Lacey Jane Wilburn is a contemporary painter most notable for her cinematic renderings of domestic space that undulate between gesture and realism on canvas. Originally from the Treaty 6 territory of Edmonton, Alberta, Wilburn studied Fine Art at the University of Grant MacEwan in Edmonton in 2009, received her Bachelors of Fine Art from Concordia University in Montreal in 2016 after studying abroad at the l’Ecole d'Enseignement Supérieur d'art de Bordeaux, France, Most recently she obtained her Masters of Fine Art from Emily Carr University of Art and Design in 2022. She has participated in over 40 exhibitions since 2009, was the recipient of the University Women’s Club of Vancouver Scholarship in 2022 and 2021, the Yves Gaucher Prize in Studio Arts in 2016, the D. L. Stevenson Colour Scholarship for Academic Excellence in 2014, the Francis Henderson Klingle Scholarship for Fine Art, The Barbara and John Poole Family Endowed Fund for the Arts in 2009, and the Jason Lang Scholarship for Excellence in 2007. In 2010, she formed the urban art duo LALA [Lacey And Layla Art] who have developed over 140 public mural interventions across Canada, France, Honduras, Uganda and Iceland, and have received over $150,000 in grants from federal and municipal funding. Now living in Vancouver, BC on the ancestral and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations, Wilburn gratefully dedicates her time to painting, teaching and scuba diving.

Gemma Crowe is a new media artist and recent MFA graduate.

James Harry was born of Squamish Nation and Namgis descent in 1989. James began carving in early childhood with his father, Xwalacktun. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from Emily Carr University of Art and Design, in 2014 and completed an internship in the United Kingdom in 2011 where he learned metal casting and taught Coast Salish sculpture, painting and drawing in Scottish communities. Harry’s diverse portfolio includes cedar carvings, metal carvings, light installations and murals.

Kyla Gilbert is a visual artist based out of Vancouver BC on the unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. She graduated with a BFA in performance from Concordia University in 2017 and spent the two subsequent years touring as a puppeteer with DJ Kid Koala. During her time as a puppeteer, she became interested in the inherent animacy of objects.

A Collaboration with the Queer Arts Festival & SUM gallery

Natis is a conceptual painter who lives and works in Berlin. His art materialises itself through multiple parallel and distinct research-based practices. He creates, embodies, and instrumentalists different performative artist personae for each of these practices that challenge the social understanding and the role of the artist as a (post-)modern subject. These alter-egos deal with various fields like; personal or communal memory and forgetting, speculative storytelling (non-)linear temporality, gender, post-colonialism, and new materialism. Besides his art practice, he works towards completing his doctorate at the Hochschule für bildende Künste (HFBK) Hamburg on art-historical and contemporary use of visual artist alter egos, researching why these mental and physical alternations or mutations take place in artists’ lives.

Aileen Bahmanipour is an Iranian-Canadian visual artist and currently is living and working on the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓ əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) people. She has received her BFA in Painting from the Art University of Tehran and MFA in Visual arts from the University of British Columbia. Bahmanipour has exhibited her work in a body of solo and group exhibitions internationally as well as in Canada, including her solo and group exhibitions at the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art, Vancouver’s grunt gallery, and Two Rivers Gallery.

Bill Burns, like Trylowsky, has created a project that prompts an examination of parallel economies. Burns’ ongoing research includes The Goat, the Salt, the Oil, a performance series that positions global trade as an art practice; at Griffin’s residency from December 8 to February 28, 2022, titled Three short films and several songs about Donkeys, Cowboys, Truckers and Container Ships, he will research a further speculative iteration of this project, activating the site of the Vancouver Harbour and producing a series of short films, this time proposing the trade of red snapper for goat’s milk, yogurt for honey, organizing a shipment of Nepalese salt for olives or other foodstuffs in Vancouver.

TanTan Hong is a multimedia installation artist, bookmaker, and educator from South Korea. Her practice has been based in Seoul, Hong Kong, LA, and now, in Vancouver. Her practice and research concern microorganisms, memories, and world building; her worlds connect the in-between spaces of fictional and historical landscapes birthed by American imperialism. TanTan holds a BFA from CalArts and an MFA from ECUAD.

Mollie Burke is a multi-disciplinary artist considering the relationship between computation and social abstraction. She lives and works in Vancouver, on unceded Coast Salish territory. She holds a BA from McGill University in art history and cultural studies, a diploma of fine art from Langara, and a Masters of Fine Art from Emily Carr University of art and design. She was awarded the Bill Watson award for excellence in printmaking, the Barbara and Arne Vengshoel scholarship for excellence in visual arts, and the SSHRC graduate scholarship for her research in mediation. She was recently shortlisted for the 2021 Lind prize, and has shown in various spaces across Canada.

Esteban Pérez (b. 1992 in Quito, Ecuador) graduated from Emily Carr University of Arts + Design with an MFA degree in 2021. His work has been part of exhibitions such as: ‘Radical Reworlding’ (AHVA Gallery UBC, 2021), ‘Triplete’ (No Lugar, 2018), and Premio Brasil (Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, 2017), and, in 2019 he had his first solo show Transitory (Más Arte, 2019). In 2020, he was the recipient of The Audain Travel Award in Vancouver. In the same year, he won the 2nd Place Award in RAW, an MFA online exhibition, organized by the University of Montana, USA. He was selected for the Premio Brasil –Arte Emergente (CAC), an award funded by the Brazilian embassy in Quito for the promotion of Emerging Artist. He was a resident at the Satellite Residency program at the Shumka Centre for Creative Entrepreneurship in 2021.

Griffin Art Projects is thrilled to announce an international residency exchange in partnership with the Bag Factory in Johannesburg, South Africa to take place in August and September 2021. This residency opportunity will connect a BIPOC Canadian artist with a Johannesburg-based artist over the course of an intensive two-month creation period during which the artists will have the opportunity to meet virtually, build a relationship and engage in critical dialogue fostered through scheduled studio visits and discussion sessions. This program will culminate in a live virtual open studio session featuring the artists in conversation over Zoom.

Griffin Art Projects is honoured to announce the distinguished artist Xwalacktun as the inaugural Indigenous Studio Award recipient. Xwalacktun is a renowned Master Carver of Coast Salish ancestry, from the Squamish and Kwakiutl clans. His remarkable work and career extend over forty years and across numerous forms, including public art, sculpture, metalwork, jewelry, glass work, drawing and printmaking. He is the recipient of the Order of British Columbia, the FANS Honours Award from the North Vancouver Arts Council which acknowledged his commitments both locally and worldwide and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.

Through an interdisciplinary practice that includes sculpture, new media, installation, and performance, as well as an educational background in both the sciences and arts, my work explores the psychic violence of cultural assimilation and the conditions that inform our understanding of place, citizenship, and national identity. From this groundwork, my practice has led me to question how technology plays a part in reinforcing the violence of nation states, racist economic policies, and human dispossession.