September 2025

Alexandra Bischoff (Long-Term Artist in Residence, 2022–current; Onsite Coordinator, 2023–2025; Residency Manager, 2025-current)

Alexandra Bischoff is a prairie-born artist of settler descent. They hold a Fine-Arts Diploma from MacEwan University (2012), a BFA in Visual Arts Studio from Emily Carr University of Art + Design (2015), and an MFA from Concordia University in Intermedia (2021). Bischoff’s artworks manifest as multimedia installations, sculptures, and writing; their art-making processes as a whole are based in durational performance. While in residency at SAR, Bischoff has been researching family archives and Canada’s homesteading histories to investigate what it means to be a housing-insecure settler on stolen Indigenous land.

Boya Liang

About her work, Boya notes: “My practice investigates the creation of spaces for encountering uncertainty, impermanence, and transformation. Drawing from my Chinese heritage and informed by experiences across diverse cultures, I navigate the confluence of art, science, and Daoist philosophy through material explorations that reveal invisible connections between individual existence and cosmic cycles.

I engage with materials as active collaborators. In my recent projects, I have worked with Xuan paper, incense, human hair, and cyanotype, materials that respond to time, environment, and touch. Process holds more weight than outcome. I burn incense directly on Xuan paper, allowing the slow movement of fire and smoke to inscribe time into the surface. The process becomes both ritual and revelation. Incense burns into smoke, smoke disperses into air, and ash settles on the ground—each stage marking the transformation of qi (炁), the life force that moves through all things, creating movements that mirror larger transformative processes. These dialogues manifest my belief that our lives participate in ongoing cycles of existence. Through ephemeral forms and quiet gestures, I invite viewers to experience the world’s inherent fluidity, finding stability not in fixed answers, but in movement, breath, and becoming.”

Boya Liang is the winner of the Similkameen Artist Residency Studio Award, facilitated by Griffin Art Projects, Emily Carr University of Art + Design, and SAR.

Rebecca Cory

Rebecca is a multidisciplinary artist who works in watercolours, pencil sketches, ink, gouache, as well as 3d projects in paper and textiles. Rebecca’s project at SAR will focus on sharing visual stories of her grandma’s experience growing up in the southern interior of BC and Alberta during and just after the war. Rebecca’s other work explores connections, fantastical landscapes, surreal places and imaginary creatures.

Sadie Gilker

Sadie Gilker is an avid embroiderer, painter, and designer. From a young age, they experimented with making clothing, sewing, and all things creative. More recently, their work has become grounded in the exploration of complex themes such as the textures of violence, memory, and the natural world.

They hold a Master's from Concordia University, where they explored performances of violence in public spaces in Northern Ireland from the interdisciplinary lenses of: Urban Planning, Performance Studies, and Irish Studies. This work scaffolds their current explorations of surrealism through mixed media artworks.

Sadie Gilker is a non-binary interdisciplinary artist currently residing on the traditional and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

Ann Robson

I am an emerging artist living in Vancouver and working in drawing and painting media. After completing an undergraduate degree in studio art, I maintained an art practice before and after moving to Canada in 1976. Due to an interest in artistic development and creativity, I began further study in psychology.
 
Following a move to British Columbia, the compelling beauty of this place provided an abundance of inspiration for art-making and a renewal of my interest in the interface between art and psychology. Since stepping back from my work as a psychologist, I have returned to my art practice in earnest and completed certificates in Drawing and Painting at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. 

In my art-making, I work from what I see. But this is a starting point only. For now, I have a strong interest in representing diverse aspects of the psychological experience of being in the natural environment. My paintings reflect my interest in the theme of connections and my view of landscape as an opportunity for diverse connections between the individual and the environment. These include connections between the landscape and the artist, between the artwork and the viewer, and between humans across different times and places. Paintings for this exhibition are images of water, that offers an abundance of both unique and common human experiences and connections.