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Against the Grain: Zubkova & Lovink Bring Wood to Life at Kostuik Gallery

Kostuik Gallery, located on the cusp of Yaletown, kicks off its fall exhibition season this month with Against the Grain, a duo show featuring gallery artists Katja Zubkova and Marianne Lovink. The exhibition opens September 17 and runs through October 11, and brings together two sculptors working in the same material — wood — but arriving at it from almost opposite directions. The show also marks part of Kostuik’s 25th anniversary year, a milestone the gallery has been building toward through decades of representing mid-career and established artists.

Katja Zubkova | Against the Grain – September 17th to October 11th

Zubkova is based in Vancouver and came to art after a stint on Canada’s High-Performance Biathlon team, shifting her focus to painting and sculpture in 2019. Her carved wood wall pieces carry titles written entirely in binary code, a way of encoding her own life story into each work.

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Lovink has been sculpting since 1984, with a career shaped by her Dutch design background and decades spent working across Toronto, Philadelphia, and now Chicago. Her wall sculptures and framed paper collages lean into repetition, pattern, and organic form.

Marianne Lovink | Against the Grain – September 17th to October 11th

“Against the Grain is exactly the kind of show I love building — two artists who couldn’t have more different starting points, brought together around one material. Katja and Marianne aren’t just exhibiting together, they’re in conversation, and that’s what makes this pairing so compelling,” says Jennifer Kostuik, owner and director of Kostuik Gallery.

Two Backgrounds, One Conversation

Put the two bodies of work side by side and what emerges is not just a shared wall — it is a conversation between two very different starting points. Zubkova treats wood almost like a puzzle to be decoded. Lovink treats it as a material she has spent forty years learning to listen to. Both artists talk about wood in similar terms: as something with its own history, its own presence, something that should not be flattened into uniformity.

That is part of what shapes their process. Zubkova is drawn to materials that already carry a kind of language of their own — the grain, the imperfections, the warmth — and she wants that history to stay visible in the finished piece rather than be carved away. Lovink comes at it from a similar place, seeing craft and art as inseparable, and pointing to the natural world as the constant thread running through her work, whether she is carving wood or working in paper.

It is the kind of pairing that fits naturally into Kostuik’s roster, which leans toward artists working with minimalist themes shaped by space and nature — a group that includes internationally recognized photographer Michael Kenna alongside gallery artists David Burdeny, and James Lahey. Over the years, the gallery has represented artists from Vancouver, across Canada, the US, Europe, Mexico, and Argentina, and shown work at international art fairs in cities including Miami, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Palm Springs, Toronto, and Montreal.

Exhibition Details

Dates: September 17 – October 11
Opening reception: Thursday, September 17, 5–7 pm
Artist talk: 6:15 pm, during the reception
Location: Kostuik Gallery, 1070 Homer Street, Vancouver
In attendance: Both artists will be present for the opening

Author Profile

Helen Siwak, Luxury Lifestyle Observer: Helen Siwak is the founder of EcoLuxLuv Communications & Marketing Inc and publisher of Folio.YVR Luxury Lifestyle Magazine and PORTFOLIOY.YVR Business & Entrepreneurs Magazine. She is a prolific content creator, consultant, and marketing and media strategist within the ecoluxury and luxury lifestyle niches. Helen is the west coast correspondent to Canada’s top-read business magazine Retail-Insider, holds a vast freelance portfolio, and is an EIC for Hire. Connect with her here: [email protected].