Portals to Elsewhere
Amy J. Dyck
Topham Brown Memorial Gallery
Opening Reception: March 19 from 6 to 8 pm
March 20 @ 10:00 am – May 20 @ 5:00 pm
Portals to Elsewhere invites viewers into a dreamlike, psychological landscape populated by strange, fragile, and resilient beings. Drawing from her lived experience with disability and chronic illness, Amy J. Dyck creates figures that are broken and fierce, layered with symbols of human, animal, and mechanical forms. These creatures act as visual metaphors for imagination, memory, instinct, resistance, and self-protection—reflecting the complexity of what it means to endure and adapt.
At the heart of the exhibition is a large circular installation that transforms the gallery into a contemplative, immersive environment. Seven evolving figures suggest movement through time, even as they were created during a period when the artist’s body was in collapse. Windows appear throughout the work as a central metaphor—portals to other spaces and possibilities, offering escape, reflection, and the hope of becoming something different. The exhibition ultimately becomes a wild, otherworldly place where both artist and viewer are invited to imagine new ways of belonging, resilience, and home.
Amy J. Dyck is a contemporary multimedia figurative artist and writer based in Langley, British Columbia. After a sudden and severe illness in her early twenties left her using a wheelchair, Dyck turned to art as a way to process and survive her changing reality. Her practice draws on classical approaches to anatomy and figurative painting, combined with experimental mixed media processes that explore the body as a vessel for memory, emotion, and lived experience. Dyck exhibits widely, with work held in private collections internationally. She has received multiple international awards, was granted a Canada Council for the Arts award in 2024, and is a frequent podcast guest and speaker. She is currently working on a memoir exploring the intersection of art, illness, and resilience.
