Past Artists/Writers in residence
Lewis Bennett
Artist in Residence: 2021 - 2022
Lewis Bennett is a documentary filmmaker originally from Langley, now based in Vancouver. His films have screened on The New York Times Op-Docs website, in galleries such as the Portland Art Museum, and at film festivals such as TIFF, Hot Docs, and Tribeca. His most recent documentary work has been made using found footage - material he compiled from numerous sources including home video tapes and video-sharing websites like YouTube.
www.lewisbennett.com
www.vimeo.com/lewisbennett
www.lewisbennett.com
www.vimeo.com/lewisbennett
Ava P Christl
Artist in Residence: 2019 to 2021

Ava P Christl was born in Duncan, BC, on Vancouver Island, and moved to northern BC with her family when she was three. Ava finished high school in Terrace, then moved back to Vancouver Island for a few years, after which she returned north, this time to Yellowknife, NWT. Ava left Yellowknife to attend art school, and graduated from NSCAD University in 1986. She then spent a year in Baker Lake, Nunavut managing the Sanavik Printmaking Cooperative after which she settled in Whitehorse, Yukon for about 18 years. Ava began her art career during the Whitehorse years and, over time, held public gallery exhibitions across northern and western Canada. During those years she taught drawing and painting in a variety of capacities from after school art programs to artists in the schools to private workshops. Ava also sat on the board of the Yukon Arts Centre and was actively engaged in the Yukon arts community through paid work and volunteerism. In the early 2000’s Ava moved south to Victoria, BC where she became a professional cook, an organic gardener, and a student, leaving her full-time art practice for some 10 years. She continued to paint throughout those years and was actively engaged in community arts by starting an annual art walk/studio tour in her Vic West neighbourhood where she also designed and hosted a number of community arts projects as part of neighbourhood events such as Vic West Fest. Ava began a return to her full time art practice in recent years by seeking out and participating in artists residencies in Canada and the USA. Ava is pleased to be Artist in Residence at the Ranger Station Art Gallery.
https://avapchristl.tumblr.com/
https://avapchristl.tumblr.com/
Aileen Penner
Artist in Residence: 2018-2019
Aileen Penner is an emerging mixed-media artist and encaustic painter based in Victoria, BC. Her formal training is as a writer and poet and it is her love of language, science and nature that informs and inspires her work. Themes in her work centre on loss: loss of species, loss of family, trauma and where to place our collective chaos and grief. She is heavily influenced and curious about scientific ways of understanding the world and she is equally interested in what goes into the “scientific method,” as what is left out. Her work has been exhibited at the Fortune Gallery, the North Vancouver Community Art Gallery, Gulf of Georgia Cannery in Steveston, and the VIVO Media Arts Centre in Vancouver. She was the Artist in Residence at Camosun College this last summer working on a series of cyanotypes for a solo show of her work at Xchanges Gallery in Victoria, BC on October 5, 2018.
While in residence, Aileen will be working on a series of mixed-media and collage panels that look at animals, the museum and natural history and ask what role humans play in this (un)telling. She will draw on her love of scientific ways of knowing and a collection of natural history journals gifted to her by her science communication mentor, Jay Ingram, in creating objects the viewer can interact with.
www.aileenpenner.com
While in residence, Aileen will be working on a series of mixed-media and collage panels that look at animals, the museum and natural history and ask what role humans play in this (un)telling. She will draw on her love of scientific ways of knowing and a collection of natural history journals gifted to her by her science communication mentor, Jay Ingram, in creating objects the viewer can interact with.
www.aileenpenner.com