Visual Arts

We have it all in the Yukon! Visual arts, music, dance and culture. Explore all the visual arts stories and discover our creative side. What’s Up Yukon, our local arts magazine is the number one place to learn about local artists like painters, sculptors, musicians, carvers, mixed media artists, cartoonist, illustrators, jewelers, beaders, weavers, photographers and more!

Visitor's Space at YAC

Come To The Fire

In 2023, the Yukon Arts Centre (YAC) will invite visitors in by asking them to gather outside. That’s the idea behind a new firepit…

Gwich’in Moccasins

Gwich’in Moccasins

In 1995, the Yukon Arts Centre began acquiring works of art by Indigenous and northern artists—art significant to First Nations…

A holiday mailing box

The Purolator Artist

Purolator has unveiled this year’s limited-edition holiday art boxes representing all provinces and territories including a Yukon artist.

A water colour painting of two eagles

At Home With Art

Lemker is at home with art and calls Whitehorse his home, as well as an endless source of inspiration to create.

Artists inspiring artists

Yukon artists & Yukon Prize for Visual Arts finalists, Krystle Silverfox & Veronica Verkley, talk about who inspires them in art and in life.

Showcase at The Yukon Arts Centre

Softcore, at the Yukon Arts Centre,  is the first exhibition by the Whitehorse-based North Node Collective, featuring Courtney Holmes, Rebecca Manias, Katie Newman and Heather Von Steinhagen. According to the artists, the medium of soft sculpture, humour and discomfort, are employed as a challenge to tired, stubborn body standards and harmful social constructs. “Connecting the …

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Dreamland underground

Yukon Illustration Coalition (YILCO) Dreamland: Demystifying Digital Illustration reveals the digital illustration processes.

Nourished by Nature

Their practices may seem different – Waters is a watercolour artist, Geary is a potter – their materials are drawn from the same elements.

Fantasy in Miniature

Fantasy in Miniature, brings a little magic. Sharing the Planet features butterflies & moths. Both are at Arts Underground.

Community Connection: Arts arts arts!

The return to emergency COVID measures took some people by surprise, but it certainly hasn’t got the community down! Performers, artists and presenters alike found safe ways to present a multitude of events at the Yukon Arts Center over the last fews weeks.

Watercolour wild roses

Learn & explore drawing and painting in a “wet on wet” watercolour technique. Today’s art is inspired by wild roses.

Through a Dark Wood

Jenifer Davidson, Yukon artist, has been creating art for as long as she can remember. More than a hobby, It’s benefitted her mental health.

A Yukon Horror Story, So Far

Graphic novels are Gallagher’s favourite art form. This exhibit is an artistic journey to produce a horror graphic novel set in the Yukon.

Theatre in the Bush 2021

Ramshackle Theatre in the Bush “I’m already out in the yard,” Fidler says. “I’ve got my chainsaw out and I’m clearing the paths.”

Janet Patterson: Walking together

Janet Patterson, recipient of the Jenni House Residency is a multimedia artist whose work is focused on the history of the land we travel on.

Karen Thomas’s 2020 Landscape series

Karen Thomas takes a light-hearted approach to art-making. This makes for a joyful experience for folks who take in her exhibit 2020 Landscape Series: A Path Forward which is currently showing at Arts Underground in Whitehorse.

Jesse Devost’s Superposition

In Superposition, Jesse Devost’s new exhibition at Arts Underground, Devost defines superposition as “the physical paradox of two distinct states, when added together equal a new valid state.

The power of art

Victoria, Tlingit from the Gaanaxtei.di Clan and drum carrier for the Dakhká Khwáan, discusses what collecting art means to her.

Fragments in the Dust

Whitehorse artist Scott Price is the ultimate scavenger. His favourite source for materials is the nearest dump. He’s been to dumps in Whitehorse, Dawson and, more recently, Wells, B.C. Whatever he discovers will partially determine what his art will be. Price’s practice involves bringing together the “junk” he collects to make assemblages, which are sculptures …

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For our children tomorrow

Closeup of Velma Olson’s beadwork on Sidney Anderson’s 2015 graduation dress [one_half] To my mind, Honouring Our Future: Yukon First Nations Graduation Regalia is among the most important art exhibits to take place in the Yukon over the past 10 years. I invite you to consider the effects the art processes displayed have on the …

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An indigenous fable for all ages

Teiakwanahstahsontéhrha’ (We Extend the Rafters) is the latest exhibition at Dawson City’s ODD Gallery. The machina animation style movie is projected on the east wall at the far end of a metal frame structure which mimics the look of an Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) style longhouse.

A house you can finally afford

Artists Jared Klok and Bennie Allain collaborated on their sculpture “A House You Can Finally Afford.” It was displayed as part of the Riverside Arts Festival.

What’s new in your art practice?

We’re starting a new column that will ask a different visual artist each month the question that I got on the sidewalk: what’s new in your art practice and what are you working on right now?

Honouring a whale

“I’ve been thinking about water for about five or six years,” said artist Joyce Majiski. While walking the beach in Spain she was struck by the large amount of garbage that was getting washed in with the tide. And then, one day, she was struck with a vision of building a whale out of garbage.

The fine art of drawing with fire

Drawing with fire is one of humankind’s most ancient arts. This is what I was told by Ricardo Espada Horsfall when I visited him at his recent show, Smoke, Feelings and Wood at the Free-Space gallery in Northern Front Studio.

The Christmas elves of [email protected]

Last-minute shoppers are sure to find something for a friend or family member at Yukon Artists @ Work. There are also lots of small treasures for topping up stocking, or add some sparkle to what has been a very strange and difficult year.

Culture meets couture

Robyn McLeod’s dresses from her fashion collection, Dene Futurisms, are featured in this story, which is part of a series about the three Chu Niikwän residency artists and their work.

What’s in a name?

Chishti’s Then and Now: Water and a Name is the second in a series of stories featuring the Chu Niikwän artists and their work.

How to be an artist

Last March, just before the pandemic became real in Canada, we went to hear Jerry Saltz speak before a large crowd in Toronto about How to Be an Artist. This entertaining talk provided an advance peek at some of the ideas in his new book of the same title.

The owl that beckons

If you have lived in Canada for any time, you will likely recognize her work, even if you weren’t sure how to say her name. Kenojuak Ashevak’s image, “Owl’s Bouquet,” is featured on Canada’s $10 bill.

Beast of the Boreal

“It’s not an art form you often see featured in traditional gallery” We wanted to create space for illustration artists to have work seen.

Seven

Dawn Robinson is primarily a dancer, but is also a visual artist. She incorporated both these disciplines into her Chu Niikwän Artist Residency piece, entitled Seven.

Take the tentacle

In this time, when we cannot easily travel, Shuvinai Ashoona’s exhibit at the Yukon Arts Centre offers to take you to imagined worlds you never knew existed.

Beauty Through Decay

Beauty Through Decay is Jennfer Jay’s first exhibit, although she has been making art all her life. Yukoners may not know her name. As she notes in her bio, Jay has spent a lot of time being put into boxes that she never felt like she belonged in.

Of Beasts and Branches

Of Beasts and Branches: an interpretation of nature is Jenifer Davidson’s first solo show. Just as her materials are drawn from nature, so is her subject matter.

The Artist in the Window series concludes and continues

Yukon Artists @ Work([email protected]) continues to host the Artists in the Window series until the first week of September for paid demonstrations and artist talks. This way of working will continue, altering the way artists work their shifts. Two more artists are still to come – Jackie Dowell-Irvine and Jeanine Baker. [email protected] hosted two major art events this …

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Nature fusing light and air to create art

Anne Hoerber’s new exhibition, Waking Dreams, shows at Arts Underground this month Different artists are often drawn to different media in part because of what they are able to express with their chosen supplies. For Anne Hoerber, this chosen media is encaustic (working with melted wax), which allows her to bring the feelings and impressions …

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A Painting a Day

The Coronavirus lockdown and physical distancing has led us to trying to find activities to keep ourselves busy. The stress and uncertainty have played havoc with the mental health of most of us. A friend, who is a professional artist, attacked this problem and challenged herself to paint a small (4×6 or 5×7) watercolour each …

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Arts Underground is back with Dee Bailey’s Portals

What to expect at Arts Underground right now Arts Underground is back, hosting its first new exhibition, Portals, by Dee Bailey, since the gallery closed down in March, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Dee Bailey is a Whitehorse-based artist who specializes in creating highly detailed landscape paintings out of oil-based modelling clay, says Katie Newman of …

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Art in the age of COVID-19: The Dalton Trail Gallery

I remember the first time Nicole Bauberger created a series of dresses. It was in 2004, and Bauberger was part of an artists’ collective called Studio 204. The collective had a small studio and artist-run gallery space of the same name, in the alley in the back of 204 Main Street. Bauberger’s first show at Studio 204 …

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Emerging North Exhibit

A virtual tour of the Yukon Arts Centre new gallery exhibit, Emerging North

Art education wherever you are

Kids Kreate, the Yukon Arts Centre’s education program, needed to bring art into the lives of Yukon’s youngsters. The solution, go virtual.

Wild in the city

Linda Leon’s newest exhibition, Wild in the City, is an exploration of the relationship between animals and urban centres.

AWG 2020 Cultural Marketplace calls for artists

The marketplace will display and sell works from Yukon artisans from March 16 to 21 at the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre The Whitehorse 2020 Arctic Winter Games, in partnership with the Yukon First Nations Culture and Tourism Association (YFNCT) and presented by Finning, is inviting Yukon visual artists and craftspeople to apply for the AWG …

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Canadian inspiration

Amber Church’s solo exhibition True North Strong and Free features new work and is her first solo show in more than three-and-a-half years.

Pulling as a team in Toronto

The Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre Sewing Group would like to encourage you to see their work in Indigenous Purpose, an exhibition featuring their nine dog blankets and two podium banners. It’s on display at the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto until Jan. 5, 2020. It’s part of the Festival of Cool: The Arctic, which opens with a Dec. 10 …

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Creating bridges between the audience and the land

Boreal hip hop, still from “Remote Sensibility: the ecology of perception” Grace Simpson-Fowler, Talia Woodland and Karyin Qiu were early participants in Remote Sensibility, performing in Marten’s favorite stage: outside [one_half] [/one_half] [one_half_last] What happens when you bring Elders, astronauts, visual artists and choirs together? If you’re Marten Berkman, you end up with a multi-screen …

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A mask of grief

Grief was the surprise visitor Claire Strauss welcomed into her world when she first started making masks. Her first mask emerged out of a month-long art education intensive as she was finishing her undergrad in psychology. It was inspired by her father’s fatal cancer diagnosis.  “There were elements which I was instructed on how the …

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Challenged by technology

The Yukon Arts Centre opened two new exhibitions on Sept. 5. One showcases the work of Advanced Artist Award recipient Lillian Loponen, who visited Finland to create an experiential interpretation of that country’s national epic folklore tale, Kalevala. The story is the Finnish cornerstone of its people. The other show is Leslie Leong’s Ubiquitous, which seeks to …

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Jagged little rocks

“Pieces of the Jagged Rocks” by artist Dee Bailey opens Sept. 6 with a reception from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at Yukon Artists at Work Gallery in Whitehorse. Bailey’s engaging sculptural paintings look to celebrate wildlife and the landscape. She works with oil-based modelling clay to create paintings with depth. Coloured pieces of clay …

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Carving Gold Rush history into woodblock prints

Sara Tabbert has undertaken three artist residencies in national parks. This August and September, she will undertake her fourth, as part of the Chilkoot Trail Artist Residency Program. “I’ve had my eye on it for a while,” said Tabbert of the residency program. “I know a few other artists who have had the opportunity to …

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Created at the canyon

Diverse work comes out of a varied landscape Though always a popular spot with locals and tourists alike, the basalt columns of Miles Canyon received more than 450 visitors over the weekend of July 5 and 6 for the Created at the Canyon art exhibit. Hosted by the Yukon Conservation Society, Created at the Canyon …

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The Chilkoot Trail allows for exploration of more than the wilderness

Hannah Perrine Mode’s pieces “Scattered Light, Low Clouds” and “Now We Can Hold Time,” are tied closely to the landscapes where they were created: the northern California coast, Joshua Tree, Lake Tahoe, Desolation Wilderness, Walden Pond, Oakland, Antarctica and the Mendenhall Glacier, respectively Hannah Perrine Mode’s art practice exists at the confluence of visual art, …

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Through the thought process

What journey do we take to arrive at an idea? Artists Michel Gignac and Gorellaume chose to explore that pathway in their new in-situ work, Through the Thought Process, installed at Northlight Innovation Centre. “We were really inspired by the space and all of the idea generation that goes on in the building,” said Gignac. “We …

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Annual artistry

On this year’s cover of Northwestel’s 2019/20 phone directory is Chantel Goodman’s striking painting, Walking out of the Library at Night. This piece captures the atmosphere and character of downtown Whitehorse at night in the middle of the long winter months. Goodman shares how special and important it is to appreciate the simple moments, as there …

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Fresh Art for the Territory’s Newest Gallery

Gallery 22 takes wing with its first solo show. Dan Bushnell’s ravens fly through areas of layered colour or urban environments across the gallery’s white walls above Triple J’s Music shop. Straight black paint, sometimes with blended-in white highlights, carry the shapes and forms of Bushnell’s ravens. These ravens inhabit an abstract or urban environment, …

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Emma’s Quick Guide to a safe and sound studio

The main things I consider, as a painter, are ventilation, natural light and cleanup. Ventilation is challenging in the Yukon because in the winter you lose so much heat by opening windows.

Evoking kintsugi

Whitehorse artist Leslie Leong applied for a residency at the Ted Harrison Artists Retreat to work towards a large show at the Yukon Arts Centre Gallery in the fall of 2019. But she had lots of other ideas to work through first, both larger and smaller. At the artists’ retreat, on Crag Lake, she was …

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The Yukon’s exclusive arts and crafts

Only two weeks to go until the 2018 Cranberry Fair, when, again, over 40 artists will gather to present the Yukon’s exceptional artistic craftsmanship.

New twists on old myths

On October 9, Whitehorse fantasy artist Kimberley Crawford launched her new project, Unspoken Gods. The project reflects her own creations and will focus on large visual-art pieces that tell stories. The new project is a big step for Crawford towards what she loves doing. The launch comes from a review of her priorities. Crawford realized …

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Myth Buster: Oils are too messy, toxic and expensive

Many people of all walks of life enjoy painting. Most of the time, acrylics trump oils in popularity. Children, starting out in school, are offered tempera, watercolour and acrylics. The general belief is that oil paints are too messy, toxic, stinky and expensive. While oils can get messy without guidance, they are superior in colour, …

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Scavenging for Raven

Upper Tanana artist Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé has teamed up with Whitehorse-based artist Nicole Bauberger to create a scavenger hunt of installations and events this fall. The artists began collaborating a year ago around the idea that the shattered tire fragments you find by the side of the road resemble ravens. They began exploring the material’s …

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North meets South

Evolution and expansion are the words to describe the next steps in Halin de Repentigny’s 40-plus-years journey as a northern artist. His upcoming gallery showcase, “Homestay” – Keep the Fire Burning, in September, will continue his depictions of northern lifestyles. It’s a collection of all new work that he painted last winter in Dawson City. …

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The Wild Things are coming!

It’s no secret that Alberta artist Kari Lehr loves bears. You only need to look at her bright and expressive bear “portraits” to see she has an affinity with animals.

Art meets nature and history

Miles Canyon holds a special place in the story of Whitehorse. Each summer, the Yukon Conservation Society invites Yukon artists to participate in a two-day workshop to create pieces inspired by this special place.

Not all canvases are created equal

I’d like to share what I know about canvases that are available locally. It is the most important part of your painting. It’s also known as the “support.”

Magic on the Trail

Visual artist Hilary Lorenz will take hand-crafted cards along her art adventure on the Chilkoot Trail in July.

Inspired by Place

Kristin Link is a visual artist based in McCarthy, Alaska, who works in natural history and science art. She creates interpretive signs and educational material about nature.

From the California gold rush to the history of the Yukon

Josh Winkler combines traditional media with print media and sculpture. Reaching for the Sun is the title of his recent project. It references natural growth, but also the growth of humanity, the accumulation of products, and the fragility of the planet.

Didee & Didoo: Let’s Learn Gwich’in, Colours – Vah Ch’itr’idi’ee – Chih Ahaa

CARTOON: Allan Benjamin Colours – Vah Ch’itr’idi’ee – Chih Ahaa Jidii Zraii – Black Jidii Dagaii – White Jidii Ditsik – Red Jidii Vee – Grey Jidii Ch’ahtl’òo – Green Jidii Datl’òo – Blue Jidii Tthoo – Brown Jidii Tsoo – Yellow Jidii Dich’ik – Pink Ch’ihtak – One Neekaii – Two Tik – Three …

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Alternate universe

  There is a new exhibition showing at The ODD Gallery in Dawson City, a gallery that showcases contemporary art year round. Pathie is a new, video-based installation by Montreal artist Andrée-Anne Roussel. The exhibit opened Wednesday, January 17th, with an artist’s talk at the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture (KIAC) ballroom, followed by …

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Freezing for the sake of art…

Ask most people what they do during the cold month of January, and they would say, “Stay inside and keep warm.” The (s)hiver Arts Society, however, wants to change that.

Art is in the eyes of the beholder

Some 30 years ago, as a way of managing his writer’s block, Murray decided to go out to the garage, turn his scroll saw on and put the scroll blade to work to carve away.

The power of art

Looking at recorded history, humans have been using dances and music as well as storytelling and visual arts as healing rituals. Art and health are a well known pair; a healthy mind in a healthy body.

From the North to the South

We deserve a pat on the back. That’s part of the point of From the North says Kim Winnicky, executive producer of the arts performance and show, a Canada 150 project being produced by Music Yukon. “We (in the territories) don’t often get a chance to celebrate ourselves.” Beginning this month, the show’s all-northern team …

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The whole fish tale

Many people wouldn’t be surprised to hear that long-time Yukoner Josée Carbonneau is a passionate fisher. Like many northerners, Carbonneau has an affinity for fishing. It’s what she does with the fish that leaves people awestruck. Long after her fly fishing flies have been tied, and after her hip waders have dried, Carbonneau takes the …

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A Family Tradition

Of all the portraits Daphne Lovett-Barber’s has drawn so far, her favourite is one she did of her grandmother. The 5-year-old Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in artist may have just started kindergarten this year, but she has been creating art since she was a toddler. “My mommy is an artist and my daddy is an artist,” Lovett-Barber tells …

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Stream of Consciousness

Visit the Academic and Skills Development office in the A-wing of Yukon College, and you’ll be greeted with words of empowerment on the backs of a stream of 16 cedar salmon in a work of art created by local artist Cheryl Teya. On each salmon plaque is a core value, such as kindness, respect, goals. …

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Celebrating the Power of Art

A mural festival in the Yukon will draw artists, youth, and the general public together to decorate some buildings in Whitehorse with a colourful palette. The 2-month long Yukon Heritage Mural Art Festival is kicking off on Saturday, and organizers are inviting anyone and everyone to pop by, check out what’s going on, pick up …

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A Stitch in Time

Anna Taylor spent this winter stitching the stories of Dawson City women. In March, the Halifax-based textile artist completed a month-long residency at the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture. There, her embroidery practice focused on Dawson’s relationship with prostitution during the gold rush, and on the lives of the individual women who traveled north …

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New Colours

An exhibit featuring paintings by 22 year old Yukoner Anna Thompson is currently on display at the Atco Electric Yukon Youth Centre Art Gallery. Thompson has a cognitive disability as a result of a brain injury as a baby which left her with cerebral palsy – and is a prolific and enthusiastic artist, says her …

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Colour The Yukon

Erin Dixon is an artist with a passion for Yukon landscapes. “I was into colouring before it was hot,” she says with a laugh. A self described avid colourer, Dixon noticed a vacancy, “I know that colouring is really popular right now and I wanted to fill the void for Yukoners and visitors wishing for …

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What Masks Reveal

At the Northern Front Studio this January, you can visit a variety of inner worlds in Whitehorse resident Claire Strauss’ exhibition of face-based wall sculptures, called The Mask Within. While this art show is part memorial for Strauss’ father, each piece creates its own whimsical world, incorporating a joy beyond the bounds of grief. Many …

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Peace, Clarity and Open-Mindedness

Looking out my window at pristine snow, there are no human footprints on the forest floor. White, frosty, elemental, shadow. I can only imagine that similar images influence the spectacular work of Mark Preston. Mark Preston’s newest body of work entitled White Space will be on display at the Hilltop Bistro, in the Yukon College …

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Aisy Doodles, December 21, 2016

Aislinn Cornett is an art therapist, writer, artist and adventurer born in Whitehorse, Yukon. She currently lives, writes and doodles on the beach in Mexico.

Aisy Doodles, December 14, 2016

Aislinn Cornett is an art therapist, writer, artist and adventurer born in Whitehorse, Yukon. She currently lives, writes and doodles on the beach in Mexico.

Aisy Doodles, December 7, 2016

Aislinn Cornett is an art therapist, writer, artist and adventurer born in Whitehorse, Yukon. She currently lives, writes and doodles on the beach in Mexico.

Aisy Doodles, November 30, 2016

Aislinn Cornett is an art therapist, writer, artist and adventurer born in Whitehorse, Yukon. She currently lives, writes and doodles on the beach in Mexico.

Aisy Doodles, November 23, 2016

Aislinn Cornett is an art therapist, writer, artist and adventurer born in Whitehorse, Yukon. She currently lives, writes and doodles on the beach in Mexico.

Aisy Doodles, November 16, 2016

Aislinn Cornett is an art therapist, writer, artist and adventurer born in Whitehorse, Yukon. She currently lives, writes and doodles on the beach in Mexico.

Aisy Doodles, November 9, 2016

Aislinn Cornett is an art therapist, writer, artist and adventurer born in Whitehorse, Yukon. She currently lives, writes and doodles on the beach in Mexico.

Aisy Doodles, November 2, 2016

Aislinn Cornett is an art therapist, writer, artist and adventurer born in Whitehorse, Yukon. She currently lives, writes and doodles on the beach in Mexico.

Creativity Runs Strong

Artistic genius runs in the de Repentigny family. Halin de Repentigny agrees. Over the phone, he said his dad loved to draw – he was always drawing something. De Repentigny’s mom loved music. Today the genius continues with Halin de Repentigny, his brother, Serge, and Halin’s two daughters, Mado and Rosa. This Friday, the family …

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Calling All Arty Teens

From November 2 to 5, youth from all over the Yukon will be converging on Dawson City to hone their art skills in the 16th annual Youth Art Enrichment Program.   Hosted by the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture (KIAC), the four-day program is for Yukon students in Grades 9 to 12 who are …

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Perpetual Curiosities: A 30-Year Retrospective Art Exhibit

On Thursday, Sept. 29, at 7:30 p.m., the ODD Gallery in Dawson City will be holding a reception for the opening of Perpetual Curiosities: A 30-Year Retrospective. The exhibition is by long-time Dawsonite Shelley Hakonson, whose last show at the gallery was a shared exhibition. This time she’s going solo. “It’s nerve wracking, but also …

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Recognizing Amazing Art

Our community will soon welcome an expected 100+ Indigenous curators, artists, and academics participating in the first northern gathering of the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective. The collective is a national service organization of Indigenous curators and artists from across this land now known as Canada. The collective was created in response to the dominating non-native curatorial …

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Healing Through Art

Dennis Shorty created his first sculpture when he was eight years old. It was a moose carved out of poplar with a burbot fish skull for antlers and a bit of “fish glue” to hold them in place. He was proud of the sculpture and showed his father, Alec Shorty. Alec told the young carver …

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A Strong Indigenous Female Presence at Arts Underground

Two new exhibitions curated by Jennifer Bowen Allen, of the Dene Nation, opened Sept. 2 at Arts Underground. In the Focus Gallery, a group show called Hands of Time: Bush Women on the Land honours the way that women who live on the land have supported cultural continuity by maintaining their traditional practices. In the …

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Artists Going Flat-Out

Question: What does a steam roller have in common with wood block printing? Answer: Joyce Majiski and Linda Leon. The two Yukon artists are hosting a spectacular event from August 5 to 7. Each day between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. at the skating oval in Shipyards Park a road packer will be rolling over …

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The Human North

Three photo-based shows currently on exhibit at the Yukon Arts Centre all aspire to convey something of the experience of living in the North. Of course there is no “the” when it comes to north; there are many norths. In my opinion, the exhibits were most successful where they conveyed a particular place, inhabited by …

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For the Love of Northern Art

Every year for 10 days, northern artists and art lovers gather in Inuvik, a small town of 3,400 in the NWT, to celebrate culture and creativity.   Entering its 28th year, the Great Northern Arts Festival features almost 60 artists from the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Running from July 15 to 24, the activities …

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Bright Colours, Divergent Stories

Two brightly coloured shows of paintings adorn the walls of Arts Underground. While they share intense palettes, their worldviews contrast profoundly. The Things You Know by Whitehorse artist Heather Von Steinhagen offers a surreal, disturbing outlook, while Leaps and Bounds by Marsh Lake artist Ferryn Nowatzki depicts a more light-hearted vision. Dystopia reigns Von Steinhagen’s …

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Many Worlds of Words

In Whitehorse we rarely see a group show that’s international in scope. In Words – International Exhibition of Haiku and Handmade Paper, the concept tying the works together is simple: many objects in our lives amount to words on paper. This exhibition offers an astonishing variety of variations on this theme, from a wide variety …

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Art show at the YAC until May 28 explores colonization

All three exhibitions currently on display at the Yukon Arts Centre’s public art gallery have to do with colonization. Joseph Tisiga: IBC 1st Hole: Death Prophecy Denied Joseph Tisiga’s paintings in watercolour and acrylic surround an interactive mini putt course in IBC 1st Hole: Death Prophecy Denied to create a critique of the Canadian government’s …

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Projectify It!

Step into the world of projection design and you’ll see anything is possible. Images can be displayed on screens behind the actors and these images can be constantly moving and changing. Even just the way lights move across the stage can create a set in itself. Different backdrops can be projected on a screen – …

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Telling Stories

Sandra Grace Storey’s Words Like Birds exhibit digs deep into all that we struggle to express. It finds a great tenderness there. Storey has created an exhibition of small, focussed sculptures for the solo show room at the Yukon Artists @ Work Co-operative art gallery. Storey works in stoneware ceramics coloured with earth-toned oxides. White …

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Separate Realities come together at Northern Front Studio

Scott Price has come home to Whitehorse from a year away in Guelph, Ontario. His new sculpture show, called Separate Realities, emerged from the process of inhabiting these two places. Separate Realities is on exhibit until the end of April at the Northern Front Studio, in Waterfront Station. It includes wall pieces and sculptures. The …

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Heidi Hehn is Raven Mad

Heidi Hehn is crazy for ravens. It’s a taste she shares with many northerners. These big, black, intelligent birds bring wilderness into the city. Sometimes they bring that wildness closer than you’d like it, for example, when they tear apart the garbage in the back of a pickup truck. However, many people really appreciate their …

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Space Art

When the detection of gravitational waves was announced earlier this month, the space community rejoiced. They cried out, “Einstein was right!” and “This changes everything we know about space.” For me, this announcement had the resonance of a hockey score between two teams I didn’t know existed. Space isn’t my thing. It doesn’t excite me. …

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Holding Images in Our Mind

In his most recent show, Jesse Devost investigates how we gather and hold images in our mind. Optic Nerve, showing at Arts Underground until Nov. 28, explores how the optic nerve continuously captures images and transmits them to the brain, regardless of whether the brain can handle them. His art employs a variety of mediums, …

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A Budding Artist

When my nephew was six he ran a grocery store. He sorted cans of fruit, vegetables and soup. He priced each can and stocked shelves. Then he sold the products to his sister and brother. He was able to add the prices and make change in his head. At a very young age his mathematical …

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Get Your Greens

Whet your appetite for lunch on Lillian Loponen’s new canvases at the Yukon College Hilltop Bistro this fall. The show, called Touch of Green: Enchanted Places, explores the colour green in washes and gestural brushstrokes. The show will be on display at the College’s fine dining lunch restaurant until mid December. Jacqueline Bedard, the Director …

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Submit to Me

Themed-art shows are popping up in galleries these days.  Gallery 1988, in Los Angeles, just wrapped a show dedicated to the 1985 movie classic, Clue, and Vancouver’s Hot Art Wet City gallery recently held We’re All Pretty Bizarre, dedicated to the work of John Hughes, complete with paintings of a young Macaulay Culkin and an …

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Something to hold

We have a young, emerging artist in our midst who still has a fondness for that old-fashioned medium … of paper. Yeah, Heather Von Steinhagen has a website, too. This just makes her Many Late Nights Summertime ‘Zine easier to see and contribute to for her friends and peers across the country. But, paper, “is …

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Squawking with a Swan

One day in 2011, Todd Pilgrim was returning from a hike when he saw something grey and silverish by the road. As he went closer, he discovered that it was a young tundra swan. It had a drooping wing and couldn’t fly away. That’s how real-life tale behind Pilgrim’s children’s book, Angie, the Tundra Swan, …

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Touch and Tell

A series of demonstrations and hands-on activities is helping animate the current exhibition at the Yukon Arts Centre’s Public Gallery, Found, Forged & Fused, a survey of handmade works from the Yukon Permanent Art Collection. The idea for this interactive component stems directly from the thinking behind the exhibit’s curation, explains Garnet Muething, art curator …

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Creative Getaway

Perhaps your partner is sick of navigating around that massive quilting frame to get to the living room couch. Perhaps you’re tired of moving that big felting project off the kitchen table day after day, so the family can have supper. If so, a month of free studio space in a delightful location, with very …

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Laurel Parry – Loud and Proud

On her first day as a government arts consultant in 1987, Laurel Parry was ushered to a desk that held a typewriter, a large black ceramic ashtray, and an in-box loaded with letters and materials from Yukon artists. “The job had been vacant for quite awhile and the sport consultant had been pinch-hitting, so I …

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Media Arts on the Waterfront

A few years ago the Yukon Film Society (YFS) unsuccessfully bid on a lease for the Hatch House in Shipyards Park, in hopes of hosting an artist residency. Although that didn’t work out, it planted a seed that has borne fruit this summer. Throughout the spring, summer, and fall YFS will support an artist residency …

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Folk art in the forest

The forest is my palette. The flora, the fauna — they inspire me. I am so lucky to have an acreage at my disposal. I’ve created walking paths and gardens. Over the last few years I’ve enjoyed yarn bombing the forest paths I’ve created. It is a great way to create pattern swatches and use …

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Five Spectacles To Be Seen At Whitehorse Nuit Blanche

From dance to live painting to a spider web takeover of a local park, the second annual Whitehorse Nuit Blanche (WNB) has an exhibit and activity for everybody. With a focus on participatory performances, the all-night art crawl transforms the audience into creators as it takes over downtown Whitehorse. Here are five more WNB art …

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Where the Wild Women Are

The paths of Maureen Morris and Sandra Grace Storey have crossed more than once during their careers, but today is the first time they meet.

The Brush Stroke

Hi, I’m Joslyn, and I’m afraid of…painting. More specifically, I’m afraid of looking silly because I’m bad at painting in front of those who are good at it. And so, though I have long longed to walk up to an easel and express myself all over it, I have shyly avoided every opportunity to do …

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Kin and Creation

Before he met his wife, Simon Gilpin’s paintings were dreary — depicting cloudfilled skies. After, he created wide-open, blue-skied paintings. “I only just realized I did that.” Gilpin used to destroy work he didn’t like. Now, “it’s not fair for me to judge.” Paintings he doesn’t like move others to tears. He lets his paintings …

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Overcoming Emotional Collapse Through Creation

Olinka Vistica and Drazen Grubisic broke up in 2003 in Zagreb, Croatia. Like most post- relationship humans, they had ordinary objects kicking around their houses that sparked emotions, relating to the relationship, or the demise of it. The two artists joked about starting a museum. They asked their friends for their relationship remnants. They got …

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The Road Frequently Traveled

Yukon artist Nicole Bauberger has decided to take on quite the challenge. She is working on a project called Get Here From There, which will depict Canadian roads from one coast to the other. Bauberger will be driving across the country, stopping along the way to paint scenes. While some artists prefer to photograph and then paint, Bauberger plans …

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An Artist of All Trades

She sculpts, paints, sketches and makes jewelry. This talented Yukoner goes by the name of Heidi Hehn. Some of you may recognize the name from her various raven paintings. When I first arrived in the Yukon two years ago, the first thing I noticed at the gift shop was the famous painting of a pick up truck …

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(S)hiver Festival

A brand new event will be taking place in Dawson City on Saturday, January 24. The (s)hiver festival promises a night of art, light, and creativity in response to the dark cold of a northern winter. Originally from Vancouver, festival organizers Blair Douglas and Carly Woolner arrived in Dawson last summer. Both are artists; Douglas …

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Passion for Detail

Masamichi Nakatsuka has a painting, a watercolour on paper called “Passion”, that he completed in one sitting. The painting is of a skull with paint dripping down its side. Nakatsuka, who goes by Michi, says he couldn’t stop working until it was finished. It took five to six hours. Michi ended up in Whitehorse because …

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Face Us

There are currently two mammoths at the Yukon Arts Centre. But they don’t interact; they are on different schedules. The one hanging out in the Public Art Gallery belongs to the Ice Age Mammals exhibit. The other mammoth — the one of current interest — is symbolic. He lives in the Community Gallery as part …

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Michele Emslie Loves Art

Michele Emslie doesn’t even try to disguise her enthusiasm for her job as an arts administrator. “ I love art. I love artists. I love what they give to the world,” she declares. The Yukon Arts Centre’s community programming director is proud to live in a “fairly isolated and remote” place that “can boast a …

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The writing is on the plant

The Yukon is known for its vibrant fireweed; it’s used to make jelly, soap, and artwork. For Yukon-based artist Helen O’Connor, fireweed provides material for artistic paper. But the Yukon’s official flower is not the only plant she grinds to a pulp. The art adventurer has also used grass, clover, and even flax to make …

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The Wasteland

Andrea Kastner has been fascinated by garbage for years. The Montreal native, who now makes her home in Hamilton, Ontario became interested in waste while thinking about how we, as a society, relate to our possessions. “ We take things with us, ignore that we own them, then throw them out,” she says. “ It’s …

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Paint Dances With Ideas

Because of the cerebral nature of her work, Lawrie Crawford describes herself as an “outlier” in the Yukon, where landscape painters predominate. Measuring Space, Lawrie Crawford’s solo art show at the Northern Front Studio in Waterfront Station, opened at the beginning of October. However, Crawford will offer an artist talk at 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday …

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The Beauty of Nature Sliced 19 Ways

Rows of evergreens, crystal blue lakes, majestic mountains, and an abundance of wildlife are all found along the Stewart-Cassiar Highway. The road is an alternative to the Alaska Highway for those travelling south through B.C. from the Yukon/B.C. border, just west of Watson Lake. For Jackie Ziehe, the Stewart-Cassiar served as inspiration for her latest …

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Wonky Little Show

“You shouldn’t write this,” Monique Romeiko cautions with a chuckle, “but we’re 40. All three of us.” Besides herself, Romeiko is referring to Aimée Dawn Robinson and Erin Flynn, her fellow performer/dancers in a creative collaboration called begin you again, which will be unveiled October 4 and 5 at the Old Fire Hall. The Whitehorse …

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We Are Golden

As I walk into the Yukon Arts Centre early on a Tuesday morning I pass a woman holding some wild flowers in her hands. Our eyes meet in the way eyes seem to meet in the Yukon — a second longer than normal, accompanied by a smile. I feel a trickle of warmth down my …

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Yukon Arts Centre CEO Al Cushing jokes that a fortune cookie clinched the decision to come North

Al Cushing sits on a bench in historic King’s Square in Saint John, New Brunswick, reminiscing about his high school grad party on this very spot. It was a blistering day, and the hotel where the event was scheduled had no air conditioning. “We were going to die of heat prostration,” he recounts. “One of my classmates was a son …

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Reflections on Miles Canyon in Art

The 20th Century artist Marc Chagall once stated, “Great art picks up where nature ends.” After organizing this year’s Miles Canyon In Art event, hosted by the Yukon Conservation Society (YCS), I certainly agree. On Friday July 25, and Saturday July 26, Deanna Bailey, Amber Church, Marie-Helene Comeau, Heidi Hehn, and Blair Thorson stationed themselves …

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Squirrely Taxidermy

Sure, you’ve seen a moose head mounted on a wall before. It probably had really big antlers, too. But was it re-enacting a scene from Dirty Dancing? Or perhaps guarding a chest full of pirate treasure? This month, Cindy Klippenstein’s new exhibit Fur and Loathing is open at Northern Front Studio in Waterfront Station. The …

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12 Hours of Art

The first Whitehorse Nuit Blanche arts festival takes starts on July 5, and runs into the wee hours of July 6.  The event is modeled after the famous Nuit Blanche festivals that take place around the world.  Whitehorse’s version will showcase five Yukon artists. There will be sculptures, video installations, origami, dance, music, and workshops. …

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Artists Emerging

It’s an art show so big it needs two galleries to display it. With nearly 200 works by 70 young Weekday Warriors, it may be the biggest exhibit by emerging artists ever to hit the Yukon. Throughout the month of June, the Boys & Girls Club of Yukon (BGC) takes over both the Rah Rah …

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Ten Words Turned Into Twenty Boxes

“I am obsessed by creating community connections through art, it’s kind of a disease,” confesses Yukon visual artist Marie-Hélène Comeau. So when she heard of the international art project called La Caravane des Dix Mots (Ten Word Caravan), she decided to take the lead on the first Yukon edition. La Caravane des Dix Mots involves …

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An Arty Party: Whitehorse’s first Etsy Craft Party will be hosted on the waterfront

Yukoners who are feeling crafty and don’t mind working in front of an audience may want to head down to the wharf on the Whitehorse waterfront after work this Friday. That’s where the territory’s first Etsy Craft Party will take place, in conjunction with similar events around the world the same day. Etsy is an …

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Mary Bradshaw sees her curator’s role as a bridge between artists and the public

Tourism officials in Barbados market their island as “Distinctively Charming”. But when Mary Bradshaw was weighing the option of a Barbadian internship against one in Whitehorse, she opted for the distinctive charm of the Yukon. “I figured, ‘Oh, I can live anywhere for six months, and it’s the same time zone as where my family …

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The Sport of Art

Visual art is typically a lonesome pursuit. The public often has to wait months, if not years, to see new works emerge from studios. Art Battle turns these concepts upside down. In its five-year existence, the live-painting competition has seen over 300 artists facing off to produce “instant art” in cities across southern Canada. Amber Church, …

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The Insidious Computer

There’s no such thing as getting away from it all. Not when it comes to computer technology. Leslie Leong’s latest exhibit, Insidious, reiterates this in beautiful, if at times unsettling, ways. Known for her use of computer circuit boards in jewellery, Leong offers a broader, more provocative look at the pervasive nature of technology in her …

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A Tribute to a Colourful Artist

“I’ve had a good demand for my work, so I didn’t have to hang anything.” Jim Robb says. “It was never my thing to put stuff on exhibition.”

Finding the Essence of Experience in Nature

Yukon artist Helen O’Connor’s textural, organic, large-scale sculpture, assemblages, and installations beg the viewer to reach out and touch them. The works seem as though they are part of the natural world, not made by human hands. Indeed, O’Connor’s works are made with reverence to nature. However, instead of literal depictions, she tries to find …

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Main Street Confidential

So… have you gone to the Yukon Government Main Administrative Building to see your art yet? I understand, life gets busy. But I bet you’re on Main Street once in awhile. There, you’ll find three Yukon Government offices that serve as public exhibition spaces from the Yukon Permanent Collection — art that belongs to the …

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Northern Pride

Art has the power to heal — and the artwork that comes out of the healing process can be amazing. Not always, sure, there are some art-therapy drawings only a mother could love. But check out the woodcarvings, prints, and copper art on exhibit at Arts Underground March 7 to 29. They’re impressive. The new …

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The Natural, Bizarre, and Heart-Wrenching

Three luscious, solo visual art exhibitions are coming to the Yukon Arts Centre (YAC). Rosemary Scanlon’s The Rose Parade, Helen O’Connor’s Salutation, and Michèle Karch-Ackerman’s Foundling each open at YAC’s Public Art Gallery on March 6, and run until May 10. Scanlon and O’Connor are Whitehorse-based artists and Karch-Ackerman is visiting from Ontario. All three …

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An All Night Art Affair

Nuit Blanche is coming to Whitehorse for the first time. The concept behind the all night art project is to showcase live art installations throughout downtown Whitehorse, turning the city into a single art exhibition. The first Nuit Blanche took place in Nantes, France in 1984. Helsinki became the second city to host one, in …

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Making a Living by Making Art

There’s a classic struggle among artists to find a part-time job that will afford them enough money to pay the bills and enough time to make their art, but won’t suck the soul out of them. Another classic struggle is justifying the pursuit of money, when, as an artist, passion, creativity, communication, love, light, colour, …

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The Power of Limitation

It was pretty impressive what MacGyver could come up with when faced with a problem, some string, a piece of gum, the gum wrapper, and a battery. That Canadian television show from the 1980s was predicated on the idea that when one finds oneself in a pickle, one can dip into a deep well of …

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Bike Art Finds its Cadence

Bikes, art, and recycling are regarded by some as the holy trinity of resilient communities. What more could one hope for? Snow sculptures? Heaven. Giant owls hanging from trees? Rapture. To bear witness, head to the gallery-in-a-store at Cadence Cycle to see Grind, an assemblage of bike-inspired and bike-recycled art. Ken Anderson, local artist, master …

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Simple Beauty

You know a painting is really good when you can lose yourself in it. Just like looking at a fire; you get hypnotized. Faro artist Jay Hambleton’s paintings of mountains are like that. They will be on exhibit at the North End Gallery in Whitehorse until Feb. 1. They’re impressionistic, rather than realistic, but the …

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Capturing Something Intangible

If you need a break from winter’s dominating shades of grey, a collection of paintings at the Yukon Arts Centre will remind you how colourful the Northern landscape is during the rest of the year. The centre is hosting two solo shows featuring the work of icksYellowknife artist Jennifer Walden and Yukon artist Jane Isakson. …

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Two New Galleries and Many Small Fishies: Back streets and Main Street

Another one caught: Ceramic artist Sam Dickie went to Dawson City as Artist in Residence with KIAC and created a show called Stand in the Odd Gallery last fall. And then — like so many others — she fell prey to the spell of the Yukon. She and her partner and one-year-old daughter MacKenzie were …

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Mixing Business With Pleasure

The Yukon Government Administrative building is chock full of art. Located on 2nd Avenue at Hanson Street, the site boasts 22 works from the Yukon Permanent Art Collection – the most of any of the locations featuring the public collection. I felt like an intrepid explorer, going there with my list of works to track …

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Painting pets

Having your portrait painted is a way of immortalizing yourself – popes, kings and queens have all done it. But what about pets? Ange Bonnici, programs coordinator at the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture (KIAC) in Dawson City, has decided it’s high time to include pets in the everlasting world of portraits. In 2011, …

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Yukon Permanent Art Collection (YPAC): Art Gallery

Yukoners, you are the proud (or perhaps unaware) owners of the Yukon Permanent Art Collection (YPAC). The collection holds over 350 artworks in trust for you. The collection includes paintings, beadwork, weaving, textiles, sculpture and carving. Some of them are in storage, but about half the collection is always on display in public offices, for …

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Emma Barr

Finding beauty in all the right places: Artist teaches how to appreciate art

  Emma Barr is helping people find more beauty in their lives. As a professional artist of mixed media, that has always been her goal. But there is so much more art out there and much of it go unappreciated because many people just do not know enough about it. Or, perhaps, they know they …

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It’s All About the Visuals

Yukon designers, models and photographers work in tandem to showcase the “haute-est” trends from the coolest people in the North and, according to photographer Christian Kuntz, it’s all about the pictures. From blue jeans and bush boots to stilettos and silk, Kuntz re-interprets fashion through a lens. Born in France and schooled as a furniture …

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A French Feast for the Senses

Onde de choc is a new event that will bring together over 25 Francophone artists from a variety of disciplines. Through culinary art, video, interactive installation, music, dance, storytelling, visual art, theatre and poetry, everyone is invited to discover an eclectic glimpse of the Francophone community’s talent at the Yukon Arts Centre on Friday, Nov. …

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Yukon Artists: At Work for 10 Years

There will be music on the walls and in the air when the Yukon Artists @ Work (YAAW) Gallery celebrates its 10th anniversary on November 1. The gallery, the Yukon‘s only not-for-profit artists’ co-operative, is celebrating a decade of artist support with a show by one of its original members, Lillian Loponen. The co-op’s accomplished …

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Where Do You Go After The Yukon? A pillar of Yukon’s art community finds green grass in the Arctic

Twelve months ago, Harreson Tanner thought he was leaving the Yukon for good. Like many seniors, Tanner wanted to be closer to his children and grandchildren. So he and his wife sold their Riverdale home and moved to Ontario. “We quickly learned that we saw more of our family when we lived in Yukon,” says …

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Naked neighbours

After fifteen years of modelling, I finally decided to ask a couple of artist friends how they handle drawing the naked body of someone they know.

Exploring multiple selves: Montreal artist explores her psyche

Marigold Santos likes the idea of a multiple self. The Montreal-based artist has a new exhibition at the ODD Gallery in Dawson City, which runs from October 3 to November 1. The four large-scale mixed media drawings on canvas feature imagery of body fragmentation arising from foundations of movement, migration, and change within a physical …

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How to Face Fear and Become Part of a Community Art Project

I can’t paint. If there was a dictionary listing for “can’t paint” there would be a picture of me. Or perhaps it would be “Don’t paint!” Yet today I spent an hour contributing to the Diversity Art Project at Yukon College, called I Dreamed I was Home. The Diversity Art Project is being coordinated by …

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Hot and Bothered

A new art exhibit in Vancouver is reaching for the hot, funny, and healthy part of native sexuality, and Tlingit artists from the Yukon and Alaska are getting in on the action. The show, called RezErect: Native Erotica, opened on Sept. 25 in Vancouver with the gallery filled to capacity, and there is still plenty …

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Our Thriving Art Community

Did you know that the funky little metal house in Shipyards Park, the black one with the raven that your kids are always playing in, is part of the Yukon Permanent Art Collection? The collection, which now boasts over 350 pieces, has art in public places all over the Yukon, and like “Raven’s House” by …

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Connecting to Art: Lawrie Crawford exhibits new abstracts at Gallery 22

There’s a new artist in town. She’s opened her second exhibit in Whitehorse, Connecting Space, to showcase her newest display of large and colourful works of art. She paints in the abstract, drawing largely upon intuition to guide her strokes. Her name is Lawrie Crawford, and she doesn’t use a paintbrush. “I’ve never used a …

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Telegrams from the Chilkoot Trail: Nicole Bauberger’s new show at the Transportation Museum

This past July, if you were hiking the Chilkoot, you may have caught a glimpse of a woman in a white dress, grubby from travel, walking the iconic trail. Strains of her voice could be heard drifting around camp in the evenings, as she alternated between story and song, and her sharp eyes captured images …

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The Natural & the Manufactured

Running from August 15 to September 20, The Natural & The Manufactured explores the relationship between nature and culture, society and the natural world. Started in 2005, The Natural & The Manufactured is a unique thematic art project jointly organized by the ODD Gallery and the artist-in-residence program at the Klondike Institute of Art and …

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Eye on Dawson

A live news program with a twist has hit the cable airwaves in Dawson City. Since June 25, Curtis Collins and Alyssa Friesen have gone live on air every Tuesday at midnight to offer a satirical look at local, national and international events. Along with musical guests, interviews, stories and a faux commercial, the 30-minute …

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Artrepreneur: Rogue Raven Art Show Perches on Downtown Kiosks

Vince Federoff kneels in the January snow. He presses brass thumbtacks into the downtown poster kiosk. He’s taken care to cover only an out-of-date poster from New Year’s Eve. He steps back and we admire the graceful composition of his photograph, simple among the shouting posters. It shows two ravens perched on a Ken Anderson …

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The Art of Bird Watching

A sprawling landscape of trees and snow-covered mountains pours in through the large living room windows. As the sun shines on the scenic view, Heidi Hehn tells stories of animals that have crept out of the forest setting and into her backyard. Having this setting at her doorstep couldn’t be more fitting for Hehn. Wildlife …

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Rabbit and Raven

The Storey of Raven and Rabbit was originally planned for New Zealand. Sandra Grace Storey, born and raised in Whitehorse, spent her childhood summers in a cabin on Tagish Lake. At 18 she moved to Calgary for art school. Then she sailed to New Zealand. New Zealand has no ravens, no predatory mammals and little …

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Figure Study

BY TARA McCARTHY From the sprawling mountains to the vibrant blue lakes and autumn hues, the Yukon’s natural side has been well documented by a multitude of artists. Now the time has come for characters to occupy the spotlight in the Yukon Portraits exhibit at the Old Fire Hall in Whitehorse. “A lot of times …

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An Artist of the Yukon

A specific mood is always evident in Kirsty Wells’ paintings. Wells, 18, usually paints upbeat, happy images with lots of bright, vibrant colours and drastic contrasts. “There is less contrast and lighter colours and textures if I am sad or in a bad mood,” Wells explains. Wells found her passion for art at a very …

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Drawings and Torched Copper: Colin Alexander has two art shows in Whitehorse

At Colin Alexander’s Northern Icons exhibit in the Rah Rah Gallery, you would be forgiven if at first you thought you were looking at old, blown-up photographs. But the eyes boring into yours are charcoal and watercolour. They were human, once. Then they were photographs. Under Alexander’s hand, they are something else again. “These are …

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Artrepreneur: Art to Share Spirit

SYANA’s first annual Yukon First Nations Arts Festival will have a strong visual arts and crafts focus. That’s what the society’s members asked for. Executive Director Sonny Voyageur had SYANA members fill out a questionnaire. Most said they would like to see the society’s activities focus on visual arts and crafts. Voyageur finds that arts …

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Yukon Artists @ Work Painter Neil Graham Unveils a Project Six Years in the Making

Tarot cards are tools for divination and reflection; giving the person receiving the reading insight into past, present and future. The exact origin of the Tarot remains disputed and suitably mysterious. “The Tarot cards in more or less their present form appeared in 15th century Italy, but many believe their origins trace back to ancient …

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Artrepreneur: Photographer Helps Protect Canada’s Artists

BY NICOLE BAUBERGER It’s a common Yukon experience. You’re at the board meeting, looking around the table. There’s a vacancy in a leadership position. “I don’t know enough,” you think. But as you look around, well, you can’t ask the new board members to do it … This happened to Whitehorse photographer Mario Villeneuve this …

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Nancy Smythe Leaves the Yukon … But Not The Theatre

BY JANELLE HARDY “When I heard your voicemail, I cried!” With that, community theatre enthusiast Nancy Smythe openly and vigorously agreed to be interviewed. A staple in the local Whitehorse theatre scene for the past eight years, Smythe, after 19 years in the Yukon, is moving all the way across the country. “In ’89, I’d …

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A ‘different’ type of artist

Marilyn Wolovick brings two coffees to her husband’s studio. The cups are comfortable to hold, lovely to look at and each slightly different. Her husband, Rich Claxton, is a potter and he made those cups and, he confirms, “Dinnerware in our cupboards are all different.” Wolovick returns with a plate of the most delicious treats …

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Believing in the dog

First Prize PSAC Whitehorse Regional Pride Committee Short Story Contest It’s night. A man walks his black lab in the forest — and when the dog runs in between the pines, he’s almost invisible. The only sound is the man’s footsteps on the snow, the rustle of his jacket, his dog’s breathing. Normally, he enjoys …

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They chose Whitehorse first

I’m sitting on a rock where Lil’s Place will be in about 14,000 years. I’m thinking about a chocolate shake, but chocolate hasn’t really been invented yet. I’m travelling with some people who have finally made it to the Whitehorse area — where they will stay for a few years. “Oh, maybe 10 years,” Om …

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The Outer Edge of the Art World

It’s an object within the art world that’s often overlooked. To a degree it’s meant to be that way, to avoid steering attention away from what it surrounds, while keeping it safe and sound. But without it, the ultimate visage of the artwork is altered. It’s the frame. For custom framer Steve Brewis, framing is …

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My Mom, The Felter

BY JANELLE HARDY “Felting is a long and arduous process that compromises your back and the flooding of your house is a real hazard,” describes Louise Hardy, the latest artist to open a solo show at Arts Underground. She’s also my mother … so we will dispense with the journalistic preference for surnames here. Picture …

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Dolly Varden Goes Out To Play

Deep-pink ruched stilettos, sparkle-dusted denim dress, red lips, long hair and slim red bandanna tied around the neck, Dolly Varden shifted from foot to foot, setting her skirt swinging, strummed the guitar strung around her and started to sing in a voice clearly present yet suggestive of depths still unexpressed. To Dolly Varden’s right stands …

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Meticulously Crafting Culture

As we creep toward the end of another year, it’s only natural to reflect on how far we’ve come. And for the Sundog Retreat Carving Program, it’s been a momentous stretch. From select artists travelling to Ottawa’s annual Winterlude festivities, to Calvin Morberg’s trip to Russia, Sundog students’ artwork has reached a wider, international audience. …

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Provocative Fringe Theatre

When it comes to theatre, David Skelton says he believes Whitehorse audiences are “brave and sophisticated”. As Nakai Theatre’s artistic director, Skelton admits that last year’s Pivot Festival came with a small dose of controversy. However, he’s ready for another go this January when the avant-garde performance event hits the stage for its second run. …

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Freedom Opens for Stace Pshyk

It’s seldom that the Yukon Gallery clears its walls to feature one artist. Solo shows haven’t been the focus of the commercial gallery and frame shop. But gallery owner Brenda Stehelin has made space for Stace Pshyk’s work to take centre stage. Pshyk’s show, Freedom, marks his first solo show in the territory, though his …

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Artrepreneur: Bike Shop Makes Room for ‘The Gritty Gallery’

There’s a new gallery in town … but only for a little while. Five artists will display their artwork in Philippe’s Bicycle Repair during the three weeks leading up to Christmas. Photographer Mario Villeneuve, painter Nicole Bauberger (ahem, me), assemblage artist Scott Price and metal sculptors Katherine Alexander and Philippe LeBlond met in LeBlond’s bike …

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Building a Show Together

Boats, fish and human figures cavort through the Yukon Art Society Gallery in Paul and Jeanine Baker’s Fired and Formed exhibition of collaborative works in metal and glass. In Autumn Wind, twisty spot-welded twigs cling to a burl to suggest a wind-blown tree. Torch-worked leaves scatter across the plinth as if blown off by that …

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Illuminating the Art of 3D

If you’ve been in Umbellula Café, at the Spook Creek Station, recently, you’ve probably noticed some strikingly unique light fixtures illuminating the landscape. These are the brainchild of Steve Gartner. Gartner is an electrician employed by the City of Whitehorse … he’s also an artist. “I’ve been into art since the age of five or …

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The art of guilt

Prime Minister Stephen Harper stood in the House of Commons on June 11, 2008 and apologized. His address was in regards to Indian Residential Schools in Canada. “Truly, with the Stephen Harper apology, he was just the deliverer,” artist Cathy Busby says. “Stephen Harper is apologizing as the Head of State. So it’s kind of …

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A growing passion

“People ask me, ‘how long have you been an artist?’, and it’s been since I was really young. It’s always been a big thing of mine,” Norm Matechuk says with a laugh. “Eventually it came back to wood turning, but I always did art of some sort, like metal sculpting.” With his cap and jacket …

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