Boat Without a Boat
Nov 15, 2025 – Feb 21, 2026
Opening Event: Friday, November 14 (7-9pm)
‘Boat Without a Boat’ unveils new work by Nelson-based artist Deborah Thompson, charting two
evolving pathways in her practice: expansive cut-paper assemblages and evocative stop-motion animations. Rooted in drawing, her figures emerge from fragments of media imagery—faces that seem to gaze back, awakening narratives of transformation, kinship, and mortality. Through graphite, oil bar, and chalk, each piece grows intuitively, guided by a felt dialogue between material, motion, and memory.
Thompson explores the theme of regeneration through the metaphor of a boat, which has appeared in visual language for 10,000 years – as a vessel to the underworld, an ark of salvation, and containers of alchemal transformation. A literal boat never appears throughout the work, but the metaphor is ever-present. What is a metaphor? How does the meaning of a symbol change throughout history? How can symbols help transform from one way of thinking to a new perception?
Boat Without a Boat is a creative and engaging exhibit to explore visual and verbal metaphors.
Learn more about Thompson’s work here.
evolving pathways in her practice: expansive cut-paper assemblages and evocative stop-motion animations. Rooted in drawing, her figures emerge from fragments of media imagery—faces that seem to gaze back, awakening narratives of transformation, kinship, and mortality. Through graphite, oil bar, and chalk, each piece grows intuitively, guided by a felt dialogue between material, motion, and memory.
Thompson explores the theme of regeneration through the metaphor of a boat, which has appeared in visual language for 10,000 years – as a vessel to the underworld, an ark of salvation, and containers of alchemal transformation. A literal boat never appears throughout the work, but the metaphor is ever-present. What is a metaphor? How does the meaning of a symbol change throughout history? How can symbols help transform from one way of thinking to a new perception?
Boat Without a Boat is a creative and engaging exhibit to explore visual and verbal metaphors.
Learn more about Thompson’s work here.
There are no future events planned