The Bowen Arts Tour Team

Let us introduce you to some of our Team Members, each bring a wealth of experience and share a love of the Arts! We hope you have an amazing experience when you join us to Tour Bowens Arts!

  • Marie Neys

    Marie has dedicated the last decade to The Arts on Bowen Island. Her background in Marketing, has allowed her to mentored numerous artists, open an art gallery that sells art for over 55 artists, and be a founding committee member for the Bowen Arts Tour. Marie founded the Paint it Forward program and continues to teach others how to create in Acrylics.

    You can enjoy her paintings, created in both Acrylics & Oils. Browse her website to purchase Original Art, Home Décor Designs and more. MarieNeys.com

    Marie Neys' website 
  • Janet Esseiva

    Janet was born in South Africa and emigrated to Canada with her young family in 1998. Art has always been part of her life, and she attended art school and took workshops and classes at night, while working in IT in South Africa. She moved to Bowen Island in 2005, where she keeps her home studio. She started offering workshops in 2010 which became a sold out hit year after year, with her very accessible teaching style. Her work is represented by several galleries in the Vancouver-Whistler area.
     
    Janet strives to continually reinvent herself as an artist, challenging the limits of both her skill and her preferred medium, acrylics. 

    Janet Esseiva's website 
  • Liz Nankin

    Liz Nankin has been a costume designer in film, theater and television for over three decades. She has also trained as a puppeteer at the Bob Baker Marionette Theater. Telling stories with fashion and sculpture has led to a passionate life of creating community workshops.

    A new Canadian citizen, she moved to Bowen Island in 2018 and joined the Arts Committee of the Hearth Gallery on Bowen Island. She has worked with the Hearth Gallery creating arts community events supporting artists.

    As a participating artist in DIVING IN: THE ART OF CLEANING LAKES AND OCEANS, she has a passion for arts activism. She has taught debris art activism workshops in the Metro Vancouver area as well as Bowen Island. She was awarded a community arts grant in partnership with the Bowen Museum and Archives to co-create BOWEN FABLES, a series of five shadow puppet films about Bowen’s history.

    It’s a joy to gather our Bowen artists and celebrate their work on Tour Bowen Art.

  • Julie Vik

    Julie is excited to be on the inaugural Committee for the 2024 Bowen Arts Tour.

    Her background includes a Diploma in Arts and Entertainment Management and years of experience staging events, both festival and living room sized. She has also worked closely with the press as a music publicist, and has miles of road experience touring as the leader of her band Resin at the turn of the millennium in support of the band’s 3 full length CDs. Today, she is mostly retired and enjoys dabbling in any art form within arms reach.

    Julie Vik's website 
  • Jean Bradbury

    Jean Bradbury paints murals and large-scale images celebrating the diversity of nature and human life. Returning to her home country of Canada after 25 years in Seattle, Jean now explores the forests of Bowen Island for artistic inspiration. As well as her many public art installations she has exhibited her work in the United States, Canada, and Jordan. With degrees in both fine art and graphic design Jean brings years of experience to the Bowen Island Arts Tour.

    Jean Bradbury's website 
  • Claudia Schaefer

    Claudia Schaefer creates bold, contemporary paintings, large showpiece resin sculptures, and functional artworks. Her translucent resin bowls appear to be made of glass and have been described as Chihuly-like. Claudia's paintings are often exuberant and colourful, other times serene, and she hopes they uplift the spirit of the viewer.

    Her relationship with the natural world, nurtured by her 35 year career as a Botanist and Ecologist, often finds its way into her artwork, where both real and imagined settings and creatures are found. Claudia also publishes the much-loved Bowen Island phonebook, filling its pages with local art and showcasing fellow artists on the island. Claudia will be donating 10% of her sales during the Art Tour to Nature Conservancy Canada.  

    Claudia Shaefer's website