As Gallery Vertigo continues to celebrate its 25th anniversary, we are honoured to present an exhibition by Judith Jurica, whose vision and leadership were instrumental in establishing both the North Okanagan Artists Alternative Association (NOAA) and Gallery Vertigo.

After earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Victoria at Okanagan University College in 1994, Judith built a career dedicated to nurturing the arts in the North Okanagan. She worked in several art galleries and taught art in schools and institutions throughout Vernon and the surrounding communities, sharing her knowledge and inspiring the next generation of artists.

In 2000, Judith initiated the North Okanagan Artists Alternative (NOAA), and in 2001 founded Gallery Vertigo, an artist-run centre in downtown Vernon. As Creative Director and Administrator until 2011, she helped establish a vibrant, grassroots organization that continues to support artists, encourage creative exploration, and enrich the cultural life of our community.

Throughout these years, Judith continued to develop and exhibit her own work. Today, she is a full-time studio artist based in Coldstream, British Columbia, while also maintaining a studio in a small village in Slovakia.

As we celebrate this milestone year, we extend our heartfelt gratitude to Judith for the vision, dedication, and leadership that helped create a lasting legacy for artists in the North Okanagan. We invite you to enjoy her exhibition and celebrate an artist whose passion continues to inspire our community twenty-five years later.

When asked for a statement about her exhibition, Judith stated:

My art is my story.

My work reveals itself day by day, just as my journey unfolds.

Sometimes images appear slowly and deliberately in a series of lyrical vignettes. At other times, they are released in a flurry and flutter up like flying things.

As the images develop, they allow my voice to surface and give shape to my obsessions. They are often pure flights of fancy. The result is what I like to call ‘subliminal abstraction with glimpses of reality’. I like not knowing what will happen next. It keeps me endlessly fascinated.

I am pleased to share my thoughts and process with you in this exhibition of a few recent works along with one or two older mixed media works. I enjoy observing how time causes the imagery to loop and collide; how it breaks through or reinforces what I know to be true. 

I hope you enjoy ‘some of these days’.

Kate Tooke is an award-winning representational oil painter who lives with her dogs, cats, horses, and chickens in beautiful Vernon, BC.

These paintings are selected from Kate’s body of work, in which she explores her intimate connection to her animal subjects. Her relationships with these animals have been an anchor through some of the most turbulent years of her life, including the critical illness and loss of her husband. Painting them is an act of reverence, gratitude, and honour; a way of acknowledging the animals that have shaped who she is and how she moves through the world.

Kate had her first solo exhibition in Vernon at Gallery Vertigo in 2023, and she is grateful to be exhibiting there once again on their member wall this month. Her next solo exhibition, Animal Call, will be on view at the Armstrong Spallumcheen Museum and Art Gallery from September 3–26.