Oxygen Art Centre is excited to present the exhibition Gentle Resistance featuring new textile pieces by Tracy Fillion on view from March 28, 2026, to June 3, 2026, in the O2 vitrine exhibition space.
Artist Statement
This ongoing project began with an interest in the intersection of design, sport, and feminism, and has evolved into a space to hold and transform growing internalized rage in response to widespread social, environmental, and human rights violations.
The boxing glove serves as a central form—both a symbol of conflict and a container for emotion. Constructed through the slow, deliberate process of hand weaving and textile assembly, the work holds a tension between method and feeling: a quiet, careful making that contrasts with an undercurrent of anger.
Colour operates as a counterbalance, asserting the necessity of seeking beauty, harmony, and resilience even in times of upheaval. The work does not resolve this tension, but instead makes space for its coexistence.
Artist Biography
Tracy Fillion is a textile artist whose practice integrates weaving, plant dyeing, and garment construction. Working with natural fibres and dyes, she creates textiles through slow, hands-on processes that foreground care for material and place. Her work intends to reflects on the social, political, and environmental conditions shaping the present moment, using textiles as a language to consider labour, care, and resilience while honouring traditions of making that connect people, land, and community.
In addition to her studio practice, Fillion teaches weaving at a local college and facilitates workshops in plant dyeing. She is also an active community member, volunteering on the boards of the Slocan Valley Threads Guild and the West Kootenay Fibreshed. Her work reflects an ongoing commitment to textiles as a site of resistance, ecological awareness, and thoughtful engagement with contemporary social and environmental realities.
@tracyhandwoven @we.are.stories
Located on the Stanley Avenue side of the Nelson Trading Company building (430 Baker Street) in downtown Nelson, B.C., O2 is a window-turned-gallery that serves as an extension of Oxygen Art Centre’s contemporary art programming.
This program is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the BC Arts Council, the Vancouver Foundation, and the Regional District of Central Kootenay ReDi program.
images: Tracy Fillion, 2026; Courtesy the Artist