Down the RCA’s first floor studio hallway in Studio 113, you’ll find contemporary artist Mackenzie Perras surrounded by canvases, paint, and eclectic objects. Mackenzie has been making waves in the Okanagan art scene recently, and we’re excited to have his art space in our building. To discuss his many recent successes, we caught up with him in his studio. 

If you use creativity in anything you do – listen up. Created by Mackenzie, The Creative Exchange community program at the RCA is an open mic for all creators, allowing artists to talk to like-minded people about their work, bounce ideas off each other, and work through creative struggles. The idea was sparked by the familiar feeling of isolation during the colder months. 

“I started it because it was the dead of winter,” says Mackenzie. “I've lived in the Okanagan for a few years now, but I usually travel a lot for work over winter. It was the first time I'd fully spent winter here, and it was very isolating. There's not that many events that happen, and then at those events, there's not that many people that show up. I felt really disconnected from the creative community. I just wanted to reach out to people.”  

The response from artists attending has been nothing but positive. From painters to chefs, everyone can benefit from this encouraging, creative space. 

“People have really been coming up to me afterward and thanking me, saying ‘Oh, thank you so much. I really needed this.” 

The casual atmosphere of The Creative Exchange allows everyone, even beginner artists, to express themselves and escape their comfort zone. 

“It's a cool mix of people - we have a lot of amazing professional creators; sculptors who have done big shows, architects who have designed maker spaces in Sydney, and painters with decades of exhibition history around the world. And then we see people where it is their first time reading a poem in public, people who are just starting, people who have never shown a painting in public. It's been great to see people at different stages of their creative journey. You can open your work up for feedback because it's usually a room full of different creatives across disciplines; a sculptor usually has a really cool solution to an architect's problem and vice versa.” 

“There's a crazy breadth of just talent and story, and each time it's so different.” 

The program is about more than just art. In the winter of 2023, donations raised at each session of The Creative Exchange helped support keeping Kelowna’s unhoused community warm. 

“We did a three-month-long coat drive. All the donations we raised from attendance over the winter season. And we had some businesses, like Hamilton Art Galleries, get involved, and people were really generous with us. We raised hundreds of pounds of winter gear, including emergency blankets, hand warmers, stay-warm kits, literally, sleeping bags, coats, gloves, everything.”  

There will be more outreach initiatives this summer, so stay tuned and pop by The Creative Exchange, every second Wednesday of the month at 6:00 PM, to find out more! Due to its popularity, we have moved The Creative Exchange to a larger space in the RCA Atrium.

Mackenzie’s work explores the social history and ecological future of the materials all around us. A main focus in Mackenzie’s craft is historical pigments and the making of historical paint. One of these methods of paint making, milk paint/casein, will be explored in their upcoming workshop at the RCA on June 2 and 9! Milk paint, used since ancient Egyptian times as a form of distemper paint, is one of the oldest and most influential paints ever created. Participants will be using different recipes to create their own paints, then colour them with natural pigments hand harvested from around Kelowna and rare materials collected from around the world. 

Mackenzie was recently announced as a Culture Days 2024 Ambassador. The Ambassador Series, Intercultural Interplay, will bring 6 BC Culture Days artist ambassadors to guide you on artistic paths to explore your cultural identity and share it with others. Mackenzie described the idea that brought him this award. 

“I was on a visit to the West Bank First Nations Museum in West Kelowna, and I spent the day touring the museum with their docent. We were talking about the history of the Syilx people, and she said they were most known as crafts people, famous for painting and weaving. So even me, specializing in historical pigments and making historical paint, I didn't know about that history about the place that we live.” 

This sparked the idea to collaborate with Indigenous Knowledge Keepers, taking some of those stories about those materials, how they are harvested, where they come from, etc., and creating a collaborative workshop. Participants will not only make their own paints, but come together to make a large-scale artwork to celebrate these local, natural resources and the people and cultures that steward them. 

Learn more about Culture Days 2024 and how you can post your event here. 

The RCA is thrilled to see the amazing ventures that are created within our centre, and we’re excited to see what Mackenzie will be up to next! Keep up with him on his Instagram and website.