No Fun Zone Art Studio
Kayleigh Kristiansen and Tom Smith
Kayleigh Kristiansen and Tom Smith are visual artists specializing in acrylic painting and wood sculpture. Together they founded the No Fun Zone, a collaborative art collective that began in 2011 as a means to bring collaborative art as a performance into the public eye, bridging the gap between working class artists and the upper echelons of the art world. This focus on connecting with people via creativity eventually brought them to Quadra Island in 2018. In their shared studio space, they have shifted their focus to individual and dedicated studio projects.
Kayleigh Kristiansen is an acrylic painter who explores the world curiously through colour and form. Their work draws heavily on psychedelic and vibrant imagery contrasted with topics that comment on our relationships with nature, our communities, and society at large. Most recently, their collection of work has focused on a reverence to nature and the precious relationships that maintain the balance in which we all thrive and suffer.
Working on the territories of the Liǧʷiłdaxʷ people has provided Tom Smith a privileged opportunity to hone in on the mastery of his skills as a life long woodworker. His most recent collection is entirely curated from salvaged driftwood, each piece unique in form and quality. Each subject is laboriously hand carved and hand sanded, creating the jewelled trademark in Tom’s work. His process is a humble collaboration with nature, guided by the elements towards rejuvenation of these ancient relics. Their stories never left, and as long as we are here to witness them, they never will.
