Announcing the VMF Academy Collection, May 5-30
We’re excited to announce the VMF Academy Collection, a limited time art sale from May 5th-30th featuring prints from ten artists with unique mediums and styles.
Over the past six years, hundreds of local and internationally celebrated artists have added their mark to Vancouver Mural Festival. The festival’s dedication to Vancouver’s public art reverberates globally, giving artists from across the world an opportunity to add storied canvases to their portfolio. This year, the VMF Academy Collection is an exhibition to celebrate a small, hand-picked group of VMF alumni.
As a short run, an edition of 20/20 prints will be offered. In partnership with Dominion Blue, they will be printed on acid-free, archival cotton paper stock (190 gsm), with Canon UVGel 355 Inks. Each print will be signed/numbered by the artist and receive an inaugural embossing with the VMF Academy Collection emblem. These sought-after and highly collectible featured pieces will not be available for long — mark your calendar for May 5th and enjoy a sneak peek of the prints and artist information below! (Art Sale opens May 5 at 12pm PST)
Andrea Wan is a Hong Kong-born, Vancouver-raised Visual Artist and Illustrator. She spent the last eight years living in Berlin and travelling worldwide after she finished her studies in Vancouver and Denmark. Andrea sees her practice as a container in which she can allow what needs to come through in her stream of consciousness. Often the otherworldly images and narratives are reflective of her ideologies. Her body of work includes but is not limited to ink on paper, murals, digital media and sculptures. Themes such as nature, personal mythology and self-enquiry have continued to propel her creative exploration over the last years. Galleries throughout Europe, North America and Asia have exhibited Andrea's works.
Drew Young (b.1987 Victoria, BC) currently lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. He studied at The Victoria College of Art and received his diploma in Illustration and Applied Arts (IDEA) at Capilano University. Young is an internationally exhibited painter with shows and projects in LA (Thinkspace Gallery), HI (POW!WOW!), SF (Gauntlet Gallery), Denver (Abend Gallery & Mirus Gallery), Tokyo (Amp), London (Rook and Raven), NYC (Re:Form Projects), Bogota (Come Together) and featured by Juxtapoz, Hi-Fructose, Booooooom. com, Supersonic Electronic and BlueCanvas. His painting accolades have brought him many curatorial and creative director opportunities in recent years. He’s acted as the Visual Arts curator for TedX Vancouver 2014/2015, Skookum 2018 as well as the Founder of Snag — a weekly live-painting exhibition focused on illuminating Vancouver’s alternative arts culture. Young currently acts as Curator and Artistic Director for the Vancouver Mural Festival. His consultation and curation efforts have led to thousands of artworks finding their way to collectors’ walls and hundreds of public art projects coming to fruition across the Lower Mainland.
Ejiwa ‘Edge’ Ebenebe is a Nigerian-Canadian artist based in BC, Canada. Born outside of her parent’s homeland, she experienced multiple cultures throughout her childhood and early adulthood. As an immigrant, she wrestles with concepts of community and identity, both within herself and her work. She strives to create representation for voices (particularly Black and/or LGBTQ+ women) who are often pushed out of positive, empowering narratives. Simultaneously echoing in her work is a love for the ethereal, fantasy stories she grew up with.
From a passion for vibrant colours to a love of ornamentation, her varying homes have strongly moulded her creative perspective, weaving themselves throughout each piece. In combining all these influences she hopes to create uplifting and whimsical work, a respite from life’s rigours. Over the course of her career, she has worked with clients including Scholastic, Wizards of the Coast and Marvel. Her work has also featured in publications such as F(r)iction, Infected By Art and ImagineFX Magazine.
iHeart is a Canadian street artist based out of Vancouver, British Columbia. Using stencils, iHeart emphasizes the dark side of society’s obsession with technology. By bringing these digital elements into the street, iHeart obscures the boundary between life on and offline
Kathy Ager is a Canadian artist, now living and working in Vancouver after a decade in Amsterdam, Lisbon, and Barcelona. She creates detailed still lifes that feel simultaneously Baroque and sharply modern. Inspired by the 17th-Century Golden Age of Dutch and Spanish painting, her imagery uses historical visual rhetoric to deliver intensely personal and emotively charged themes.
KC Hall was born in Bella Bella, BC, and was raised in East Vancouver since he was two years old. He is the grandson of hereditary Chief Irene (Wakas) Brown. At a very young age, KC always had an interest in illustration. In high school, KC developed a passion for handwriting, lettering, and graffiti. After graduating from high school, he began creating work on a larger scale, including paintings and drawings. In February of 2012, KC studied with Nisga’a artist Robert Tait in the Northwest Coast Jewellery Arts Program at Native Education College in Vancouver, BC. The course inspired KC as an artist, introducing him to Northwest Coast formline, where he instantly fell in love with the visual language.
Luke Ramsey exhibits internationally with freehand drawings and contemporary paintings, and works in public art, murals, illustration and collaboration. His client list includes The New York Times, The Cartoon Network, Patagonia, and The BC Children’s Hospital and more. Luke’s paintings are in collections with The Government of Canada and The City of Seattle. His collaborative mural with Josh Holinaty won a National Urban Design Medal from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. Luke's book Intelligent Sentient? is published by Drawn & Quarterly, and was nominated for a Doug Wright Award. From 2016-2018 Luke was The City of Victoria’s Artist in Residence. He currently lives on the Sunshine Coast, BC, Canada.
Makoto Chi (he/they) was born in Tkaronto in 1989. They moved west, with their family, in early childhood to unceded Coast Salish, Musqueam, Skxwú7mesh, Tsleil-Waututh lands, also known as Vancouver, Canada where they grew up. They have worn many hats and shed many skins, art-making being a constant through-line through many personal transformations. He graduated from Emily Carr University in 2015 with a degree in illustration, pursuing a career in tattooing and visual arts — from which they are currently on hiatus.
Priscilla Yu is a Vancouver-based illustrator and artist specializing in murals, creative direction, and graphic design and surface design projects.
Her work is inspired by both the perceivable patterns found in everyday life through textiles, design, and architecture, as well as nature’s universal patterns on both the macro and micro scale. Through abstracted points of perspective and a geometric language, she creates worlds that dwell in a strange gravity mixed with personal symbology. Her process often employs stylistic constraints as a means to draw out subconscious imagery.
Since graduating from Emily Carr University of Art and Design in 2013 (BFA), Priscilla has exhibited work internationally in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, Hong Kong, Shanghai. She has painted murals in festivals including HK WALLS (Hong Kong), Pow! Wow! DC (Washington DC), Vancouver Mural Festival (Vancouver BC), and Belltown Corridor Murals (Seattle). Her clients include Facebook, WeWork, Skip the Dishes, and Earls Restaurants.
Sandeep Johal is a multidisciplinary visual artist whose practice engages drawing, collage, textiles, and large-scale mural painting. Her Indo-folk-feminine aesthetic is characterized by her distinct pattern-work, bold use of colour and ornamentation.
Johal confronts themes of bleakness, despair and ugliness with their dissonant opposites: brightness, hope and beauty through her storytelling. Her work typically centers around the stories of women. Though she highlights female suffering in its many forms, these are ultimately stories of resistance and resilience.
Johal has worked on notable projects with the Vancouver Art Gallery, Burrard Arts Foundation, Indian Summer Festival, and Vancouver Mural Festival and clients such as Lululemon and Earls Restaurants. She has been featured in The Globe and Mail, CBC Arts, The Georgia Straight and numerous other print and online publications. She was also the 2019 recipient of Darpan Magazine’s Artistic Visionary Award.
Johal holds a Diploma in Fine Arts (honours) from Langara College (2007), and lives and works in Vancouver, BC