OK, Now What?
Third-Year Visual Art Project Exhibition
March 25 – April 4, 2026
Audain Gallery
School for the Contemporary Arts at SFU
149 W. Hastings St., Vancouver
Opening Reception: Tuesday, March 24, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
With Layla Lahham, Charlotte Bauslaugh, Chloe Brownlee, Ricky Cao, Jessie Chen, Maria Kim, Yili Kong, Simone Laursen-Samson, Gladys Lee, Seph Malabuyoc, Jasmeen Mehat, Teo Mjolsness, Emmet Moon, Valerie Mulcaster, Isabella White, and Cathy Wu.
OK, Now What? brings together works by third-year Visual Art students in SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts that explore humour as a strategy within contemporary art.
For the exhibition, the artists worked in collaboration with Janice Kerbel, the Spring 2026 Audain Visual Artist in Residence (AVAIR) and their professor Elspeth Pratt to study the various ways in which humour can operate within art. Throughout the semester, the third-year cohort worked closely with Kerbel, whose practice often engages narrative, language, and dark humour. During this process, students were encouraged to experiment with unfamiliar approaches, embrace uncertainty, and explore how comedic logic can shape artistic thinking.
Drawing from a range of comedic strategies such as absurdity, repetition, and the unexpected, the artists investigate how humour can disrupt familiar ways of seeing.
Through various media, such as painting, sculpture, and digital experiences, the artists transform ordinary objects and gestures into strange or exaggerated forms, allowing comedy to emerge through subtle shifts in context and scale.
OK, Now What? invites viewers to encounter humour in unexpected forms. Some works may provoke laughter, while others unfold more slowly, revealing their absurdity over time. As viewers move through the exhibition, they are invited to pause, look closely, and consider the peculiar space where comedy and contemporary art intersect.
You might laugh or you might leave asking… OK, now what?
OK, Now What? is presented by the Audain Visual Artist in Residence Program (AVAIR). The AVAIR program brings artists and practitioners to Vancouver who have contributed significantly to the field of contemporary art and whose work resonates with local and international visual art discourses. The AVAIR program is generously funded by the Audain Foundation Endowment Fund.
Event
Open Critique with Janice Kerbel
March 26, 10:00 AM – 12:20 PM & 1:30 PM – 4:20 PM
Audain Gallery
For more about Janice Kerbel's Spring 2026 Audain Visual Artist in Residence, visit HERE.
