Recent Solo exhibition: May 2023

Above, from Below

Paneficio Gallery + Studios

800 Keefer St., Vancouver

May 5 – 14, 2023

Opening Reception: May 5, 5pm – 7pm

Saturdays May 6 & 13, noon – 5pm

Sundays May 7 & 14, noon – 5pm

Ilena creates vessels using locally hand foraged clay and found objects, alongside archival information, maps and photos of historic brickworks to spin a tale of how this city was built and those who built it.

*This project was supported through a residency with St. Andrews Wesley United Church

Ilena (she/them) lives and creates on the unceded, ancestral, and occupied, traditional lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Səl̓ílwətaʔ, and Skwxwú7mesh Nations of the Coast Salish peoples (Vancouver, BC, Canada). A ceramic artist, teacher, writer, and theatre designer, she has been a lifelong student of ceramics and clay. Her current practice finds local landscape, environment and materials encountering myth, story and history.

A multi-disciplinary artist before it was a thing, Ilena has been an artist all of her life: a visual and theatre artist, teacher, bartender, traveler, writer, survivor and witch. She studied ballet in Russia during Perestroika, received an arts degree in Alaska, made pottery in the mountains of Mexico, and created many many plays around the world.

Recently honoured to be the Artist-in-residence at St. Andrews Wesley Cathedral in Downtown Vancouver, Ilena can be found most days at her studio at City Centre Artist Lodge, or sailing the waters of the Salish Sea and Sto꞉lo River in beautiful Vancouver, BC.

Instagram:     https://www.instagram.com/ilenaleecramer

Pinterest:     https://www.pinterest.ca/ilenabanana/