Eastside Culture Crawl - A Visual Arts, Design, & Crafts Festival

Tragicomedy

Tragicomedy Acrylic ink & pastel on archival paper 16"x12" 2020 This piece speaks to the year it was made. It illustrates a place where murphy's law rules and one tragic day, month or year produces another to the point of ridiculousness.

Healing Circle

This vivid artwork radiates color and imagination, depicting a cosmic scene where humanoid figures with exaggerated, fantastical features reach toward a swirling, ethereal Earth. The figures evoke ancestral, aboriginal-like beings engaged in a healing ritual around the earth, symbolizing unity, connection, and cosmic balance. The piece conveys a sense of collective yearning and aspiration, with its imaginative use of color and form representing the universal desire for healing, transcendence, and a deeper cosmic connection.

Pansy Gardeners

This vibrant, symbolically rich painting reimagines and reclaims queer origin stories in the face of erasure, shame, and silence. At its heart is a fantastical garden overflowing with pansies—flowers historically used as a slur against gay men, now transformed into powerful emblems of pride, resilience, and beauty. Among the vivid blooms, partially hidden yet purposeful, are queer gardeners. These figures symbolize those who tend to the future of the LGBTQ+ community—mentors, activists, and everyday individuals who cultivate support, love, and continuity across generations. Through this work, Singleton challenges historical omission by planting new mythologies—origin stories rooted in care, solidarity, and transformation. By placing queer figures at the center of creation and renewal, the painting becomes both a celebration and an act of resistance, offering a hopeful, living archive in full bloom.

Doppelganger

Inspired by Naomi Klein's book of the same name and using the 1594 painting, Gabrielle d'Estrées et une de ses soeurs, as a template this artwork delves into the tension between duality and symbolism, presenting a vivid visual discourse on transformation, feminism, and identity. At its center are two contrasting female figures, each embodying a distinct archetype. On the left, a richly adorned figure wears an intricate headdress of birds, animals, lunar symbols, and witch-like imagery—emblems of queerness, mysticism, and layered identity. She extends a hand, offering a black stone ring to her counterpart, as though proposing a union—or confrontation. Opposite her, the right-hand figure symbolizes tradition and conformity. With a sly expression, she mocks her counterpart with one hand while concealing a kitchen knife in the other. Though clearly captivated by each other, the right figure is restrained—literally—by a concrete patriarchal hand, anchoring her in place.

Persephone With Rose Coloured Glasses

This painting reimagines Persephone at the threshold of innocence and desire, surrounded by symbols of fertility and vitality—a parrot, grains, verdant growth, and deer. Her father, Zeus, appears as a serpent, entwining her in an act of domination. The work confronts the ways patriarchal power infiltrates and corrupts pleasure, reclaiming myth as a site of contemporary critique and resistance. *The piece is made with iridescent ink pigments and glitter that changes with the different light of day.

Time Traveller

Acrylic ink, oil pastel on Arches watercolour paper 30"x23" 2023

Origin of the World

Dripping in female power, this piece celebrates the female body. The Goddess Isis returns to Singleton's work as a chest tattoo and gives life to the women swimming below in this monumental and surreal landscape.

I Gotchu You Baby Fabushay

My intention with this piece was to portray an LGBTQ youth coming into their queerness. They gaze into the abyss with both attitude in their attire and trepidation of what or who they will encounter. The passive lion behind them is perhaps a representation of them - a fierce beast still unaware of their power yet beautiful and fabulous nonetheless. I often collect found materials and work from them in the studio or collage them in. When walking in the desert in Keremeos, I found a braided plastic wood sac that I collaged into this piece which became part of the headdress. I painted from a Found horse bridal to create the figures harness.

Mathematical Knot

Acrylic ink, pastel, Flashe, spray paint on Arches watercolour paper 40"x60" 2023

Love in the Time of Forest Fires

Acrylic ink , pastel, spray paint on Arches watercolour paper 20"x16" 2022 There is an urgent emotion present in this piece that compliments its beauty. Created at Similkameen Artist Residency in Keremeos, I reflected the neon colours of the surrounding forest fires. I played with metaphor by building up the lovers faces with the surrounding forest environment so that they are indistinguishably made of the same stuff. The lovers lips are locked together in a desperate and permanent embrace.

Tragicomedy

Tragicomedy Acrylic ink & pastel on archival paper 16"x12" 2020 This piece speaks to the year it was made. It illustrates a place where murphy's law rules and one tragic day, month or year produces another to the point of ridiculousness.

Healing Circle

This vivid artwork radiates color and imagination, depicting a cosmic scene where humanoid figures with exaggerated, fantastical features reach toward a swirling, ethereal Earth. The figures evoke ancestral, aboriginal-like beings engaged in a healing ritual around the earth, symbolizing unity, connection, and cosmic balance. The piece conveys a sense of collective yearning and aspiration, with its imaginative use of color and form representing the universal desire for healing, transcendence, and a deeper cosmic connection.

Pansy Gardeners

This vibrant, symbolically rich painting reimagines and reclaims queer origin stories in the face of erasure, shame, and silence. At its heart is a fantastical garden overflowing with pansies—flowers historically used as a slur against gay men, now transformed into powerful emblems of pride, resilience, and beauty. Among the vivid blooms, partially hidden yet purposeful, are queer gardeners. These figures symbolize those who tend to the future of the LGBTQ+ community—mentors, activists, and everyday individuals who cultivate support, love, and continuity across generations. Through this work, Singleton challenges historical omission by planting new mythologies—origin stories rooted in care, solidarity, and transformation. By placing queer figures at the center of creation and renewal, the painting becomes both a celebration and an act of resistance, offering a hopeful, living archive in full bloom.

Doppelganger

Inspired by Naomi Klein's book of the same name and using the 1594 painting, Gabrielle d'Estrées et une de ses soeurs, as a template this artwork delves into the tension between duality and symbolism, presenting a vivid visual discourse on transformation, feminism, and identity. At its center are two contrasting female figures, each embodying a distinct archetype. On the left, a richly adorned figure wears an intricate headdress of birds, animals, lunar symbols, and witch-like imagery—emblems of queerness, mysticism, and layered identity. She extends a hand, offering a black stone ring to her counterpart, as though proposing a union—or confrontation. Opposite her, the right-hand figure symbolizes tradition and conformity. With a sly expression, she mocks her counterpart with one hand while concealing a kitchen knife in the other. Though clearly captivated by each other, the right figure is restrained—literally—by a concrete patriarchal hand, anchoring her in place.

Persephone With Rose Coloured Glasses

This painting reimagines Persephone at the threshold of innocence and desire, surrounded by symbols of fertility and vitality—a parrot, grains, verdant growth, and deer. Her father, Zeus, appears as a serpent, entwining her in an act of domination. The work confronts the ways patriarchal power infiltrates and corrupts pleasure, reclaiming myth as a site of contemporary critique and resistance. *The piece is made with iridescent ink pigments and glitter that changes with the different light of day.

Time Traveller

Acrylic ink, oil pastel on Arches watercolour paper 30"x23" 2023

Origin of the World

Dripping in female power, this piece celebrates the female body. The Goddess Isis returns to Singleton's work as a chest tattoo and gives life to the women swimming below in this monumental and surreal landscape.

I Gotchu You Baby Fabushay

My intention with this piece was to portray an LGBTQ youth coming into their queerness. They gaze into the abyss with both attitude in their attire and trepidation of what or who they will encounter. The passive lion behind them is perhaps a representation of them - a fierce beast still unaware of their power yet beautiful and fabulous nonetheless. I often collect found materials and work from them in the studio or collage them in. When walking in the desert in Keremeos, I found a braided plastic wood sac that I collaged into this piece which became part of the headdress. I painted from a Found horse bridal to create the figures harness.

Mathematical Knot

Acrylic ink, pastel, Flashe, spray paint on Arches watercolour paper 40"x60" 2023

Love in the Time of Forest Fires

Acrylic ink , pastel, spray paint on Arches watercolour paper 20"x16" 2022 There is an urgent emotion present in this piece that compliments its beauty. Created at Similkameen Artist Residency in Keremeos, I reflected the neon colours of the surrounding forest fires. I played with metaphor by building up the lovers faces with the surrounding forest environment so that they are indistinguishably made of the same stuff. The lovers lips are locked together in a desperate and permanent embrace.

Tragicomedy

Tragicomedy Acrylic ink & pastel on archival paper 16"x12" 2020 This piece speaks to the year it was made. It illustrates a place where murphy's law rules and one tragic day, month or year produces another to the point of ridiculousness.

Niki Singleton

Studio 580

artist contact info

Tragicomedy

Healing Circle

Pansy Gardeners

Doppelganger

Persephone With Rose Coloured Glasses

Time Traveller

Origin of the World

I Gotchu You Baby Fabushay

Mathematical Knot

Love in the Time of Forest Fires

Tragicomedy

Healing Circle

Pansy Gardeners

Doppelganger

Persephone With Rose Coloured Glasses

Time Traveller

Origin of the World

I Gotchu You Baby Fabushay

Mathematical Knot

Love in the Time of Forest Fires

Tragicomedy

Presented by

Arts Champions

Community Builders

Niki Singleton

Studio 580

artist contact info

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Healing Circle

Presented by

Arts Champions

Community Builders