Summer Group Show
- Diamond Zhou
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
welcome to our
SATURDAY EVENING POST
August 23rd, 2025
We just want to say thank you for giving our summer soirée and group exhibition opening its heart. Across three concentrated hours, hundreds of guests moved through the gallery with a generosity of attention that did not go unnoticed. The evening marked the introduction of several new artists to our gallery, and the welcome you extended to them made that moment feel genuinely significant. Many of the exhibiting artists were present, stood and stayed in conversation from start to finish, exchanging ideas and chatting about their process and vision. Several of you travelled from other parts of the world simply to stand with friends and support their work, a gesture that speaks to the kind of community we aspire to build.
The rooms were wonderfully full, which meant that at times the art was partly obscured by the pleasure of one another’s company. We would be delighted to have you again for a quieter second viewing, whether during regular hours or by private appointment, so you can spend unhurried time with the work. As the exhibition unfolds, additional pieces and newly acquired works will be installed, and the conversation in the rooms will continue to evolve. Please come back, bring a friend, and let us know if you would like a guided walk through.
Thank you, again, for meeting the work and each other with such passion, curiosity, and care.
Yesterday, we visited Beginning and Endings and Everything in Between, the culminating exhibition of Contemporary Art Practices: Summer Scholarship Intensive program, hosted by Arts Umbrella with The Polygon Gallery. Over the last three weeks, young artists aged 15 to 19 developed self-directed projects alongside guided workshops with Vancouver artists. The program’s structure asks young artists to think publicly, to test materials rigorously, and to make work that can carry meaning beyond the studio. The exhibition title is apt, these works meet uncertainty and ambiguity directly and convert them into form.
The program concluded with the installation and opening of the students’ own exhibition, a public-facing moment that matters as much as any studio exercise. The young artists sequenced and installed their works, negotiated space and light, and learned what it means to turn a private idea into a shared encounter. The work on view is impressive in its range and conviction, and it reminds us why it is essential to visit not only established galleries but also spaces where artists are just finding their forms. We left heartened by the calibre of the thinking, the care taken in presentation, and the collective effort that made it possible.
Facilitating artists: Kit O’Shea and Kevin Murphy
Guest artists: Alejandro A. Barbosa and Evan Lee
The program’s full scholarships, provided by the Buschlen Mowatt Nichol Foundation and Polygon, speak to a community that invests in access and ambition rather than accident.
View this exhibition at Arts Umbrella Lobby, 1400 Johnston Street, Granville Island, Vancouver, BC.
CURRENT
GROUP EXHIBITION
Open August, 20th, 2025
