VICTORIA ARTS COUNCIL

Victoria Arts Council
PROJECT SPACE
670 Fort Street

McWitch by Todd Lambeth
April – June 2026

[WINDOW][WINDOW][WINDOW] concludes with a new installation by Todd Lambeth, titled McWitch.

McWitch is a site-specific installation that expands an ongoing painting series by Victoria artist Todd Lambeth into architectural and urban space. By combining the witch motif with imagery drawn from contemporary consumer culture and employing repetition borrowed from advertising and design, this work reflects on how mass media shapes perception and belief. This installation underscores the persistence of symbolic imagery and its role in constructing collective memory.

Since late 2023, Lambeth has been working on his series of witch paintings that explores societal fears of the “other” and the effects of consumerism on memory and identity. This body of work pairs the archetypal image of the witch with appropriated commercial logos, extending the dialogue on consumer culture initiated by the Pop artists of the 1960s. The project originated from a found JPEG image of a witch and emphasizes themes of circulation, disposability, and visual saturation. These paintings reference the Gestalt image My Wife and My Mother-in-Law, engaging viewers in an active process of looking as layered imagery shifts between forms and meanings. Familiar symbols trigger consumer recognition, highlighting the influence of advertising on human cognition and recall.

Ultimately, McWitch functions as a cautionary reflection on the power of advertising, its capacity to shape belief systems, and the transitory nature of meaning within a media-saturated culture.

Contemporary painter Todd Lambeth lives and works in Victoria, British Columbia within the traditional lands of the Lək̓ʷəŋən (Songhees and Esquimalt) and W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples. Lambeth studied Visual Art at the Ontario College of Art and Design and received his MFA in Studio Art from the University of Victoria where he currently teaches in the Visual Arts Department. He is a serial-based painter who combines manual and digital techniques in his work and is influenced by optical illusion illustrations, graphic design, popular culture and monster theory.  Lambeth’s paintings express his interest in vision and perceptions of colour and pictorial space.

Lambeth’s work has been exhibited across Canada in both commercial galleries and artist-run centres. In recent years, he has participated in exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (Victoria, BC), Mark Christopher Gallery (Toronto, ON), Victoria Arts Council (Victoria, BC), Gallery Jones (Vancouver, BC), Winchester Galleries (Victoria, BC), Deluge Contemporary Art (Victoria, BC), The Penticton Art Gallery (Penticton, BC), Open Space Arts Society (Victoria, BC), and Chernoff Fine Art (Vancouver, BC).  

Presented in partnership with The Bay Centre, McWitch by Todd Lambeth [April – June 2026] is the fourth and final in a year-long series of presentations reimagining the storefront of the Victoria Arts Council’s Project Space, titled [WINDOW][WINDOW][WINDOW], curated by Kegan McFadden. This presentation is co-produced with Deluge Contemporary Art.

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Suburban expectation by Peony Ng
January – March 2026

My work confines a sense of belonging within abandoned interior spaces, the rapidly urbanizing landscape made me reflect on how collective memory can be physically preserved as a contemporary artist. I envision dreams as a pachinko machine—a chaotic, glittering cascade of thoughts and possibilities. As artist Judy Pfaff noted, such imagery can feel like “a bundle of confusion,” but upon closer immersion, patterns and connections become visible. As everything seemed to echo within one another, you would be compelled to look closely. It is my intention to pull you into this dream state, creating a visual spectacle that allows us to collectively experience the ineffable feeling of memory, loss, and wonder that words can scarcely capture.

– P.N.

Peony Ng is an artist born and raised in Hong Kong who explores the liminal extrapolations between dream-like elements and urban spaces under construction. Graduating with a BFA from University of Victoria in 2025 and continuing her MFA at Emily Carr University Art + Design, she has been utilizing drawing and installation art as her primary medium.

With architectural and subliminal spaces, she intends to explore the shared nostalgia found within the archived memory. The illustrations she works with are known for their dreamlike elements and abstract depictions, bringing viewers into her dreamlike spectacular.

Presented in partnership with The Bay Centre, Suburban expectation by Peony Ng [January – March 2026] is the third in a year-long series of presentations reimagining the storefront of the Victoria Arts Council’s Project Space, titled [WINDOW][WINDOW][WINDOW], curated by Kegan McFadden.

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PLAY by Jamin Zuroski
October – December 2025
presented in partnership with STEPS Public Art and The Bay Centre

This seal design celebrates the vibrant spirit that comes alive when we lead with curiosity.

It’s a reminder of the playful, open-hearted energy that fuels discovery and innovation. When we embrace learning, growth, and play, we unlock our fullest potential, individually and together.

May these seals inspire us to stay curious, collaborate boldly, and explore fearlessly. The journey of becoming never ends, so let’s keep creating, questioning, and growing, side by side.

– J.Z.

Jamin Zuroski is an Award Winning ‘Namgis First Nations Artist, residing in Victoria, BC. Jamin holds mixed ancestry from Ukrainian and Polish on his father’s side and ‘Na̱mg̱is, Da̱naxdax̱w, Ma’a̱mtagila, Mowachaht, and E’iksen on his mother’s side. One of three siblings from his mother, Cindy Cook, he is the grandchild to Ruth and George Cook. The Gigalgam Cook family comes from Alert Bay, which is located on Cormorant Island. Alert Bay sits on the regional lands of the Kwakwaka’wakw, the Kwak’wala speaking peoples. Jamin currently lives in Victoria, BC, on the lands of the Coast Salish Peoples, though he continues to visit Alert Bay to attend cultural ceremonies and events. He knows that his heritage and desire for community connections is the heartbeat and fuel of his everyday actions.

Jamin was first introduced to learn and practice a variety of West Coast Indigenous design styles in grade seven at James Bay Elementary School. During this time of artistic learning, he instantly became spiritually, mentally, physically, and emotionally connected to the stories and legends of West Coast Indigenous Peoples. For over 25 years, Jamin has worked with numerous artists, community members, organizations, businesses, schools, Friendship Centres, and government on a variety of cultural projects and initiatives. Some mediums he currently works with include cedar wood carving, cedar and glass sandblasting, mural painting, canvas painting, and computer graphics.

jaminzuroski.com

Presented in partnership with STEPS Public Art, Play by Jamin Zuroski [October – December 2025] is the second in a year-long series of presentations reimagining the storefront of the Victoria Arts Council’s Project Space, titled [WINDOW][WINDOW][WINDOW], curated by Kegan McFadden. www.vicartscouncil.ca

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July 2025 – June 2026

Unique art presentations across the three windows on Fort Street

Amplifying our public presence over the coming year, the Victoria Arts Council’s Project Space at 670 Fort Street will host four unique window installations by local, national, and internationally-recognized artists. 

Project curator, and VAC executive director, Kegan McFadden notes that the Council’s presence downtown has taken many forms over the decades from traditional exhibitions, to large-scale community projects, to storefront installations. Since opening the Project Space in January of this year, the VAC hosted an evolving exhibition in the form of an experimental reading room/library, titled ANOTHER LIFE, where interpretations of what makes a book and where printed matter enters the realm of contemporary art was the focus.

The project, [WINDOW][WINDOW][WINDOW] builds on the VAC’s partnership with The Bay Centre, and contributes to the long history of contemporary artists activating storefronts for means beyond the commercial, and will be viewable from the street at all times of day and night.

From vinyl wraps to collage to banners and hand-painted imagery, [WINDOW][WINDOW][WINDOW] will showcase one artist at a time in three-month-long presentations from July 2025 – June 2026.

These presentations are supported financially by CRD Arts Services Branch, BC Arts Council’s Community Arts Program, and the Province of BC’s Community Gaming Fund, with additional consideration courtesy of The Bay Centre and STEPS Public Art. 

[WINDOW][WINDOW][WINDOW] is inaugurated with an installation by Vikky Alexander.

In February of 2014, on a trip to Tokyo, I wandered around the shopping district of Aoyama.

The district was predominantly high end retail boutiques, such as Prada, Comme des Garçons and Roberto Cavalli.   

It had just snowed, a rare occurrence in Tokyo.

Following my 2009 series ‘Paris Showrooms,’ and a much earlier series from1992, ‘West Edmonton Mall’,  I took photographs of the streets as reflected in the shop windows, visually sandwiching the indoor displays with the passersby.

I chose the circular framing device to refer in, a self-conscious way, to scopophilia — the love of looking.

The photographs are characterized by my ongoing consideration of illusion and material desires framed within the language of architecture and design.  The works examine how these formal signs reveal and shape meaning in contemporary culture, bringing to the foreground discussions of late-capitalism and its commodification of culture.  The photographs also foreground a utopian desire within the parameters of fantasy and cultural longing.

These are consistent themes in my work. – VA

Vikky Alexander (b. 1959, Victoria, BC) is a Montreal-based artist celebrated for her ongoing contributions to Pictures Generation strategies of critique by appropriation. Engendering a quietly reflective feminism that investigates the power of framing devices within the architectures of corporate branding, her works assess the fetishistic, bureaucratized and aspirational—generating recombinatory mixtures of appropriated scenes of natural landscapes and typifications of beauty that demarcate the romanticization of nature and the naturalization of romance. Activating a jarring fracture between embodied experience and its idealized presentation, her sensual and stylized works spanning installation, sculpture, photography, and video cumulatively denature the commercial annexation of personal capacities for self-reflection.

Vikky Alexander’s work has been exhibited internationally at venues including The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver; Dia Art Foundation, New York; White Columns, New York; Musée d’ art moderne et contemporain, Genève; Downs & Ross, New York; New Museum, New York; Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle; Kunsthalle Bern, Bern; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Montreal; International Center of Photography, New York; Cooper Cole Gallery, Toronto; Canada House, London; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Barbican Art Gallery, London; and Yokohama Civic Art Gallery, Yokohama. Her works are included in the permanent collections of the International Center of Photography; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Geneva; Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles; National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Deste Foundation, among numerous others. A graduate of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, she lives and works in Montreal, Quebec. Upcoming presentations of her work include exhibitions at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Sprengel Museum, Hannover; Museum der Moderne, Salzburg; and Museo d’arte della Svizzera italiana, Lugano.

This special presentation of Tokyo Showrooms will be the first exhibition of Alexander’s work on the Canadian west coast since her survey with the Vancouver Art Gallery, Extreme Beauty, in 2020.