Where We Meet: A Collaboration by Deb Chaney & Ocean Mussack
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One of the things I love most about being an artist is that I get to continue to grow, learn and evolve. One of the best ways I've found to do that is by spending time with other artists whose work I genuinely admire and intentionally allowing their work to influence my own.
That's what led to Where We Meet.
Ocean Mussack and I have been collecting each other's work for years. I have several of her sculptures in my home, and she has a number of my paintings. We've talked about collaborating for a long time, and this exhibition will be our first collaboration.
What excites me most about working with Ocean is the process of allowing the colours, textures, marks, and shapes of her sculptures to influence my creative process. Having her work in my home while creating this new body of paintings has encouraged me to see differently, try new approaches and allow my work to evolve in ways I couldn't have anticipated.
It's a way of working I've never intentionally explored before, and that feels both exciting and creatively expansive.
Early on, Ocean and I also made a commitment to each other that our well-being would come first. We wanted this exhibition to be something we genuinely enjoyed, and that intention has become an important part of the collaboration itself.
The exhibition title, Where We Meet, explores multiple meanings.
It speaks to where two artists meet through mutual respect and curiosity.
It speaks to where painting meets sculpture.
Where colour meets wood.
And where texture, shape, and mark-making begin to converse.
When I began creating my series of square paintings this year, I realized each square represented a person. The colours, marks and textures overlap, influence one another, sometimes standing apart and sometimes blending together, much like we do in our own lives.
Bringing Ocean's sculptures into that visual language creates another layer of relationship. The conversation no longer exists only within the paintings, but between the paintings and the sculptures as well.
For me, this exhibition has become an exploration of where our work meets, where our creative practices meet, and where collaboration can take us when we're willing to remain open and curious.
I also hope visitors discover where they meet the work.
Perhaps it's through a particular painting, a sculpture, a texture, a memory, or simply the feeling created by seeing these pieces in conversation with one another.
In the end, that's what Where We Meet is really about—not just where Ocean and I meet as artists, but where each visitor finds their own connection within the exhibition.
I'd love for you to come and experience it with us.
Exhibition Details
Where We Meet
Art Collaboration by Deb Chaney & Ocean Mussack
September 4–5, 2026
Exhibition Hours
Fri, Sep 4 12 PM–6 PM
Sat, Sep 5 10 AM–4 PM
Gabriola Arts & Heritage Centre
476 South Road
Gabriola Island, BC
