Join us in celebrating Latin American Heritage Month with a specially curated studio hop highlighting Latin American voices in Vancouver, presented as part of VLACC’s Latin Expressions program. Guided by curator and art historian Miret Rodríguez, this event offers an intimate opportunity to step inside three artists’ studios, hear directly about their practices, and reflect on the vibrant cultural diversity that flourishes on the unceded and ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

We’ll begin the tour at Hackspace (601 Venables St) before making our way over to Parker Street Studios for additional studio visits and the closing reception.

This studio hop features:

• Angie Jaimes, a Colombian artist working with glass to explore memory, identity, and the invisible boundaries of intimacy.
• Pilar Mehlis, a Bolivian-Canadian painter whose work reflects her journey across cultures and her connection to faith.
• Camila Pabón, a Colombian artist whose geometric abstractions transform everyday objects into layered, multidimensional compositions infused with vibrant hues and cultural resonance.

The afternoon will conclude with a lively reception of wine and nibbles, graciously hosted by artist Samira Sukhatme in her studio on Parker Street. Originally from India, Samira is connected to Vancouver’s Latin American art scene through her participation in an upcoming exhibition curated by Miret Rodríguez at THIS Gallery, featuring Mexican artists Angie Quintanilla Coates and Alejandra Morales.

This collaboration between the Eastside Arts Society, VLACC, and Curated Tastes brings together studio visits, dialogue, and a community reception—a signature format of Curated Tastes events. It’s an afternoon to connect with artists, exchange ideas, and celebrate the richness of Latin American creativity here in Vancouver’s Eastside

Date: Saturday, October 25, 2025
Time: 2:30 pm to 5:00 pm
Starting Location: Hackspace – 1601 Venables St, Vancouver, BC V5L 2H1 (meet us here!)
Final Location: Parker Street Studios – 1000 Parker St, Vancouver, BC V6A 4B9

About the Artists and Facilitator

Angie Jaimes is a Colombian visual artist working primarily with glass, currently living and creating in Vancouver, Canada. Her practice is rooted in the physical and emotional weight of memory, identity, and the complexity of intimacy. She approaches glass not merely as a material, but as a collaborator, one that resists, fractures, and surprises.

Drawn to the dual nature of glass its fragility and strength, its transparency, its role as both window and barrier Jaimes explores its metaphorical connections to the female body and the invisible boundaries we navigate daily. Cracks and flaws in the material become visual metaphors for the ways time, relationships, and systems shape us. Her work reflects on what it means to be both seen and enclosed, to break and still hold together.

Instagram: @angiejaimesd
Website: www.angiejaimes.com

Camila Pabón is a Colombian artist whose work delves into the structures of everyday objects and environments, exploring their intricate interconnections through geometric abstraction. Her art captures forms, movements, and layers, unfolding like a kaleidoscope to reveal hidden dimensions and stories. Inspired by her Colombian roots, she integrates the vibrant colours of the tropics, drawn from the natural landscape and cultural traditions, and balances them with the structured order of her current home in Canada. Through this duality, Pabón bridges tropical sensibility and abstraction, creating pieces that resonate with both personal and cultural narratives.
Instagram: @kmil_artwork

Pilar Mehlis is a Bolivian-Canadian visual artist whose work is deeply rooted in her lived experience, travels, and Catholic faith. Born in La Paz, Bolivia, she moved to Whitehorse, Yukon at the age of twelve, beginning her artistic journey with painting lessons in nearby Haines, Alaska. Her formal training spans multiple institutions, including the Academy of Art “Hernando Siles” in La Paz, the University of Victoria (BFA in Visual Arts and Art History), and further studies at the Art Academy of Vancouver, Langara College, and the Gage Academy of Art in Seattle under Juliette Aristides.

Pilar has exhibited and taught drawing and painting in both Bolivia and Canada. Her work reflects a lifelong dialogue between faith and creative practice—each shaping and sustaining the other across time and place.
Instagram: @pilarmehlis  Website: www.pilarmehlis.ca

Miret Rodriguez is the creative director of Curated Tastes and is the former VP of VLACC. She holds an MBA in art and culture management from the Superior School of Commerce in Paris and a BA Major in Art History from UBC. Miret relies on art and the artists who make it to navigate through cultural dislocation and hybridity. Since 2020, Miret has been interviewing Latinx artists in Canada about their immigration stories and their ways of expressing their experiences through art. This led her to curate Volver (to return, to become) in 2022 at Cityscape Community Artspace in North Vancouver.

In partnership with Eastside Art Society and Curated Tastes