Artist Talk & Tour
with Fern Helfand
Saturday October 3 | 10 AM
Camille and David Saltman Gallery
Be among the first to experience Forest with the artist.
A few months after the 2023 McDougall Creek wildfire, Fern Helfand walked into the burned forest near her home. The trees were charred, stark figures against the blue sky, their lyrical forms unexpectedly beautiful. That moment inspired the exhibition.
Developed over the past three years, Forest is the culmination of Helfand’s observations of the changing Okanagan landscape. In this immersive exhibition, she combines ceramic sculpture, moving imagery and photography to explore the uneasy coexistence of environmental destruction and beauty, and our interconnected relationship with the natural world.
Join us on opening day, Saturday, October 3 at 10 am for a tour and talk with the artist about her work, point of view and process. There will be time for questions after the tour.
This event is included with Gallery Admission (Free for Members)
Artist Bio
Born in Toronto, ON, Fern Helfand is a lens-based artist, ceramicist and UBC Okanagan Professor Emeritus. She holds a BA from York University and an MFA in Photography from the University of Florida. She taught in London, Ontario and Penang, Malaysia before moving to the Okanagan in 1998, where she taught photography at Okanagan University College and UBC Okanagan until 2018. Helfand has exhibited internationally, and her work addresses cultural observation and commentary, the environment, tourism, and the changing medium of photography itself. For more than two decades she has photographed the Okanagan’s forests, logging and development, and in recent years she has added clay to her practice. Her work is in the collection of the Kelowna Art Gallery. She lives and works in West Kelowna, BC.
