Artists Reclaim the Divine Feminine Across Bodies, Lands, and Worlds
Artists: Sandeep Johal, Xiaojing Yan, Kourtney Jackson, Aaron McIntosh
Curated by Jenelle M. Pasiechnik
May 7 – August 8, 2026
This exhibition brings together artists whose practices engage the sacred as a living, relational force rather than a fixed identity. Moving beyond narrow or essentialized definitions of “the feminine,” the works assembled here trace lineages of creation, care, embodiment, and cosmology that both precede and exceed patriarchal frameworks of gender and divinity.
Across cultures and geographies, the sacred has long been understood as plural—emerging through bodies, lands, and worlds, and shaped through relationships between them. Many of these understandings have been suppressed, erased, or transformed through colonial systems and the dominance of singular, masculinized god-figures. The artists in Sacred in All Forms reclaim and reimagine these expansive cosmologies through culturally specific and embodied practices: Xiaojing Yan engages the divine through a Daoist lens grounded in material transformation and energetic flow; Sandeep Johal centers the fierceness and complexity of motherhood through an Indo-folk feminine aesthetic that holds both suffering and resilience; Kourtney Jackson employs hybridized and experimental forms of storytelling that permeate the interiorities of Black queer womanhood; and Aaron McIntosh mines the intersections of material culture, family tradition, sexual desire, and identity politics through his quilted works.
Across these practices, the sacred emerges through entanglement—between human and more-than-human worlds, between inherited traditions and lived experience, and between resistance and care. Queer and gender-expansive bodies are not positioned at the margins but understood as generative sites of knowledge, where identity is continually negotiated and reimagined. By unsettling normative definitions of femininity, the works resist containment and open space for forms of being that are fluid, relational, and self-defined.
The works gathered here do not seek to define the divine feminine. Instead, they ask what becomes possible when the sacred is understood as plural, embodied, and already within, around, and in relation to us—and what it might mean to live in accountability to those relations.
Sandeep Johal’s preparatory work for Beast of Burden offers a glimpse into how an artwork takes shape—through sketching, reflection, revision, and experimentation.
These early stages are often hidden in gallery spaces, yet they are where the work begins. By bringing them into view, this presentation highlights how ideas evolve over time, and how meaning is formed through making.
When you visit, take a moment to look closely.
What materials, marks, or gestures do you notice?
Where do you see change, repetition, or uncertainty?
What decisions might the artist be working through?
Now, consider your own process.
How do you begin something new?
Do you plan carefully, or discover as you go?
Where do you find similarities with the artist’s approach—and where do differences emerge?
What does experimentation look like for you?
Let this be a space for curiosity, reflection, and perhaps inspiration—for your own ways of thinking, making, and becoming.
YOGA in the GALLERY
Fibre & Fungi with Miss Bumble
Nudibranchs Life Drawing – OCEAN WEEK
Lenticular Print Making with Kourtney Jackson
GALLERY NEWS
Grants and Donations will continue to help fund the Campbell River Art Hive
Tuesday – Saturday
10am – 4pm
Accessibility Information
The Campbell River Art Gallery is wheelchair accessible and is accessed by a two main doors to the Centennial Building, with an accessible parking space at the rear of the building. There is one gender inclusive washroom located by the West entrance (near Shoppers Row) If you have any other questions or concerns about accessibility, please contact office 250-287-2261 or admin@crartgallery.ca.
The Art Hive is honoured to receive the 2026 Deryck Thomson Award, presented by SPARC BC. Each year, SPARC BC works with over 100 groups, yet only five awards are granted to individuals or organizations Read more
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by Kristiana Lowe The CRAG is excited to welcome all community members to our current exhibition, Three Eyed Seeing: Indigenous Futurisms co-curated by Sonny Assu and Jenelle M. Pasiechinik. The Exhibition runs from June 5th Read more
1235 Shoppers Row
Campbell River, BC
V9W 2C7
(250) 287-2261