Being Seen, Being Heard, Having a Voice

This exhibition brings together five emerging artists whose work speaks articulately about the importance of knowing thyself. For each artist a personal aesthetic vision, known colloquially as style, is an innate extension of their identity and world view. In this exhibition of five artists, two diverse craft genres are represented: jewellery as seen through the work of Alyssa Beigi, Jessica Atkinson, and Sharon Sabatino Bradley, and ceramics created by Michelle Morales Borges and Heather Neal.

Jessica Atkinson was born and raised in Vancouver, BC, where she currently resides. A recent graduate of the Jewellery Art and Design Program at Vancouver Community College, Jessica finds fulfillment in the concrete processes and seemingly endless possibilities involved in jewellery-making. The pieces in this exhibition are the result of an exploration into the theme of openings.

Sharon Sabatino Bradley is an artist and jeweller based in Vancouver, Canada. She received her BA in Art History from the University of British Columbia in 2006, and a diploma in Jewellery Art & Design from Vancouver Community College in 2016. She creates custom and retail jewellery under her line, Blackfield 

Michelle Morales Borges was born and raised in a rural town in Ciudad Mante, Tamaulipas, Mexico in 1993. Having grown up sheltered from the world and its perspectives, her passion for Mexican history grew tremendously, especially in Mexico’s pre-Columbian era. 

Heather Michelle Neal is a multidisciplinary artist based in Vancouver Canada. For 10 years, she’s had her own business designing and making by hand exotic dance costumes. When she discovered the endless possibilities of ceramics at Langara College, she merged these two practices together creating work that both explores and exemplifies the concepts of femininity, beauty, domesticity, and the strenuous labour that goes into what is so-called “women’s work”.