Art Auction
Art Auction
Something new is coming to GLITTER 2026. We’re assembling a curated art auction featuring original work from Vancouver Island artists — paintings of light, landscape, and resilience that speak directly to the spirit of the evening. Every piece supports the building of Foundry Snuneymuxw, an Indigenous-led youth health and wellness centre right here in Nanaimo. Bidding details and the full collection are on their way. Check back soon, or join us on September 12th to bid in person.
Feather
Wooden carving
I have found a passion for carving that’s in my DNA, and the legacy of my ancestors is a fire within that fuels my creativity. Summers spent in Haida Gwaii as a child exposed me to the carving tradition within my family, but I did not pick up a chisel until well into adulthood. My first carving was a 7ft pole, Family, that I crafted as a gift for my wife. That I possessed the skills to create a totem pole was as surprising to me as anyone!
Since then I’ve honed my skills creating a variety of traditional and contemporary artworks, including panels, sculptures, paddles, canoes, and totem poles. I am grateful for the knowledge passed on to me by my father, my cousins, and other master carvers that I’ve spent time with. I am committed to learning and evolving as a Haida artist, interpreting the natural world around me through cedar and formline.
Haw’aa
Mike
https://michaelbellis.com/
Iris in The Trip
Dimensions : 30” x 40” ( original watercolour with further digital oil paint using Procreate app on iPad and then digitally-printed on canvas).
Jungle Kaleidoscope
size: 18″ x 20″
After painting this watercolour on paper, I decided to try to imitate the effect of an insect (like a dragonfly) looking at this view through his compound eyes. Compound eyes produce a mosaic image, where each visual unit, up to 1000’s of them, contributes a single “pixel” to the overall perception.
To mimic this effect, I cut the middle section of my original painting into horizontal strips. Then I made a second painting, with varying colours, and cut it into vertical strips. Weaving these together produced this artwork, and gave me the effect I wanted!
While growing up in Ontario and Quebec, I had a childhood love of drawing, but it was years later in Alberta that I discovered painting through watercolour classes.
A decade of living in the Bahamas provided both the time and inspiration to develop my art, with the vibrant tropical landscape influencing much of my work in watercolour and textiles. During that period, my painting Elegant Frills was exhibited at the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, in their Inaugural National Exhibition.
Now living in Parksville on Vancouver Island, I work primarily in acrylics while exploring mixed media and collage. My art continues to be inspired by the natural beauty of the places I have called home.
Resilient Light
Size: 22″ x 26″
My journey as a watercolour artist is deeply rooted in the nature that surrounds me. Over the years, I have returned to painting sunflowers because they lift my spirits and fill me with joy. To me, these flowers are a vibrant celebration of HOPE and RESILIENCE. By always turning towards the sun, they remind us to seek the light and find strength during difficult times.
I hope this painting, “Resilient Light” , brings the same warmth into your life that it brought me while creating it.
I grew up in North Vancouver and went to Handsworth Secondary School in the 1970’s. I married Randy Trerise and we moved in 1978 to Midway, BC. I took a pottery course at Selkirk College and explored my artistic side by doing pottery and making bent-willow furniture. In the Fall of 2009, I took a watercolour painting course from Patricia McNish. Since then, my garden, my travels around the world have been my inspiration for my paintings.
Roses Not Red
30″ x 24″
Description to come
“I paint, therefore I am. My work is my statement.”
Norma McCachen cannot recall a time she wasn’t drawing or painting. Raised in a family steeped in art — a painter-photographer father, a mother who made through sewing, weaving, and rug-making — she was taught early to see. Her father would stop the car to point out how shadows defined the shape of a hill, or press a beetle into her hand to marvel at the metallic blue of its back. That training became a way of moving through the world: an attention to colour, contour, and light in the everyday.
She works best alone, but needs the company of other artists — for inspiration, for the expansion of ideas, for the pure pleasure of talking about the work. She resists analyzing her own impulse to create, holding instead to a simple conviction: that she works at all is the statement. The rest is navel-gazing.
To her last breath, she intends to keep seeing more, learning more, and making more.
Swoosh
30″ x 40″
Description to come
“I paint, therefore I am. My work is my statement.”
Norma McCachen cannot recall a time she wasn’t drawing or painting. Raised in a family steeped in art — a painter-photographer father, a mother who made through sewing, weaving, and rug-making — she was taught early to see. Her father would stop the car to point out how shadows defined the shape of a hill, or press a beetle into her hand to marvel at the metallic blue of its back. That training became a way of moving through the world: an attention to colour, contour, and light in the everyday.
She works best alone, but needs the company of other artists — for inspiration, for the expansion of ideas, for the pure pleasure of talking about the work. She resists analyzing her own impulse to create, holding instead to a simple conviction: that she works at all is the statement. The rest is navel-gazing.
To her last breath, she intends to keep seeing more, learning more, and making more.ry
Where The Petals Gather
Reversed decoupage on glass
8″ diameter
This bowl reflects that process of reconstruction: taking what exists, breaking it apart, and reassembling it into something whole again. It’s a quiet reflection on transformation, there is always space in our life to gather the pieces and begin anew.
I came to creating art later in life, discovering my medium through reversed decoupage on glass.
Until then, my connection to art lived more on the periphery—through a deep appreciation for galleries, museums, and the quiet power of visual storytelling.
Creativity, however, has always been close at hand. Both of my parents were artists in their own right, and their influence has shaped how I see and interpret the world.
My process is rooted in transformation. I rarely use an image as it is; instead, I deconstruct and rebuild, combining fragments into something entirely new. Each piece becomes a layered composition—part memory, part intuition—where disparate elements find harmony.
Paint Brush Boys
26″ x 52″
Acrylic painting
Paint Brush Boys (acrylic, 26″ × 52″) is vintage Leier — a diptych-style composition that pairs two grinning mid-century boys’ faces against a wash of teal and electric green with a flat scarlet panel holding two oversized house-painting brushes. One face is rendered in cool white, the other in a warm cadmium gold, their bold black outlines and cartoon-poster styling nodding to the optimism of old advertising art. The brushes wink at his own medium: the painter folding the tools of his trade into the picture.
Worked in his signature bright, festive acrylics, the piece runs on the contrasts he loves — hot red against cool green, white against gold, nostalgia against pop. It’s playful, graphic, and unmistakably his, framed here in weathered gold. Signed lower right.
Grant Leier was born in Lloydminster, Saskatchewan in 1956 and trained at the Alberta College of Art in Calgary before continuing at the Illustrator’s Workshop in New York. A painter, illustrator, and textile artist, he has shown extensively in solo and group exhibitions across Canada and California, with work held in collections including the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Public Archives Canada, and Chevron Canada. He lives and paints in Ladysmith, British Columbia.
Leier once likened himself to a crow gathering the brightest objects it can find — a fitting image for paintings that layer found objects, photographs, and a symphony of pattern into story-like worlds where monkeys, people, fruit, and flowers mingle between fantasy and reality. Working in bold acrylics and ornamental borders, he builds playful, sometimes nostalgic realms whose technical precision and quick wit invite a joyful response. He sets the stage, poses the actors, and tells the story — and the sets are always sublime.
Ugly Dog #34
ceramic sculpture
It’s playful and a little defiant, with the figurative wit and confident handling of form that mark Prévost’s sculpture. A characterful one-of-a-kind piece — and a great auction find for anyone who likes their art with personality.
Joël A. Prévost is a sculptor and educator with more than 25 years devoted to the human form. Born in 1963 in Lac-Saint-Jean, Quebec, he moved with his family to Nanaimo in 1977, and after studying Community Development in Nova Scotia he returned to the Island to work in cultural programming — facilitating, fundraising, and producing concerts and music series, including a stint running the World Beat Cafe in Nanaimo’s Old City Quarter, where his own sculpting practice took root.
In 2006 he relocated to Montreal and founded L’Atelier de Sculpture du Village, teaching figurative sculpture for a decade to students from cinema, circus, 3D animation, video games, and the visual arts.
In 2017 Prévost returned to BC and established the Vancouver Island Sculpting Studio in Nanaimo, where he continues to sculpt, teach from life models, and support Island artists in building sustainable practices of their own.
In the Moment We’re Lost and Found
Acrylic on canvas
24”x 30” (gallery stretched)
© Tamar Swartz
With the painting, I’ve included an envelope with a Certificate of Authenticity, a business card, and the little poem that accompanies the piece (copied below).
Together we journey into the wild unknown to simultaneously lose and find ourselves Life dances among the leaves of this enchanted forest, allowing us to get carried away in wonderment of adventure. For now the darkness slinks at a distance. We both know it’s there, though you more profoundly than I. Time feels short and I’ve come to realize that I’m truly grateful for every moment that you’re here. Your presence is a gift, and one that I don’t take for granted. |
This painting is part of a series called Courageous Heart, which is all about being in a support/care role for someone who struggles with mental health challenges. You can read more about it here if you’d like: https://tamarswartz.com/courageous-heart
Tamar Swartz is a visual artist, currently working in acrylic paint. She creates visual narratives that invite the viewer to step in and explore the boundaries of real and imaginary, finding the magic in the mundane.
Her paintings are intended as a portal to a place where heart-centred connections can occur, and heroes journeys unfold.
Tamar’s work is brought to life through her intuitive practice of finding “Creative Surrender” and allowing her work to unfold organically. She uses colour, spontaneous mark-making, forms and imagery to create emotional landscapes where stories are woven and meaning is in the metaphor. Each piece is a journey unto itself, which requires Tamar to keep the creative process fresh and ever-changing. Tamar currently lives in Victoria, BC, on the traditional and unceded territory of the Lekwungen Peoples, known today as the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations.
Tamar’s work is held in private collections around the world, including in Canada, United States, South Africa, Hungary and Australia. Her work has been exhibited both domestically and internationally.
Her website: www.tamarswartz.com and Instagram: @tamarswartz
Matter of Perspective
Media: Acrylic black and white, textured mixed media on a ‘gallery wrapped’ style canvas
Size: 24” x 30”
About the painting. To come…
Roberto likes to create pieces that blend a variety of techniques and textural elements to highlight the richness that can come from contrasting elements. This piece highlights the effects of paints applied to flat as well as highly textured surfaces.
Roberto is also fascinated by how our brains function and process the world around us. This artistic creation explores the interplay between perception and emotion. Viewers may feel pulled toward a central dark barrier or a looming sense of constraint. Yet, with a shift in one’s perspective, softer/lighter tones emerge—inviting reflection on how meaning is often found in the grey space between extremes. What comes to mind when you view this piece?
Big Sky
Watercolour Painting on Ampersand’s Aquaboard
16″ x 20″
“Big Sky” is #3 in a series of paintings inspired by a road trip from BC’s West Coast to Calgary, Alberta.
After first passing through dense forests, followed by the majestic mountains of the Rockies, I was awestruck by the big, open sky and the flat land stretching on as far as the eye could see. I found a new appreciation for the prairie landscape with its palette of blues and many muted neutral colours.
This unique watercolour is painted on a clay board making it possible to be framed without being under glass; hence, there will be no glare no matter where it is hung.
“I love capturing scenes of nature all around me as well as memories of the places I’ve travelled to. Representational watercolour was my first love, but my journey is now including acrylic painting and experimentation with abstract.”
like all artists, is a work in progress.
She was born and raised in Burnaby, BC, raised her family in New Westminster and taught elementary school for her working career.
When she and her husband retired and moved to Parksville on Vancouver Island in 2000, she now had the gift of time to immerse herself in the joy of all things artistic.
Twenty-six years later, she’s still learning and discovering the joys of painting with watercolours and acrylics and her latest passion includes adding collage to these two mediums.
The possibilities are endless!
Email: merrsteen@gmail.ca
Instagram: #merrilynlaursenart
Crofton Ferry Landing
Watercolour and Acrylics
29′” X 38″
John was born in Powell River, BC in 1937. He is a graduate of UBC School of Architecture and became a registered Member of the Architectural Institute of British Columbia and Canada in 1964.
In 1972, John became a member of the British Columbia Society of Landscape Architects and later was made a partner in the Landscape Architectural firm of Justice, Webb & Vincent in Kerrisdale, Vancouver.
For many years John was a member of the Canadian Federation of Artists and participated in numerous exhibitions in Vancouver. Most of John’s work depict scenes of BC coastlines. His work has been represented in galleries throughout British Columbia and Alberta since the early 1980’s.
John now resides and paints in Craig Bay, Parksville, BC
John Vincent Contact: 63samvincent@gmail.com
Elegance in Pink
Watercolour . Framed.
16″ x 20″
This watercolour painting of pink Calla Lillies is an exploration of simplicity and beauty. I am drawn to the natural elegance, clean lines, and gentle curves symbolizing both strength and grace.
I’m a member of the DeCosmos Fine Arts Society and the McMillan Arts Centre. I’ve exhibited at various art galleries in the beautiful Oceanside area.
Untitled
18” X 36”
Acrylic on canvas
Description to come
Deborah Philipp was born and raised in Chicago. Her parents loved art and were regular visitors to the Chicago Art Institute when she was a child. Her love of art never left her. She studied painting at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and Rome.
After college she moved to San Francisco and spent many years showing her work in galleries there. After spending many summers visiting her husband’s mother on Vancouver Island
the couple made the move to the island in 2007 to live at Sproat Lake. In 2019 they relocated to Parksville.
Deborah has exhibited her works in galleries throughout California for over 30 yrs. Her work is part of many corporate and private collections.
Since coming to Canada, she has had several shows on the Island.
The Blue Door, Bodrum, Turkey
Acrylics on 14″x18″ stretched canvas
14″x18″ (16.5″x20.5″ framed)
This painting captures the charm of a sunlit Turkish courtyard, centered around a striking weathered blue door. A vibrant explosion of magenta bougainvillea climbs the golden walls, casting its shadows across the courtyard. The scene evokes a timeless romantic feeling, inviting the viewer to imagine exploring a hidden corner of Turkey on a peaceful summer afternoon.
Painted by Deb Reidlinger
Artist Bio To come
Tempest
Title: Tempest
Size: 10” x 20”
Medium: Acrylic
Sun Seekers
13″ X25″
Two gulls on the Salish Sea shoreline bask in the first light, soaking up the sun’s warmth as it climbs over a crisp winter morning.
Carol Chilton, who lives in Parksville’s Craig Bay, specializes in capturing Western Canada’s incredible wildlife and landscapes. She is a member of the Federation of Canadian Artists. https://carolchilton.blogspot.com/