VIDEO | INFORMATION | ARTISTS | LOCATION
✧ THANK YOU FOR A WONDERFUL EXHIBITION ✧
Well, that’s a wrap on our inaugural Ritual Arts exhibition. We’re beyond thrilled with the wonderful response from both the incredible artists that participated as well as everyone who joined us both in the opening celebration and the open exhibit. Your comments and feedback have all been amazing and we look forward to the next exhibition which is tentatively scheduled for October 8th – 9th, 2022.
We were lucky enough to have our good friend and talented photographer, Britt Rose capture the opening event as only she can. Take a peek at the opening exhibition photos below.
✧ FEATURED ARTISTS ✧
JESSE KLASSEN

Jesse Klassen

Instagram: @j.klassen.artspot
Graduating in 2018 with his BFA from the University of the Fraser Valley and currently pursuing his MFA at the University of Calgary, Jesse explores themes around spiritual and religious identity in the 21st century.
Throughout his education Jesse has pursued a culturally diverse foundation by engaging in study-abroad programs and summer courses around the world. His travels and search for new learning perspectives have taken him far and wide; including several semesters at the University of Arts in Poznan, Poland; a drawing program at Sichuan Normal University in Sichuan Province, China; a six week spiritual studies retreat in Schladming, Austria; two years of theological study in BC, Canada; and a four week cultural exchange program which took him up and down the South American country of Guatemala. Through his extensive travel and learning experiences, Jesse has pursued knowledge and artistic education through cultural exchange, taking particular interest in peoples vibrant spiritual and religious practices. Working in a wide array of visual media including painting, sculpture, and performance Jesse approaches art making through ritualistic production. His works bring into service abstraction, surrealism, symbology, and theology to engage in visual storytelling and spiritual exploration. These works are realized across a diverse range of styles and techniques suggesting a connection to the multiple influences found during his global studies. Through his creative synthesis, Jesse aims to explore the connections between art and contemporary faith identities ultimately disseminating new knowledge concerning the use of artistic production as a method of theological enquiry.
In his current MFA research at the University of Calgary, Jesse is engaging with art theory and criticism working to develop interpretive structures when engaging theological subject matter in academia. Under current formulations, methods of criticism often fail to take spiritual significance seriously opting for hermeneutics that categorize such beliefs as mere delusion. As contemporary western culture continues to develop into the 21st century however, spiritual and religious identity, quite notably, seem to be increasing in public significance. By engaging in this research Jesse hopes to add to the growing body of scholarly and artistic production that considers the diverse spiritual and religious identity of peoples as paramount to cultural growth in the Western World.
Artistic Disciplines: Painting, Mixed Media, Sculpture
ZEPHRŸM
Zephrÿm ( Jai Benteau )
Website: zephrym.ca
Instagram: @zephrym.art.music.life
Soundcloud: @zephrym-sounds
Facebook: @ZEPHRYMSOUNDS
Zephrÿm is the artist moniker for creative Jai Benteau. From music and fine arts to theatrical performances and event production, his talents and experience have taken him down many diverse paths but the thread of creativity has always been at the very essence of each discipline.
With a BFA from Alberta College of Arts & Design in Calgary as well as an advanced diploma in Advertising & Design from the International Academy of Design in Montreal, he is as comfortable behind a computer as he is with a paintbrush in his hand. It’s this duality that has shaped the very essence of his artistic endeavours over the past 20 years. As the original creative director & co-founder of the renowned Le Cirque de la Nuit and creative mind in both the Ethoterra & Bass Caravan performance troupes, Jai has helped to shape the artistic landscape of the Calgary performance art community over the past 10 years.
Some might say that his journey has been in constant flux over the years, shifting, taking new shapes and directions but in fact, it’s simply been a process of self-discovery. The journey to connect to something that feels genuine, inspired and synchronistic. The past few years have been exactly that. Connecting to a deeper, spiritual self, this inspiration has spread throughout all of his work and life pursuits. Over the pandemic, he ventured into a year-long, ritual experiment with partner Tanya Lee to attempt to capture the connection between sound, emotion and astrological energy. While the Moon Musing project captured the attention of audiences all across the globe it also strengthened the resolve that this path is exactly where the artist was meant to be.
2022 has brought forth the creation of what feels to be the pinnacle of his artistic career, the creation of Ritual Arts. A platform to support both the growth of the creative community as well as to open a dialogue around the practice and expression of cultural, personal and historical rituals and their place in contemporary society. This creative endeavour encompasses both his capacity for event planning & community building while also bringing him back full circle to his traditional fine art roots.
Artistic Disciplines: Music, Printmaking, Painting, Sculpture, Mixed Media
AMANDA BULLICK
Amanda Bullick

Website: Bebrutallybeautiful.ca
Instagram: @brutalbeauties
Somewhere in the dust and decay of life’s forgotten travelers, artist Amanda Bullick sees a beauty that inspires creation. Pondering the cycles of life, death and rebirth her works conjure a feeling of earthy connectedness as well as a sacred sense of magic; like altars honoring the dearly departed and the stories of their wild lives that they took with them. The natural world, although it is all around us, never ceases to dazzle with its quiet secrets and mysteries. Through photography, sculpture, jewelry & print, She wanders into those dim lit places, lighting the way for our hearts to follow in search of something grand and familiar.
Artistic Disciplines: Photography | Mixed Media
AMY THIESSEN
Amy Thiessen
Website: amythiessen.com
Instagram: @amythiessenlive
Facebook: @amythiessenlive
Apple Music: Amy Thiessen
Amy Thiessen is an international somatic voice & communications coach & musical performer who helps women inhabit greater comfort in their bodies & express themselves with clarity, courage, & resonance. Under the artist name ‘Sundari Studios’ she offers hypnotic devotional sounds designed to uplift the spirit & awaken the heart.
Each voice carries a unique gift – a resonance which we offer through word, expression, & communication. With over 15 years of experience as a musician, yoga teacher, coach & facilitator Amy uses a wholistic approach to awaken voice through the integration of somatic awareness, discernment, devotion, & vocal techniques. Through individual (In Resonance) coaching & group programs (Embodied Voice / Rise in Resonance) participants develop the skills & awareness to more fluently express themselves with clarity, creativity, & impact.
Thiessen offers her own unique voice under the artist name ‘Sundari Studios.’ Equipped with a guitar, keyboard, drum machine & loop pedal Sundari Studios offers hypnotic soundscapes of devotion – standing alone in concert or in collaboration with movement practices – to inspire the body & spirit into new visceral depths.”
Amy’s live performances & workshops have been offered alongside international teachers Janet Stone, Megan Currie, & Ally Bogard & at various festivals including Wanderlust, Prairie Love, & It’s time to Bloom. Her most recent Album “Pray” is available on Spotify & iTunes under ‘Sundari Studios’
Artistic Disciplines: Music
KYLEE DAWN
Kylee Dawn | Mystique Images

Website: mystiqueimages.ca
Instagram: @mystiqueimages_
Facebook: @mystiqueimages.kyleedawn – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Website: evolvedproductions.ca
Instagram: @evolvedmovementarts
Website: innerjourneys.ca
Instagram: @innerjourneys__
Mystique Images – Kylee Dawn
Kylee Dawn is an embodied artist, creating images that transcend the second dimension.
She has been photographing professionally since 2005. She graduated from Photographic Technology at NAIT, and completed her practicum in Fashion Photography in Miami Florida, which gave her a unique perspective to the creation process of portraiture.
Kylee Dawn specializes in creative portraits, branding photography, weddings and events.
Take a breath, gaze into one of Kylee Dawn’s images and feel the energy that is here for you. Invite the image to take you on a journey.
Mystique Images.
Artistic Disciplines: Photography
Kylee Dawn – DJ & Dance Facilitator
Since 2006, Kylee Dawn has been creating musical journeys to inspire the listener to explore a deepening of Self. With the Dance as her Master Teacher, she utilizes the energetics of the dance to offer participants an embodied experience.
Kylee Dawn has been facilitating ecstatic dance and breathwork throughout Western Canada and the US. She is the founder of Inner Journeys; a certified Kundalini Dance Facilitator; a trained Ritual Trance Dance Facilitator; a certified Conscious Connected Breathwork Facilitator, a Traditional Usui Method Reiki Master, a certified Hatha Yoga Teacher, the founder of Inshala Festival, co-owner of Evolved Productions, owner of Evolved Movement Arts studio and a Developmental Gymnastics Coach.
Artistic Disciplines: Music
NICOLE MARY
Nicole Mary

Vimeo: @nicolemary
Instagram: @nicole.mary.s
Nicole Mary is an interdisciplinary regional artist based in Mohkinstsis/Calgary and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drawing from the Alberta University of the Arts. In her practice, she explores themes and psychologies surrounding death and the unknown. Mary uses repetitive and structured systems of making with religious imagery to create purgatorial atmospheres. Her installation works measure from 5ft to 45ft. She predominantly uses knitting, drawing, and performance as mediums within her installations. Mary also utilizes print material as a part of her practice and uses a range of mixed medium techniques. Previously, she has shown with Le Petite Trianon Gallery, Femme Wave Festival, Marion Nicoll Gallery, and the Illingworth Kerr Gallery.
Artistic Disciplines: Textiles | Sculpture | Installations
TANYA LEE
Tanya Lee

Website: bodyartmotion.com
Instagram: @tanyaleewilde
Instagram: @bodyartmotion
Instagram: @moonmusemagick
Photo: Kenneth Locke
Tanya Lee has been immersed in the movement arts for 25 years as a facilitator, performer, author, choreographer, and producer. As an interdisciplinary professional Tanya has devoted decades to the study of body, mind and spirit. Through the weaving of movement modalities with ancient mystery traditions, she creates a container for embodied expression and storytelling that embraces the body, awakens the spirit, and moves from the soul.
Tanya’s Body Art Motion School of Transformation is inspired by a desire to enhance self knowledge and actualize potential through embracing each person’s unique composition and path of individuation within a broader connection to nature, each other, and the unknown of the cosmos. This passion has led Tanya to invest in countless hours studying, performing, and teaching movement-based fusion practices in: transcultural dance, mixed martial arts, and various lineages of yoga – each of which are connected to cultural and spiritual history. This has guided Tanya towards deeper explorations in meditation, healing arts, natural cycles, esoteric anatomy, astrology, and ancient occult studies.</p.
It is Tanya’s mission to weave together key principles from complementary disciplines providing her students, colleagues, and audiences with powerful, body-based spiritual practices and a shared movement language for community connection and collaboration. To read more about Tanya and her work, visit www.bodyartmotion.com/about-tanyalee/
Artistic Disciplines: Performance | Movement
PHRESHA
Phresha

Website: theartofphresha.com
Instagram: @phresha
Phresha is a Vancouver-based visual artist, immersed in a variety of creative practices ranging from painting, to jewelry and clothing design and large scale art installations. Phresha comes from a background of street art mixed with a formal arts training, having spend her foundation years immersed in the culturally diverse environments of Toronto and Montreal. Phresha draws her inspiration from the natural beauty of the world around her, as well as the mysterious, cosmic realms of the imagination. Her artwork explores whimsical, mystical themes and features strange, magical creatures that reside in a universe parallel to ours. Her hyper-surrealistic, psychedelia-infused mystical dreamscapes invoke feelings of playful wonder and ethereal beauty. Phresha’s art has been featured in numerous galleries around the world, as well as various music festivals and print/online publications. Currently, Phresha is focusing on gallery shows, mural projects with her art collective Galactikitty and exploring the beautiful world around her.
Artistic Disciplines: Painting | Drawing | Mixed Media | Jewellery
JENNIFER MCCAW
Jennifer McCaw

Website: www.jennifermccaw.com
Instagram: @jennifermccaw_art
Facebook: @jennifer.mccaw.35
Etsy: JenMcCaw
Jennifer McCaw is a silversmith obsessed with outer space. Her recent work explores the mapping, colour, texture and movement of the celestial bodies. McCaw replicates the colours and textures we see in telescope images by using techniques such as: extreme heat, impact, and patinas. Using materials including silver, gold, precious, semiprecious and rare gemstones, she makes jewellery pieces featuring constellations, zodiac, planets, moons and comets. The use of cold connections and magnetics allow movement in the work, replicating that of the celestial bodies and the perceived movement of the stars.
McCaw holds a BFA, Majoring in Jewellery Design & Metalsmithing from NSCAD University 2001. She taught high school spring break students the art of silver casting at NSCAD. From 2006 to 2009 she owned Looks Could Kill Art Boutique, an art gallery in downtown Calgary, AB, where she hosted monthly openings, art shows, video screenings, music and dance performances, fashion shows, and taught workshops in various mediums. Jennifer’s work has been exhibited and sold in galleries and boutiques across Canada, as well as Argentina and Japan. Her work is represented in numerous private collections worldwide. Currently McCaw farms in the beautiful Slocan Valley, where she teaches botanical printing and natural dye classes at the Slocan Valley Threads Guild, and creates jewellery in her studio, her work can be found in shops locally and across Canada.
Artistic Disciplines: Jewellery
NATE MARTIN
Nate Martin

Website: natemartinofficial.com
Instagram: @natemartinofficial
From developing and executing sets for live music shows with Monster Energy, to curating one of North America’s premier music and arts festivals at Shambhala Music Festival, Nate has always been drawn to spectacles big or small. His artistic endeavors over the years have lead to a proficiency in a variety of media and software platforms in the design realm.
Artistic Disciplines: Painting | Mixed Media | Digital Media
REBECCA LIGHT
Rebecca Light

Instagram: @rebecca_light_artist
Rebecca Light is an emerging multimedia artist, massage therapist, and a fire dancer. Soon after receiving a BA in the craft department of jewellery and metals at the Alberta University of the Arts, a career with Calgary Transit fell in to her lap where practicality took precedence as an LRT operator. Over the next few years It became clear that the artist’s way and trains needed to diverge. In 2017 she graduated from the Alberta College of Massage Therapy and in 2019 left her career with the City of Calgary for the exciting challenge and increased freedom of the life on an entrepreneur.
Currently a student at the Atelier Artista located in Calgary, Rebecca is returning to the beginning in the pursuit of her dreams of an atelier education.The tradition of the Atelier from the early renaissance, passes on from master to student not only visual principles, technical ability and artistic principles of observing nature but also philosophical knowledge, in order to understand painting in depth.
During University, fascination with the surrealist movement became soon after graduation, a love affair with classical painting and visionary art which in time became a devotion both philosophically and spiritually to sacred art. Symbolic imagery holding deep teachings about life death and the afterlife are central in her artistic vision.
Artistic Disciplines: Painting | Sculpture | Performance | Jewellery
ALYSSIA WHITE
Alyssia White

Website: alyssiawhite.co.uk
Instagram: @alyssiawhite_art
Alyssia White is a multi-disciplinary artist currently living and working in Calgary, Alberta, British-born and educated, she received her degree in Drawing and Applied Arts from the University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol. Subsequently, Alyssia retained her base in Bristol, while she travelled and painted murals in South America, eventually settling in Canada.
As a multidisciplinary artist her work takes varied and evolving forms, incorporating assemblage, collage, bookmaking and objet d’Art 3D works. White’s use of found objects is pivotal to her exploration of memory and narrative; more specifically how fragmented narratives affect perception. This approach allows her to probe the realms of objective reality and elements of the ‘unheimlich’.
Artistic Disciplines: Mixed Media | Photography | Installations
AUDREY LANE
Audrey Lane

Website: audreylane.xyz
Vimeo: @audreylane
Instagram: @audreylane.c
Audrey Lane Cockett is an educator, ecologist, filmmaker, spoken word poet, and arts organizer settled in Treaty 7 Territory, Calgary. Their work is rooted in Wild, both outside and in. They are a passionate advocate for mental health and disability awareness, queer visibility, and deep care for the natural world. Their degree in Environmental Studies and Physical Geography, years working as a park naturalist, and training in the arts through residencies such as the Spoken Word Program at the Banff Centre and the Canadian Wilderness Artist Residency informs their work, which lives at the intersection of science, art, land, community, learning, healing, and transformation.
Artistic Disciplines: Spoken Word
MARLEE MAYORS
Marlee Kaydn Mayors

Etsy: marleekadynmayors
Instagram: @marleeks
marlee kadyn mayors is a dumpster rat goblin making art out of trash and occasionally real art supplies when they have to. They are a multidisciplinary maker using the mediums of painting, sculpting, collage, drawing, and whatever other bullshit they can make up to bring their ideas to life. Recurring themes in their artwork include freaky queer shit, demons and unnatural nature scenes. Marlee is influenced by medieval european visual art, and various queer and trans artists practicing in a variety of forms of visual arts, tattoo and music. They live in the Treaty 7 Region/Mohkínstsis/Métis Nation Region 3 with their roommate and sweet baby monster dog Frankie Beans.
Artistic Disciplines: Painting | Mixed Media | Sculpture
WILL D’JAY
Will d'Jay

Website: @Cards.Read
Will d’Jay is an artist, diviner, performer, and writer living and working in Calgary-Mohkinstsis. Born under queer stars in unlucky times, their work combines influences from the occult and esoteric, the mythic and spiritual, and the mundane and practical. Raised in a diasporic settler colony on Treaty 7 land, d’Jay is a 3rd/7th generation immigrant with Anglo-Irish and Germanic roots. Influenced by their queerness, their rural upbringing, their settler education, and the lands they were raised, d’Jay filters all this through a mind diagnosed with ADHD – or as medically bird-brained as they like to put it. They have performed spoken word storytelling, circus & sideshow, and read cards at festivals and events around the Dominion of Canada.
Fascinated by natural materials, ritual processes, and symbolic myth-making, d’Jay’s material practice focuses around crafting a material culture of magick and mythology in order to summon them into our shared reality. When the tools we use and the practices we maintain echo the myths and stories that we hold dear and true, then we can begin to re-enchant our world. In protest of the modernist claims that the world has been ‘dis-enchanted’ d’Jay would argue that the world has never stopped being enchanting, we have just been forced to exorcise it or parish.
The world, in all its polymorphous majesty -from arts and passions to fossils and biology, through physics and computing- is a wonder in an abyss, all we need to revel in it is to stop and look. This process of looking around, or re-enchantment as d’Jay would say, is a key to us mortals reconnecting with the natural environments that sustain our species. By humbling ourselves and learning from the lands and peoples around us we must develop and adapt the ways we exist to be sustainable within it. To this end d’Jay seeks to use materials and mediums sourced as close to home as possible. Off of the ground around them when at all possible.
To contact the d’Jay for diniatory, artistic, or ritual services they can be reached through the link https://withkoji.com/@Cards.Read or by email at [email protected] . Pronouns He / They
Artistic Disciplines: Painting | Installation | Performance
JESSICA ROH
Jessica Roh

Website: Jessica Roh/a>
My name is Jessica Roh and I’m a born and raised Calgarian. I’ve always enjoyed making and viewing art because I believe it is the pure expression of the soul. I graduated from Alberta college of Art and Design with a major in textiles. Although Textiles was my major, I loved to explore creating art with video, sculpture, mixed media, painting, and performances. I am very excited to apply for this gallery opportunity because the past year of my life has been one of struggle, sickness, healing, and growth.
Artistic Disciplines: Painting | Sculpture | Textiles | Mixed Media | Performance
RACHEL BLAKE
Rachel Blake

Website: mortimerpessimist.com
Instagram: @mortimerpessimist
Rachel Blake is a dancer, textile, and visual artist living and creating in Calgary/Mohkinstsis. They hold a BA with Distinction in French Literature from the University of Calgary, where they work as an academic advisor. Outside the 9 to 5, Rachel is a dance artist with 15 years experience training and performing with three Calgary dance troupes both locally and internationally.
Curiosity and commitment to learning new skills led Rachel to explore textile arts through hand embroidery in 2019, and in 2020 they expanded their creative outlets to clothing fabrication and painting. In 2021, along with three artist friends, they co-founded the cheeky artist collective Mortimer & Pessimist – where they share the administrative and financial commitments of a business to promote and market their art with the motto “We make what we want”.
Their painting practice is inspired by geometric mandalas used for meditation: the deliberate placing of each dot on the surface of a natural stone requires weeks of work for designs to take shape. The designs are painted freehand, following the shape of the stones, and paint dots are affected by the texture of the stone’s surface, meaning that each piece has variations and imperfections which make it entirely unique.
Artistic Disciplines: Painting | Mixed Media
TINA MARIE
Tina Marie

Instagram: @missgingasnap
Tina Marie has been performing in Calgary for nearly 10 years. Taking part in burlesque, belly dance, tribal fusion, circus arts and music. No modality of creating art is off limits.
Over the last 5 years she has found medicine in playing ukulele, writing music and poetry is always been a passion of Tina’s but has not felt the ability to share it until this past year. Writing music is a very therapeutic process and has become Tina’s primary ritual in the processing and release of this wild ride we call life
Artistic Disciplines: Singing | Performance | Movement
CHRIS BLOCK
Chris Block

Instagram: @seabee222
Chris is a successful Vancouver architect. Over the years he has pursued watercolour painting as a creative outlet for architecture’s technical precision and rigidity.
Introduced to the medium as a university student, Chris’s artistic pursuits are based on two motivating mantras: Embrace Vagueness; Fight for Ambiguity. Eschewing the built environment, Chris primarily paints landscapes, allowing him to escape the confines of his downtown architectural practice.
Chris has studied with such distinguished watercolour artists as Alvaro Castagnet and Thomas Schaller and he is passionate about rendering art that challenges reality while collaborating with abstraction.
Chris is an Active Member of the Federation of Canadian Artists and shows regularly at their Granville Island gallery.
Artistic Disciplines: Painting
ÅSE
ÅSE
My art is an extension of myself. And has always been very personal to me, however, I haven’t shared the art I truly enjoy doing with the world yet and I have decided it’s time to do so. I believe art is about expressing your deep emotions that you cannot express through words. We all feel things that we are not able to explain, and I believe visual art is one of the best ways to share that with others. I am introducing a new art line called “Åse”, pronounced as “Oh-Sa”. What draws me so much to this name is the pronunciation of it, when you pronounced the “Oh” the sound travels deep within yourself, and when you release with the “Sa” it’s releasing the vibrations and energy you produced with the “Oh”. You really feel the world. And this is a perfect representation of my art, that I am so excited to share with the world! Åse is a Norse name, and I recently discovered that a good chunk of my heritage is from Norway, during the Viking era. And this excites me, because I have always felt a deep-rooted connection to that part of the world but only recently started embracing the art and style of Norse aesthetics.
I kept my personal art very silent for the last 30 years and have only shared bits and pieces with people close to me, and now I feel it is time to stop being afraid of expressing vulnerability and show it to the world. A bit about my art – my primarily specialty is drawing, I love to create with just a pencil and eraser. I don’t need anything fancy, a horrible yellow HB pencil will do the trick! I’ve been drawing since I could hold a pencil, which has led me to dabbling with Indian ink as well. I am a mixed media artist, I enjoy experimenting and combining different mediums, they all offer their own unique presence and give something authentic to it’s nature in the artwork. Mixed-media artwork can communicate different aspects of your emotions that other mediums can’t, which is why I call myself a mixed-media artist, (plus I am pretty sure I have ADD 😉 ).
Artistic Disciplines: Painting | Drawing | Mixed Media | Jewellery
CAITLIN FAST
Caitlin Fast

Instagram: @eternal_fantasy
Calgary Artist, originally from Northern BC.
Acrylic, mixed mediums, textiles and recycled materials. Geometric mandalas inspired by natural rhythms and cycles. Inspired by spiritual healing through metaphysics and energy transfer. Repurposing and reusing found objects and materials as inspiration to breathe new life into forgotten things. Crafting new items for home and ritual practice. Currently showcasing my art at Baba’s Art Haus and Witches Garden Market in Calgary.
Artistic Disciplines: Painting | Mixed Media | Textiles
RUNA GEDAM
Runa Gedam

Website: runagedam.com
Instagram: @runagedam
Facebook: @runagedamfineartist
RUNA GEDAM is a self-taught artist who paints with her fingers to create visual pieces of art in oils. When she first moved to Canada, she was pleasantly surprised by the slower pace of life and awed by the natural splendor of the land. Winters offered a time for solitude and quiet reflection. In this stillness, she started visualizing in detail the world full of colours, chaos, and movement she had come from in India interspersed with the beauty of this new world, both of which became the subject of her paintings. Through her art, she hopes to give people a sense of joy, a visual treat for their eyes, and a moment to lose themselves in a world of her imagination.
Artistic Disciplines: Painting
SARAY
Saray

Website: Velocity Motion Werks/a>
I am a multi-discipline artist who spends more time on the road then where I store my things. I studied Philosophy of Art at the University of Calgary, however; prior to finishing my degree I decided to quit school and become a Circus Artist. With a passion for unique mediums, interactive art, and innovative concepts, my work has has a high degree of variety, ranging from equestrian art, to digital mediums to fire breathing, to stunt training for film & theatre. I sit on the board of directors for the Western Canadian Circus Arts Association and have a passion for movement, community & education.
In this project I plan to reflect on the routines that become so ingrained in our lives that they transform into ritual. I hope to explore the value ritual has in relationship to both the artistic journey and the human condition. The most relevant rituals in my artistic career have power because they serve to remind myself and convey to my audience that death has always been a primary theme in circus. My acts are death-defying and my artistic rituals reflect that. These rituals convey the value of the present moment and provide us with tools to process something we cannot fully communicate in words.
I will be documenting my artistic journey on my public Patreon. (Launch April 12) I’m really excited about observing the artistic process as the art itself through ritual.
Artistic Disciplines: Installations | Performance | Mixed Media | Digital Media | Photography
SHANNON MACKINNON
Shannon MacKinnon

Website: hiveandheart.ca
Photo: DMacstudios
Shannon has been accompanied by ritual since their early twenties, integrating Nature-based acknowledgements and the sacred feminine into important personal threshold moments, times of grief and loss, and community-building amongst like-minded others. Shannon has been interested in and has formally studied spiritual frameworks such as mysticism, world mythology, movement and dance, ritual, pilgrimage, song, and art as expressions of connectivity to energies bigger than ourselves for many years. An openness to seeking how ritual, beliefs, and embodiment can help people through difficult times is a lens used in both arts and counseling practices, offered through their studio space with artistic peers or with private clients. There is power in intention, structure, meaning and action that can be conveyed through ritual.
Artistic Disciplines: Painting | Mixed Media | Installations | Drawing | Performance | Jewellery
THE LOCATION
The Ritual Arts exhibit is proud to be using Inglewood’s premier artist destination, The Nvrlnd Boutique. The space itself boasts a sleek, modern 1200 sq. ft. footprint. The custom ceiling treatment is not only aesthetically breathtaking, but it also performs the essential duty of changing the interior acoustics. We feel blessed to have access to an art space like this in our great city. For directions click here.