Café de la Guitara II

Join us for a relaxing evening of guitar and coffee. Local musician Bradley Wells will be playing a selection of pieces, mostly in a nuevo flamenco style and some reimagined classics!
Tickets are $20 at the door or $25 on eventbrite
10 early bird ticket sets are available – 2 for $40

GPAG: RECONSTRUCTIONS | Artist Talk with Tiko Kerr

A special visit from Vancouver-based visual artist Tiko Kerr, who will speak about his attempts to describe the psychological landscape of our extraordinary contemporary moment through his creative practice. This will also be an opportunity for a group discussion on the value and importance that creative voices have for our community. Seats are limited, with entrance by donation to support GPAG’s Building Repair Project. Register online at www.gpag.ca/reconstructions!

Embodying a delicate dance between innovation, intuition, and the transformative power of creation, Tiko Kerr’s work invites the viewer to engage within their own subjective experiences. Tiko is a Vancouver-based artist who has been developing his artistic process since the early 1980s.

GPAG: Keep It Simple and Loose – Urban/Travel Sketching for Beginners Pluse

Plein Air Workshop at Art & Words Festival.
Keep it Simple and Loose – Urban / travel sketching for beginners plus with Paddy Meade
Enjoy a 2 hour plein air sketching in the core of lower Gibsons. Pencil, markers, crayons, watercolour – bring what you have. Paint in sketchbook or on paper. Instructor will supply boards to use on lap, table, curb etc. Easel not required.
Focus is on the basic tips for urban sketching and opportunity to learn how to select subject, basic composition, and fun opportunity to create. Keep it simple and loose.
Saturday, Aug. 22, 10:30 – 12:30
Gibsons Public Art Gallery, $25
Register by email at sunshinecoastwritersandeditors@gmail.com

GPAG: Interviews with Artist and Author Teams with Jan DeGrass

Jan DeGrass, Author, interviews Artist and Author teams from the Art & Words Festival, including:
Tracy Hall & Janice Rafael
Karen Taylor & Lianne Kirilenko
Rizz Fischer & Bruce Edwards
Leslie MacFarlane & Karis Gauthier
Richard Feehan & Roger Handling
Pammila Ruth & Lorena Ruth
Kathaleen Quinn & Matt Thomson
Rachel Amina & Denise Olson
Doris Good & Ellen Heale
Atma Frans & Michael Healey

Art Exhibition: GPAG – FILIPE FIGUEIRA | In Positive Space

Combining bold, simple shapes with organic textures, Figueira pushes the abstraction of the subject while maintaining a sense of scene that is both familiar and challenging to the viewer, conveying the joy and passion found in coastal landscapes. Mountains and rock formations that move across millenia, trees shaped by decades of growth, and the split second flicker of light on fast flowing water are expressed in his works. Playing with positive and negative space, Figueira explores the energy and movement in landscapes across miniscule and massive timescales.

Join us for an Artist Demo on Thursday, August 27th, 2pm – 4pm and for the Opening Reception on Saturday, August 29th, 2pm – 4pm. All are welcome!

Art Exhibition: GPAG – MINDY HEMSTALK | The Impossibility of Beauty

to Sept 27th. In The Impossibility of Beauty, Mindy Hemstalk gathers driftwood, broken ceramic fragments, and unaltered natural materials from the traditional, unceded, and ancestral territories of the shíshálh Nation, assembling them into shrine‑like forms that honour the wild intelligence of the land. These works emerge from an intense personal journey of rupture and rebirth, shaped by the realization that the dominant cultural definitions of beauty rooted in colonial and patriarchal paradoxes are impossible by design; demanding women be sovereign yet caged, expressive yet silent, sensual yet contained.

An exhibition on display in Joe’s Lounge. Join us for the Opening Reception on Saturday, August 29th, 2pm – 4pm. All are welcome!

GPAG: FIGUEIRA, CHATAIN, HEMSTALK | Opening Receptions

Join us for the Opening Reception of our three newest exhibitions by Filipe Figueira, Solène Chatain, and Mindy Hemstalk on Saturday August 29th, 2pm – 4pm. All are welcome!

In the Main Gallery, Filipe Figueira’s exhibition In Positive Space features abstract landscapes celebrating the wild beauty, joy, and passion of the Pacific coast. In the Eve Smart Gallery, Solène Chatain’s exhibition Abandoned Hands features ceramic sculptures speaking to the complex relationships between human ingenuity, industry, technology, and the natural world. In Joe’s Lounge, Mindy Hemstalk’s mixed media sculptures honour the wild intelligence of the land, reassembling broken objects into new forms.

All three exhibitions are on display August 27th – September 20th. Join Filipe Figueira for an Artist Demo on Aug. 27th, 2pm – 4pm, and join Solène Chatain for an Artist Demo on Sept. 20th, 2pm – 3pm.

GPAG: ARTIST DEMO | Solène Chatain

Join us for an Artist Demo with Solène Chatain on Sunday, September 20th, 2pm – 3pm. All are welcome!

Based in Powell River (qathet), Solène Chatain is a mainly self-taught ceramic sculptor focusing on handbuilding techniques including slab building and carving. Chatain has exhibited her work in several group exhibitions in Powell River (qathet) as well as on Vancouver Island. She has also taught ceramic sculpture workshops in Powell River (qathet) and in Esquimalt. Her current series, ‘Iron Age Frescoes’, explores the fusion of silica and iron, two materials essential to creation throughout human history.

GPAG: ARTIST DEMO | Filipe Figueira

Join us for an Artist Demo with Filipe Figueira on Thursday, August 27th, 2pm – 4pm. All are welcome!

Born in Portugal, raised in the UK, and now living on Cortes Island, Filipe Figueira is an abstract landscape painter whose practice is an ongoing search for a visual language that conveys the profound, physical experience of being within a landscape. Figueira is a self taught artist who began painting in 2022. He has exhibited his work on Cortes island and on Vancouver Island, as well as in group exhibitions with the Federation of Canadian Artists. Combining bold, simple shapes with organic textures, Figueira pushes the abstraction of the subject while maintaining a sense of scene that is both familiar and challenging to the viewer, conveying the joy and passion found in coastal landscapes.

GPAG: Arts & Words Festival 2026

Join us with the Sunshine Coast Writers and Editors Society for the 2026 Arts and Words Festival, a three day literary festival in which writers collaborate with visual artists!

Every year, artists and writers on the Sunshine Coast are randomly paired together. Working together they reflect on each other’s stories, artistic practices, styles, and bodies of work to create a literary work and a visual work that resonate with and echo each other; often resulting in long-term friendship and collaboration across artistic disciplines. We invite all to join us during this festival to view the huge breadth of art and words on display, as well as for workshops, keynote speakers, interviews, and more. Immerse yourself in the Sunshine Coast’s literary and visual arts scene.

Find the full schedule of events, as well as our opening hours during the festival, online!

Art Exhibition: GPAG – SOLÈNE CHATAIN | Abandoned Hands

Exploring what we make by hand, what we build through technology, and what we leave behind, Solène Chatain’s ceramic sculptures reflect on the complex relationships between human ingenuity, industry, technology, and the natural world. Handbuilt and carved ceramic forms are combined with discarded fragments of rusted machinery gathered from beaches, forests, and industrial sites, transforming remnants of human industry into objects of contemplation. Through these sculptures, Chatain explores the tension between holding on and letting go, between progress and consequence, between the handmade and the technological.

Join us for the Opening Reception on Sat. Aug. 29th, 2pm – 4pm; and for an Artist Demo on Sun. Sept. 20th, 2pm – 3pm. All are welcome!

GPAG: The Elements of Colour

By Ruth Rodgers
Saturday, August 22nd 2-4 pm, Gibsons Public Art Gallery
The Elements of Colour: Struggle to achieve the exact colour you are aiming for in your paintings? Want to learn how to design and enhance your compositions using the colour characteristics of saturation, value, and temperature? This short session will provide theory and practice in the art of mixing and using colour. Fee is $50, all materials included.

GPAG: Marion Crook Interviews Artists and Authors at Art & Words Festival

Marion Crook, Award-winning Author, interviews Artist and Author teams at the 5th Annual Art & Words Festival at the Gibsons Public Art Gallery, including:
Andrea Coates, Author & Ann-Marie Brown, Artist
Isabella Mori, Author & Hilary Moses, Artist
Emily Jew, Artist & Jean Stewart, Author
Rosa Reid, Author & Erika Mastig, Artist
Joyce Gwilliam, Author & Hana Rose, Artist
Felicia Mareels, Author & Manon Staiger, Artist

GPAG: Karen Webb Interviews Artists & Authors at Art & Words Festival

Karen Webb, Author, Artist, Actor, and Educator interviews Artist and Author teams of the 5th Annual Art & Words Festival at the Gibsons Public Art Gallery, including:
Elaine Seepish & Michael Healey
Robin Lamarche & Paddy Meade
David Kipling & Landyn Funk
Lynda Manson & Kathleen Vance
Joan Fletcher & Lorraine Gallant
Del Lobo & Sheri Peters
Jo Forrest & Michael Gurney

GPAG: Zentangle Workshop

Announcing a new art workshop at the Art & Words Festival — Zentangle with Stephen Murphy, Aug. 21-23, 1 PM – 2 PM each day at Gibsons Public Art Gallery. $10 or pay what you can. Pre-register with sunshinecoastwriters@gmail.com or drop-in. All supplies included. No art experience necessary.

What’s Zentangle? It’s a doodling process that allows persons to create your own art through the doodling process. It’s a great opportunity for non artists to try something new and uncomplicated. Simply draws a frame divides it and doodles patterns inside. Very simple but it can be a starting point for someone afraid of facing the blank page.

GPAG: Artist Talk with Janine Dunn

Join us with exhibiting artist Janine Dunn on Saturday, August 8th, 2pm – 3pm. Free and all are welcome to attend!

Illustrating symbolic dimensions of celebration, abundance, and scarcity, Janine Dunn’s exhibition we mark the seasons in love features landscapes and human figures appearing in nebulous pastoral space, with a felt sense of emotion and relationship between the characters. Janine Dunn is an artist and farmer living in Gibsons, BC, who shares stories of daily life on her farm and brings forward topics resonating within the current moment through her artistic practice. She draws on personal impressions of motherhood, animal husbandry, degradation and repair, shared labour and hospitality, and isolation and solitude. Working with industrial, agricultural, and domestic materials, she collaborates with the weather and elements to develop her canvases. Dunn has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions on the Sunshine Coast and throughout Vancouver, and was commissioned to create The Landing Eye, a permanent public art installation in Gibsons Landing.

GPAG: Artist Talk with Lisa Blackwell

Join us for an Artist Talk with Lisa Blackwell on Saturday, August 15th, 2pm – 3pm. Free to attend and all are welcome!

Informed and inspired by the practice of observing the living world and the forces of nature, Lisa Blackwell’s exhibition Earthly Emergence features handbuilt sculptures created from clay. Lisa Blackwell grew up in Sechelt, on the unceded territory of the shíshálh Nation, and is now living on the unceded territory of the Lekwungen people in Saanich BC. Considering an Indigenous perspective is integral to her work, as an act of decolonization and reciprocity. She was taught handbuilding by Sto:lo ceramics artist and cultural caretaker, Laura Wee Láy Láq, and has been working in clay for the past thirty years. Blackwell attended Alberta University of the Arts and in 2023 earned a BFA, Majoring in Ceramics with Distinction, and also won the Board of Governors Award for top ceramics student. She has taught, sold, and exhibited her pottery in California, Alberta, and British Columbia. At the heart of everything she makes is her growing understanding of ecology in all of its complexity.