Upcoming Artists

Duane Prentice

Duane Prentice is a cinema stills, documentary, and fine art photographer and is listed in the Magenta Foundation’s Carte Blanche.

He previously worked with international photographic agencies Network Photographers UK and Tom Keller NY. Duane divides his time between feature films, as a freelancer with Canada’s national newspaper, the Globe and Mail and personal documentary and fine art projects. He is a registered member of the IATSE 669 cinema camera union and the Canadian Association of
Journalists (CAJ).

He received a 2001 National Press Photographer's Association Honorable Features Mention and a Canada Council Travel Bursary for The Crucible, a
five­year documentary project on people’s lives in Vancouver's Downtown East­side. His series Remnants, was awarded Applied Arts Best Landscape Series for 2009. Duane is the author of P2P: A Visual History of
Photography, a ten week course taught to middle school students.

Duane is a Canadian and EU/Irish citizen. He resides in Victoria, BC. Canada.

Please visit nomadicvisions.com for more information.

Dianne Bersea

Dianne has been a professional artist for 30 years with creative beginnings in the wild places of Canada’s western province..., including a river-side log cabin nestled in the Okanagan Mountains and a lighthouse station on the blustery outer coast of Vancouver Island. Home-schooled on a emergency air base in the open grassland of the Fraser Plateau, Dianne grew up among the wild animals, grasslands and forests of BC central plateau.

Despite occasional urban residencies, Dianne has always sought her most meaningful home-places in the deep lake valleys or isolated islands of the B.C. Coast.

Now a partner in Manzanita Muse Studio on Cortes Island, Dianne explores her environment through a variety of media, including watercolor, acrylic, pen & ink, pencils, watercolor pencils and watercolor crayons. "I'm really in the mood to experiment right now. I can see my work changing in the near future. More depth, more richness."

Dianne brings to all her work the knowledge and discipline of careers in graphic design, fine art, natural history illustration, and, exhibit design for Canada’s national parks. She is also an accomplished watercolor painter and workshop presenter. Dianne inspires students with her unabashed enthusiasm, humor and knowledge of the creative process. She lives and works on Cortes Island in B.C.’s northern Gulf Islands.

Norma Jackson

Norma is an award-winning Canadian artist living in the Cowichan Valley, BC. Her work has spanned the creative spectrum from professional marionette theatre and therapeutic arts, drama and puppetry to fine art. Renowned as an excellent art instructor, her art also sells internationally.

Norma’s interest in drawing and painting (with anything available) began during childhood in Victoria, BC. Life circumstances later intervened and Norma’s love of art was put aside for many years while she worked as a paralegal, held many executive positions, and raised her own family.

Her life was transformed as a result of meeting mentor, and future friend, Sheila Conway, a Tsimsian medicine woman, yogi master, Christian, concert pianist and operetta singer. An eclectic, powerful and complex individual, Sheila opened many doors for Norma on myriad levels.

Currently working in acrylics, mixed media and sculpture, Norma is an active member of the Federation of Canadian Artists, the Visions Art Studio Tours, and is resident artist at the Loft Gallery in Mill Bay. Over the years, Norma has appeared several times on BCTV, CBC TV’s Wayne Rostad’s, “On the Road Again,” and has been interviewed by CBC Radio’s Sheryl MacKay on “North by Northwest.” During 2009, Norma was also featured in two west coast publications, Senior Living Magazine and Island Arts.