Deer Lake Artist Residency Summer Series

Julia has been doing ceramic work since the mid 2000s. Her interest in clay began as an experiment to learn something new every January, and although she continues to explore many creative practices, pottery has always been the centre focus. Atmospheric firing, where fate takes the reins, has always been a favourite alongside electric firing for illustrative work. Influences include people in the world, philosophical ideas, science fiction and outer space and every colour of the rainbow. Julia runs summer skool, a community studio in Vancouver. Learn more.

Photo by Sungpil Yoon

Maya Florey is a Burnaby-based sculptor who draws inspiration from plants, animals, rocks and fungi, creating otherworldly, yet strangely familiar forms. Florey received a Bachelor of Fine Art in Ceramics from Emily Carr University in 2023. Since graduating, they have been teaching at community studios, exhibiting their work in several group shows and a solo show and making, at their studio and as a 2025 artist in residence at Medalta. Florey was the recipient of the John C. Kerr Chancellor Emeritus Award for Excellence in Visual Arts (2023), Carole Badgely Emerging Artist Award (2024) and Micki MacKenzie Educational Craft Bursary (2025). Learn more.

Angeline Teoh Simon is a multidisciplinary artist based in Lethbridge, Alberta, Treaty 7 Territory. She graduated from the University of Lethbridge in 2018, with a Bachelor of Fine Art in Art Studio. As a second-generation biracial Canadian, her practice explores familial narratives and the dynamics within contrasting cultures. Working with collage and ceramics, Simon’s practice investigates intergenerational memory and diaspora, stemming from her experience spending summers with her maternal family in Malaysia. Her work has been exhibited at galleries and institutions including the Art Gallery of Alberta, Esker Foundation, Harcourt House Artist Run Centre, Southern Alberta Art Gallery and PLATFORM Centre for Photographic Arts. Learn more.

Taaye is a process-driven artist whose work explores materiality alongside diasporic subjectivity and the poetics of estrangement. Working primarily with East Asian mineral pigments (岩絵具 iwaenogu; 岩彩 yán cǎi), her practice has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts (2024, 2025), the BC Arts Council (2025), and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council Emerging Artist Grant (2025).

She has upcoming residencies at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and Vancouver’s Centre A. Her work has been exhibited at the Centre of International Contemporary Art in Vancouver and Art Next Expo in Hong Kong. Taaye holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Rhode Island School of Design. Learn more.
 

Foroozan Talei Fard is a Persian-Canadian, Vancouver-based artist who was born and raised in Tehran, Iran. She has graduated from Emily Carr University with a Bachelor of Visual Arts focusing on ceramics. Talei Fard works part-time at the UBC Chan Centre. She also teaches pottery at Palette Art Studio, as well as working with different artists and communities. As a Persian-Canadian, craft and art have been a significant part of her life. She has a lifetime experience of using her hands creatively. She is pushing herself and exploring the unconventional uses of materials outside of their common usage — such as knitting with clay. Learn more.

Lisa Warren is a Vancouver-based ceramic artist working primarily in functional ceramics. Her practice is rooted in utilitarian minimalism and informed by her background in production pottery. Alongside her personal work, she manages community centre studios and teaches ceramics, fostering engagement and advocating for accessibility. She studied ceramics and fine art at Langara College and completed her Bachelor of Arts at the University of British Columbia.

Her current work focuses on large-scale, non-functional and sculptural forms, with a focus on material exploration and atmospheric firing techniques. Through this shift, she is interested in the expressive potential of clay beyond utility, creating space for experimentation, vulnerability and artistic development. Learn more.

Ketty Haolin Zhang, born in Chaoyang, China, is a visual artist working primarily in painting and sculpture. Informed by her diasporic experience as a 1.5 generation immigrant, her practice navigates her relationship with placelessness, self-construction and (non)belonging — the simultaneous desire to belong and to resist being defined, and how desires and memories take material form in the in-between spaces. Zhang's work has been featured by Dazed, CBC Arts, SAD Mag and Prism International, and exhibited at White Columns, Field Projects, Beijing Design Week, Centre for International Contemporary Art, Centre A, Canton-Sardine, The Bows, The Reach Gallery Museum and Surrey Art Gallery. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from University of British Columbia.

Mengya Zhao is a Chinese-Canadian multidisciplinary artist based in Vancouver, working across ceramic sculpture, illustration and printmaking. Her practice blends surrealism with cultural storytelling, drawing from her Sichuan heritage, immigrant experience and observations of daily life. Through layered textures and imaginative hand-built forms, she explores vulnerability, identity and the subtle discomforts shaped by hearing loss and cross-cultural belonging. Zhao has exhibited in Canada, the United States and Belgium, with her most recent group exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, UK. She is currently undertaking a residency at one of Germany’s historic porcelain manufactories, where she is developing new sculptural directions. Learn more.