Bearing Witness: A 2SLGBTQ+ Visibility Project-Solo Exhibition
- jeannettesirois
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
Cowichan Public Art Gallery
November 28, 2025 – February 28, 2026
Opening Reception: November 27, 6–9 PM
Artist Talk: January 17, 1–2 PM
This winter, the Cowichan Public Art Gallery will present Bearing Witness: A 2SLGBTQ+ Visibility Project, a solo exhibition of my recent drawings exploring identity, memory, and the ongoing fight for representation. The show brings together works from three interconnected series-At the Table, Mortal Coil, and Bad Hair Day each examining how portraiture can serve as both testimony and resistance.
At the Table features nine portraits of 2SLGBTQ+ individuals whose stories confront histories of exclusion and erasure. These large-scale coloured pencil drawings transform bureaucratic language—the codes, files, and systems once used to define and control queer bodies—into acts of reclamation and visibility. One of these works, At the Table: Lorraine, received the Matt Steffich Jurors’ Choice Award at the Parallel Art Show, a recognition that underscores the project’s broader social and artistic relevance.
Complementing this body of work are three drawings from Mortal Coil, a series of intimate black-and-white self-portraits addressing mental health and endurance, and Bad Hair Day #3, a large-scale mixed-media piece that merges humour and vulnerability in its study of identity and appearance.
Bearing Witness is ultimately about visibility-not as spectacle, but as survival. It’s about refusing silence, honouring lived experience, and claiming space within histories that too often excluded us.
I hope you can drop by the gallery when the show is on, or come to the opening on the 27th.
Cowichan Public Art Gallery
126 Ingram St. Duncan, BC
Tuesday-Saturday 1- am-4pm
Thank you for sharing