Visual Arts & Photography

Grant is a Canadian visual artist based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada and was short-listed for the Manitoba Society of Artists 2024 Open Juried Competition and Exhibition.  “My main artistic expression is painting.  However, I’ve done print making, sketching, photography, wood carving, and furniture making.

“I have always viewed the world around me in pictures, images, colours, shapes, sizes, patterns and ideas.  My love of nature and the outdoors led to a strong interest in the Canadian art movement pioneered by Tom Thomson, Emily Carr and the Group of Seven artists.  Viewing the Tom Thomson sketches and Group of Seven paintings at the National Gallery has had a significant influence on me.  In my childhood, living beside renowned artist Ivan Eyre, provided an up close glimpse into the life of an artist.  I am grateful to my art teachers for their instruction, direction and encouragement.  Methods and techniques from those classes are evident in the creative process of my art making today.”

Claire Johnston is a Red River Métis and settler visual artist based in Winnipeg/Treaty 1 Territory. As a Two-Spirit Piitoshi-iteeyihtam (one who thinks differently), Claire engages in creating slow meticulous floral beadwork that responds relationally to the past and present.

Claire is an artist and team member with the Re*Storying Autism project (Queen's University), which works to combat Western, colonial, capitalist, and biomedical understandings of Autism through Autistic storytelling and narratives that affirm difference as desirable and needed.

As part of Canada’s official entry to the 2025 Venice Biennale, Claire was selected as a fellow to engage in research on Venetian seed beads and their connection to Métis beadworkers past and present. Their artwork has been acquired by permanent collections at the University of Manitoba (2024) and has exhibited at Urban Shaman (Winnipeg 25’), Rosemary Gallery (Winnipeg 24’), Tangled Arts (Toronto 22’, 24’), Festival du Voyageur (Winnipeg 24’), Venice Biennale of Architecture (Venice 23’) and The Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art (Vancouver 22’).

Claire is a Sundancer, a step-parent, an auntie, and an MMF citizen with membership with the Two-Spirit Michif Local.

Angelle Holmes is the eye behind AH! Photos Winnipeg, a Winnipeg-based freelancer where curiosity meets storytelling. She’s a funny, friendly, and relatable photographer who cares deeply about securing and normalizing authentic representation in modern media. Her work is colorful, approachable, and grounded in the everyday. Her work is described as feeling familiar yet exciting.

Right now, Angelle is freelancing with Getty Images, using its worldwide reach to represent Winnipeg’s diverse communities on a global stage. She puts out casting calls and creates opportunities for people from all walks of life to be seen, with a focus on fairness, safety, and accurate representation.

Her photographs (featured in campaigns for Microsoft, Adobe, and the Royal Bank of Canada, and in publications like Parents, Men’s Health, and Buzzfeed) aim to show that every person is unique but also connected. We share qualities, we share experiences, yet no two people experience them in the same way. With advanced DEI training through Getty, Angelle captures these truths with honesty, warmth, and a touch of humor.

Whether she’s building a set or catching natural light in a fleeting moment, she’s busy making images that not only look good but feel like something real, and invite everyone to see themselves in the story.

I am a Canadian artist from Northern Manitoba, known for my realistic landscapes, still life compositions, and portraits. I started my artistic practice using acrylics but struggled to get the depth that I was looking for in my work.  Using oils is my preferred medium as I love the vibrancy and the richness of the paint.  With oil paint, I can explore intricate shapes and captivating colours. I'm inspired by the old masters, I enjoy capturing the interplay of light and shadow and sometimes employ a limited palette for subtle tonal variations.

I strive to uncover overlooked beauty, revealing elegance in still life, landscapes and conveying emotion in portraits. Through my work, I invite viewers to find solace in the simple joys and rediscover the magnificence of the world around us.

Olivia Cassie (she/her) is a local multidisciplinary artist whose work touches on self exploration, acceptance and making peace with the past. Growing up undiagnosed autistic, biracial and queer, Olivia often felt like an outcast and internalized these feelings into her adult life. In 2023, she connected with an artistic practice that allowed her to safely explore these feelings and the other traumas from her youth. Through portraiture, her work depicts raw emotions of loss, sorrow and bittersweet hope which helps her feel kinship with others. Olivia hopes that, through delicate displays of feeling, she can gain a better understanding of her own inner world and find her place in the world moving around her.