Join the founders of COMBINE Art Fair live via Zoom for a roundtable on how the North Shore's first fair came to be and the vision for its future. With Wil Aballe, Tobin Gibson, Ron Regan, Monica Reyes and Lisa Baldissera and an introduction with COMBINE Art Fair’s first sponsor, AXA XL.
Wil Aballe is known as the owner and director of Vancouver-based, Wil Aballe Art Projects | WAAP, founded in 2013. WAAP was established as a response to the shuttering of spaces and galleries in Vancouver that were mandated to show emerging contemporary artists. The gallery feels very strongly about providing the next generation of Vancouver artists the opportunity to show in their city and to allow them to build an audience and a market. These artists include Nicolas Sassoon, Charles Campbell, Marina Roy, Lyse Lemieux, Steven Cottingham, Russna Kaur, Scott Billings and Evann Siebens, among others. The gallery has participated in international art fairs in Toronto, New York, Brussels, Athens and Mexico City. The gallery has been able to place a number of works in museums and institutions, as well as major corporate collections; in the past year, we have placed works in the collections of the VAG, the AGO, the MAC, TD Bank, BMO and RBC. Our artists have exhibited work internationally, including at the Centre Pompidou, the Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam, the Musée d'Art Contemporain and local West Coast institutions like the VAG, CAG, RAG, SAG, Nanaimo Art Gallery, KAG and New Media Gallery. We are a member of the New Art Dealers Association (NADA).
Rebecca Farah Al-Lahiq is a Commercial & Private Fine Art Insurance specialist who has spent over a decade working exclusively with High Net Worth Individuals & Art Industry leaders internationally. Rebecca joined AXA XL, (formally AXA Art,) from a privately owned Canadian insurance brokerage where she was the National Lead for all Fine Art business, and prior to that as a Lloyds of London broker where she underwrote and brokered fine art insurance, at one of London’s leading art insurance brokerages.
Over the course of her career, Rebecca has worked with some of world’s foremost public institutions, commercial dealers and art fairs, in both brokering and underwriting capacities, in the Middle East, Europe and North America.
Rebecca is passionate about education on art protection and the art market and is a regular presenter on both topics.
Lisa Baldissera has worked in curatorial roles in public art galleries in Western Canada since 1999, including Senior Curator at Contemporary Calgary (2014-16) and Chief Curator at the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon (2012-14). She was Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria from 1999 to 2009, where she produced more than fifty exhibitions of local, Canadian, and international artists. She holds MFAs in Creative Writing (UBC) and Art (University of Saskatchewan) and is currently a PhD candidate at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Baldissera has served on contemporary art juries across Canada and internationally, including the Alvin Balkind Curator’s Prize (The Doris and Jack Shadbolt Foundation), Canada Council for the Arts, Saskatchewan Arts Board, Royal Bank of Canada Canadian Painting Competition, the Hnatyshyn Foundation Visual Arts Awards, the Sobey Art Award, British Columbia Arts Council, Prix Pierre-Prince-de-Monaco jury and as a guest of the British Arts Council outreach program.
Tobin Gibson has worked as Assistant Curator at Presentation House Gallery, Gallery and Artist Liaison at Maureen Paley and Associate Director at The Apartment. For the last four years he has been operating Unit 17.
Ron Regan was an experimental filmmaker who exhibited in over 30 film festivals around the world and locally including the Vancouver International Film Festival. In 2013 he opened Initial Gallery and then moved the gallery to East Vancouver in 2016 as Franc Gallery. Since that time, he has exhibited local artist including many art fairs in New York, Montreal and Toronto. He has placed work in public institutions, corporate and private collections.
As the gallery’s founder and director, Mónica Reyes has been a longstanding figure in the Vancouver art scene having served as Vice President of the Contemporary Art Society of Vancouver and during 2016/2017 sat on the Board of Latincouver. Today she sits on the Board of the Strathcona Board Improvement Association. Reyes is committed to investing in art that gives voice to the cultural diversity of the Pacific Northwest.
The first edition of COMBINE Art Fair is dedicated to Andrew Gruft (1939–2021), a prominent member of the Canadian architectural community and a major collector of photography. Originally from Poland, Gruft's Jewish family fled in 1939, landing finally in South Africa, where Gruft later graduated from architecture school at Cape Town University, later working in Rio de Janeiro and Vancouver; where with Rhone & Iredale Architects, he worked on many acclaimed projects including the WAC Bennett Dam on the Peace River. Gruft became a professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture where with his wife, Claudia, became major collectors and curators of contemporary photography, as well as founders of the extraordinary NOVA gallery, supporting its emergence as a major Vancouver art form. From 1976 to 1982, NOVA Gallery focused on photography by artists including: Henry Fox Talbot, Julia Margaret Cameron, Walker Evans, Ian Wallace and N.E. Thing Co. They were the first gallery to exhibit the work of Jeff Wall and are considered pioneers among commercial photography galleries. Their collection was the focus of the Vancouver Art Gallery’s 2005 exhibition Real Pictures: Photographs from the Collection of Claudia Beck and Andrew Gruft; later the duo donated more than 550 photo-based works to the VAG which continues with their recent 2020 donation of almost 40 artworks. We dedicate this fair to Andrew’s remarkable work and contributions which have so enriched the understanding of contemporary art in Canada and within the Vancouver art community.
Thank you to our sponsor!
AXA XL is one of the largest fine art carriers in the world. We understand a collector's passion for fine art and collectibles as well as their desire for expertise, excellent service and confidentiality. Our fine art experts have built a solid foundation based on years of industry experience in understanding the value, both financial and sentimental, when it comes to safeguarding a collection. AXA XL maintains the philosophy that art should be appreciated, shared and secured to benefit future generations.