Notions of Gathering
Duo Exhibition with Amber and Cassia Powell

Opens July 11th...

Notions of Gathering is a duo, mother-daughter exhibition by artists Cassia and Amber Powell
composed of mixed-media drawings, textiles, installation and collage. Drawing on storytelling,
personal and spiritual folklore, this exhibition looks at gathered material as something one can
develop a kinship with, and explores what it means to produce and what it means to inherit and
gather objects over time. Considering each material as a vessel for memory, whether through
pieces of cloth in a collaborative quilt or selected images within a collage, each work in Notions
of Gathering marinate in the collective understanding of “how a material is made more alive
through social encounter, being passed between lives and hands.”1
Within the core of this show, there is an unpacking of the understandings of traditional nuclear
family dynamics, negating the standard for what kinship can mean. Looking at gathering as an
act of collecting, but also as a means of coming together.
What are the things we hold on to that are passed down? How can we cast these associations into
spaces of potential?

1Edwards, C., & Dittel, K. (Eds.). (2022). The material kinship reader: Material beyond extraction and kinship beyond the nuclear family. Onomatopee.

The Mystery Spot

Alexis de Chaunac
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February 28 – April 4
Opening Reception: Saturday, February 28, 1:00–3:00 pm

The Mystery Spot is a site-responsive exhibition rooted in the Okanagan landscape, where orchards, agriculture, and seasonal labor shape both economy and perception. As one of Canada’s largest apple-producing regions, the Okanagan becomes not only a backdrop but a conceptual lens: the apple appears as symbol, material memory, and recurring formal structure. Works on paper rendered in ink and acrylic depict abstracted apples, cut, doubled, hollowed, hovering between figuration and geometry.
 
Through repetition, the apple becomes a rhythmic device, a vessel that opens interior and exterior space. Pigment settles into porous surfaces, retaining traces of touch and process, allowing the familiar to be seen anew.
 
Two projected videos extend this inquiry. One reworks the opening scene of Aleksandr Dovzhenko’s Earth, slicing and looping the image of an old man resting on a bed of apples as his community gathers. This scene is reenacted in the gallery space: a communal apple bed illuminated by two car headlights. A second projection, live- streamed from the bed of apples inside the gallery, introduces another body at rest, linking land, memory, and ritual.
 
Together, the exhibition unfolds as a constellation where the quotidian drifts into the poetic, and the “mystery spot” emerges through subtle shifts in perception.
-           Alexis de Chaunac

.... ----. --...     ..- -. ... . - - .-.. . ...     .. -
 
Alexis de Chaunac is a Chicago-based artist whose work explores spirituality, material histories, and the poetic potential of everyday surfaces. His practice is grounded in a sustained attention to the tactile and symbolic life of objects. He received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his BA from Sarah Lawrence College. He is the recipient of the Dedalus Foundation Fellowship and a Fundación Jumex grant. He has exhibited nationally and internationally, with projects at Galleria Ramo in Como, Italy, Sargent’s Daughters in New York, and the Carrillo Gil Art Museum in Mexico City. His work has been reviewed in Whitewall Magazine, Whitehot Magazine, and Artsy Editorial. De Chaunac is currently a faculty member at SAIC and was a BOLT resident at the Chicago Artists Coalition, where he recently presented a solo exhibition.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Mystery Spot Mural made in collaboration with Nancy Wilde of Wilde Signs
Apple bed and bin installations made in collaboration with artist Byron Johnston 
Car light installation made in collaboration with artist Paul Lewendon 

Special thank yous to: Sumeet Gill and Farming Karma, Kelowna for the supply of the Ambrosia apples that line the bed; to Connor at OPT for the supplying the turf; and to Bob McCoubrey for the bed structure, apple bin and orchard ladders, alongside their construction; and to Kathy Hale for installing the paper works.

Lighthouse Keeping
September 13th to 28th, 2025

Opening Reception:
Saturday, September 13th, 1:00pm to 3:00pm

The title Lighthouse Keeping draws its inspiration from Stevie Nicks’ song The Lighthouse (September 2024). In a recent interview, Nicks reflected on her surprise at having to write a protest song at this stage in her life. As Margaret Atwood has written, “A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used. Powerlessness and silence go together.” Her words remind us that where women’s voices are devalued, progress can falter, and vigilance remains essential.

The next exhibition at Lake Country Art Gallery is Lighthouse Keeping and gathers artists whose work guides and sustains the voices of women in a world where those voices must still fight to be heard. Some guide us through the quiet rhythms of beauty, the language of composition, and the poetry of the everyday. Each work carries its own weight, inviting viewers to enter freely, linger and wonder. In this way, the exhibition itself becomes a lighthouse, illuminating paths for reflection, dialogue, and the ongoing care of women’s voices in the arts.
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Artists:
Bree Apperley, Alison Beaumont, Rosanne Bennett, Rose Braun, Faith Bye, Lee Claremont, Carin Covin, Pippa Dean-Veerman, Jen Dyck, Jessie Emilie, Jane Everett, Joanne Gervais, Elly Hajdu, Kathy Hale, Janine Hall, Joice M. Hall, Fern Helfand, Deirdre Hofer, aj jaeger, Judith Jurica, Lindsay Kirker, Margaret Kyle, Lindsay Lorraine, Kerry MacLeod, Mary Smith McCulloch, Liane McLaren, Ortansa Moraru, Rhonda Neufeld, Kate Nicholson, Destanne Norris, Julie Oakes, Shauna Oddleifson, Katherine Pickering, Nasim Pirhadi, Amber Powell, Rachel Prins, Angelina Rosa, Kel Taylor, Victoria Verge, Rena Warren

Connor Charlesworth and Rod Charlesworth
July 12th to September 7th, 2025

Opening Reception:
Saturday, July 12th, 1:00pm to 3:00pm

A collaborative exhibition by Connor Charlesworth and Rod Charlesworth. The exhibition brings together old and new work in drawing, painting, and installation to consider themes of landscape, memory, presence, transitivity, poetry, and painting itself.

Artist Demo & Talk:
Wednesday, August 27th, 6:30pm to 8:00pm
​Open to the public and free or by donation

About the Artists: 

Connor was born in Kelowna in 1992. Much of his childhood was spent in his father’s studio making things. His father instilled in him a love for colour, experimenting, and working outdoors. He received his MFA from the University of Victoria in 2018 with a specialization in painting, and his BFA from the University of British Columbia in 2015 majoring in visual arts and minoring in art history and visual culture. He has taught drawing and painting at the University of Victoria, Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, and most recently at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan Campus. Connor’s recent exhibitions include Arche-Fossil (ARTSCO, 2023) and The Distance of the Sun (Kelowna Community Theatre, 2023). In 2022 and 2023, with the financial support of the University of British Columbia’s Sessional Conference Fund, Connor took part in a studio mentorship program with the artist Enrique Martinez Celaya out of his Los Angeles studio. He continues to maintain an active studio practice in Kelowna with primary interests in philosophy, language, and land based inquiries.

Rod was born in northern British Columbia in the town of Terrace in 1955. When he was seven, his family moved to the Okanagan where he spent much of his time growing up fishing in Mill Creek, riding horses, and drawing. In the 70s, Rod studied visual art at Okanagan College. During his time there, he learned from the likes of Jack Shadbolt, Molly Lamb Bobak, and Murray Johnson. While the diploma program was small, it opened up his perspective to the diverse possibilities in the visual arts. In the 80s, Rod worked in various different fields including construction and sign painting. In the summer of 1987 while working in Yellowknife as a picture framer, he was immediately drawn into the wild and rugged terrain of the area. While there, he spent much of his time drawing and painting outdoors, on the land. This became his preferred method for gathering reference to make paintings because of its immediacy and proximity to nature. He has traveled and painted outdoors in various places including the maritimes, the Caribbean, and on the Pacific island of Haida Gwaii. Rod has exhibited commercially across Canada and is included in various collections including The Kelowna Art Gallery, The University of British Columbia, and the Fairmont Hotel Group. He continues to maintain an active studio practice in Kelowna.
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On the left: Artist Rod Charlesworth On the right: Artist Connor Charlesworth ​

Tara Yadollahi  presents: Be In My Chador

Robin Hodgson presents: Half Life

May 24th to July 6th


Opening Reception: Saturday, May 24th from 1 to 3pm


Tara Yadollahi, Be in My Chador 
“Self-censorship lives in our body language, in the clothes we choose, and in the silent decisions we make every day. It transcends boundaries and physical forms, quietly shaping how we present ourselves to the world. I began to wonder how much of our expression is truly our own and how much is subtly influenced by the gaze of others. Clothing becomes both a shield and a language, a personal dance between form and freedom, between self and expectation.”
 
Robin Hodgson, Half Life
The new paintings selected for Half Life, echoes the (2023) convergence point where I had lived the same amount of time able-body as I had disabled. The work confronts physical ability using technical devices to overcome these challenges. Despite the physical barriers or mental tolls of navigating a world that wasn’t built for wheelchairs, there is a beauty in the resilience and a comedy in the struggle. I believe this to be a universal truth for all life, and aim to emphasize this in my new body of work.
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