In Conversation

Join exhibiting artists Charlene Vickers and Faye HeavyShield for an in-depth discussion about their respective practices and the concerns that drive them in a conversation moderated by artist, curator and writer Lorna Brown.

Biographies

Charlene Vickers is an Anishinaabe artist based in Vancouver. Her painting, sculpture and performance works explore memory, healing and embodied connections to ancestral lands. She is the recipient of the 2018 VIVA Award. Recent exhibitions include a co-presentation with Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun Lets’lo:tseltun, Macaulay & Co. Fine Art (2021); Rain Shadow, Nanaimo Art Gallery (2021); Where Do We Go From Here?, Vancouver Art Gallery (2020); Biennale nationale de sculpture Contemporaine, Quebec (2020); An Assembly of Shapes, Oakville Galleries (2018); Speaking with Hands and Territories, SFU Galleries (2018); and Vancouver Special: Ambivalent Pleasures, Vancouver Art Gallery (2016). International group exhibitions include the map is not the territory, Portland Art Museum (2019); Connective Tissue: New Approaches in Contemporary Fibre Art, MoCNA, Santa Fe (2017); From The Belly of The Beast, Grace Gallery, Brooklyn (2017); and If We Never Met, Pataka Art Museum, Porirua, New Zealand (2016). Vickers graduated from Emily Carr University of Art and Design (1994) and Simon Fraser University (Critical Studies of the Arts, 1998; MFA, 2013).

Faye HeavyShield is a member of the Blackfoot Confederacy from the Kainai (Blood) Nation in the foothills of Southern Alberta. She is a fluent speaker of the Blackfoot language and studied at the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary. HeavyShield has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across Canada, including Nations in Urban Landscapes, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; rock paper river, Gallery Connexion, Fredericton; Into the Garden of Angels, The Power Plant, Toronto; and blood, Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge. Her work is held in collections including the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg; the Heard Museum, Phoenix; the Glenbow Museum, Calgary; and the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina.

Lorna Brown is Acting Director/Curator at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, University of British Columbia and a visual artist, writer, educator and editor, exhibiting her work internationally since 1984. Brown was the Director/Curator of Artspeak Gallery from 1999 to 2004 and is a founding member of Other Sights for Artists’ Projects, a collective of artists, architects and curators presenting projects that consider the varying conditions of public places and public life. She has taught at Emily Carr University of Art and Design and Simon Fraser University. Brown received an honorary degree from Emily Carr University of Art and Design (2015), the Vancouver Institute for the Visual Arts Award (1996) and the Canada Council Paris Studio Award (2000). Her work is in the collections of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, the National Gallery of Canada, the BC Arts Council, the Surrey Art Gallery and the Canada Council Art Bank.