2025-2026 Season

Johnny is holding an Artist Salon on December 13th at 6:30 pm. All artworks are for sale.

I am Johnny (Tiger) Tai, a dedicated martial-arts instructor residing in the vibrant city of Richmond, BC. What sets me apart as an artist is my unique perspective – I am entirely blind and partially deaf. My journey as an artist has been an extraordinary one, marked by notable milestones. I recently concluded my artist-in-residence program at Vancouver’s esteemed Grunt Gallery on April 15th, 2023. In February of the same year, I had the privilege of showcasing my work at the “Disability Arts Market” held at the prestigious BMO Theatre.
Scheduled for September 2023, I am excited to be part of a group exhibition titled “Neither Here Nor There,” exploring the theme of immigration at the Outlet Gallery in Port Coquitlam. Furthermore, my artwork has been featured in the captivating “Amplified Voices” show, which graced the Vancouver Italian Cultural Centre from May to August 2023. Additionally, some of my creations were proudly displayed at an Immigrant Artists Event hosted by Defyned.org on March 18th, 2023, at Century House in New Westminster. As far back as early 2000’s, my works have adorned the halls of Richmond Secondary High School, Bon’s Restaurant off Broadway, and the front office of SET-BC.
In 2025, my solo show, Zodiac Crossroads, consisting of 22 pieces, debuted at the Richmond Annex Gallery.
I warmly welcome any opportunity that furthers my growth and evolution as an artist.

Amy is holding an Artist Salon on December 13th at 6:30 pm. All artworks are for sale.

Amy Amantea is a blind, Vancouver-based bead artist whose work is rooted in touch, intuition, and the expressive possibilities of tactile craft. Known as The Blind Beader, Amy creates intricate pieces by feeling the texture, weight, and temperature of each bead, allowing her hands—not her eyes—to guide the design. Her practice highlights the sensory richness of beadwork and reframes blindness as a powerful creative perspective rather than a barrier.
Drawing on her lived experience of legal blindness, ADHD, dyslexia, and chronic pain, Amy’s work embraces slowness, attention, and care. Her pieces often explore themes of memory, resilience, and embodied knowledge, inviting audiences to reconsider what “seeing” can mean in an artistic context.
Amy’s beadwork reflects a deeply personal relationship to texture, rhythm, and narrative; crafted through touch, imagination, and shaped by a creative practice that honours Disability as an artistic strength.
In addition to her beadwork, Amy is an Accessibility Strategist and Creative Access Consultant with more than seventeen years of experience supporting arts organizations in becoming more inclusive. Her advocacy and her artwork share the same intention: to expand who gets to participate in the arts, and how. She currently serves as the Associate Director of VocalEye, Canada’s first live audio description service, where she champions accessible theatre and community-engaged programming for the blind and partially sighted.

Grace Tao is holding an Artist Salon on October 25th at 6:30 pm. Doors open at 6:00.

Grace Tao is a Canadian painter whose work explores the intersection of mechanics and human experience. She began painting at a young age, but her path first led her through Engineering and Economics before she returned fully to art.

After immigrating to Canada, she pursued her passion and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Concordia University in Montreal, majoring in Painting & Drawing and minoring in Computation Art. These experiences—combined with her life as an immigrant, parent, and entrepreneur —continue to shape the way she approaches art.

Over time, she has become fascinated with mechanical themes — vehicles, motorcycles, and cameras, which she sees as metaphors for life itself: layered, structured, and beautiful, yet often governed by forces beyond our control.

Elisabeth graduated from the Alberta ­College of Art in Calgary. After a career in graphic design, she joined Malaspina ­Printmakers Society and learned the art of traditional stone lithography. Over the next 20 years, Elisabeth became well known for her realistic renderings of wildlife and birds. Her skill and artistry continued with egg tempera paintings and now with coloured pencils, a medium particularly suited to her meticulous style of drawing.

Elisabeth attained SFCA Signature Status with the Federation of Canadian Artists and is an Elected Member of the Society of ­Canadian Artists and a Signature Member of Artists for ­Conservation. Her work is in ­collections in Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, ­Mexico and the U.S.A.

A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF STONE LITHOGRAPHY
Stone lithography is based on the principle that oil repels water. The image is drawn onto a flat litho stone using anything with grease content, such as grease pencils. The surface is then “etched” which stabilizes the drawing.
The stone is placed on the bed of a lithography press and sponged with water. A roller coated with oil-based ink is rolled over the stone. The ink adheres only to the greasy image and is repelled by the damp areas which have no image.
The paper is positioned on the stone and passed through a lithographic press under great pressure, and the ink is transferred from the stone onto the paper. Each colour must be printed separately, one colour over the other, so care must be taken that each colour is registered.
It is a painstaking method and few artists today are using it.

If you wish to purchase any of the artworks, please contact the artist:

sommerville@telus.net
Telephone 604-732-1937 or 778-873-7774
www.elisabethsommerville.com