work has been funded by the City of Victoria, the Victoria Arts Council, the BC Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. Bigg’s work is in the collections of the Ontario Art Gallery, the University of Victoria and York University.