Board of Directors + Staff

With undergraduate studies completed at the University of Alberta and a M.F.A. in painting from the University of British Columbia, Chris W. Carson is both professional visual artist and arts administrator. His art career includes exhibitions at public, artist run and commercial galleries throughout Alberta. Currently his artwork is exploiting monsters, martyrs and himself. As an administrator, Carson worked for commercial and public art galleries, a professional arts organization and two provincial arts service organizations. Since August 2010, Chris W. Carson is the Executive Director for CARFAC Alberta (Alberta’s CARFAC affiliate since 2012).

Danyon Reeves graduated from the University of Alberta’s BDes program in 1996, majoring in Visual Communications Design and minoring in Sculpture. He has lived and worked in Calgary and Toronto, where he developed award-winning websites for VTape and The Walrus magazine. He is not looking forward to the impending dark age.

Candace Makowichuk, President of CARFAC Alberta, is a professional visual artist, arts educator and senior arts manager. Her management career encompasses being the first Executive Director of: Harcourt House Arts Centre, the Art Gallery of St. Albert and SNAP, to her current involvement in local arts organizations including her own business, Sunprint Studio. Through workshops, residencies and exhibiting her artwork in historical photographic processes, she has instilled a renewed interest in analogue photography – film and other non-digital processes. Her work is represented in public collections within Alberta, private collections within Canada and exhibitions throughout the province.

Alan Aburto is a community and development-focused professional with roots in Edmonton, Alberta. Having grown up in Edmonton to two first-generation Peruvian parents, Alan’s upbringing nurtured his appreciation for folkloric dance and cultural art in the community. A trained accountant and auditor, Alan graduated from the University of Alberta with both a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology and a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Accounting. Shortly after obtaining his Bachelor of Commerce, he worked as an auditor for a large, local public practice Accounting firm, earning his Chartered Professional Accountant designation in 2017. He now works as the Controller of a large privately-owned real estate company, specializing in Multi-family Residential as well as Commercial real estate.

Alan has significant experience working closely with Not-for-Profit organizations and governance bodies, having managed audits and prepared audited Not-for-Profit financial statements. In addition to his dedication to the community and appreciation of the arts, Alan is passionate about the well-being and fair treatment of animals, having rescued his two dogs as well as re-homing several other stray puppy litters.

Jennifer Rae Forsyth is an artist, independent curator, and museum professional who has exhibited and curated internationally. She holds a Masters in Fine Arts from The University of Calgary, a Bachelor in Fine Arts from the University of British Colombia, and a Diploma in Visual Art from Camosun College, in Victoria, BC. Forsyth is currently enrolled in the Collections Management Certificate Program at the University of Victoria. She has worked for and volunteered at, museums, galleries, and Artist Run Centres, in Alberta and British Columbia for the past twenty years. She currently holds the position of Advancement Lead for the Alberta Museums Association. Her paintings and mixed media works examine material culture, focusing on traces left in the urban environment, unusual collections, and organizational systems, often using everyday objects as subject, object and substrate simultaneously. Forsyth’s Curatorial Practice focuses on combining divergent practices to explore how we collect, organize, and display as ways to create place. Forsyth a co-founding director of fast & dirty, an Edmonton based rotating collective of artists and curators that creates exhibitions and art events for short durations in unusual environments and projects that challenge curatorial methods.

Donna Barrett is deeply embedded in the Calgary and Alberta art communities. Barrett received her BFA (with Distinction) in Interdisciplinary Studies at the Alberta College of Art and Design in 1995. Since 1993, she has apprenticed, volunteered and exhibited while concurrently working as an arts administrator. Demonstrating high standards of ethical conduct ,combined with her ability to innovate, have lead to success when faced with major governance and financial challenges within several of the organizations she has worked. Barrett has been publicly credited with reversing the financial difficulties experienced by two Alberta public galleries.

From 2008 to 2011, Barrett’s significant experience with not-for-profit governance was utilized by the Alberta Government’s Board Development Program, assisting other Alberta not-for-profit organizations with best practices, policy development and financial management.

Barrett’s public billboard project, Prevailing Past, was listed as one of Calgary’s top 12 art exhibitions of 2008 by Calgary Herald Art Critic, Nancy Tousley. Previous to this project, Barrett completed her first billboard project in Saskatoon as part of her 2006 MFA graduation. Most recently, her photomural, The Despair Wallpaper, was exhibited in the 2013 Alberta Biennial at the Art Gallery of Alberta. In 2014, Barrett’s work was included in the Glenbow exhibition, “Made in Calgary: The 2000’s”, curated by Katherine Ylitalo. (Barrett exhibits under her maiden name White.) Barrett’s works can be found in the collections of the Alberta Government, The Art Gallery of Grande Prairie and the University of Saskatchewan.

Alberta sculptor, Audra Schoblocher, earned her BFA in Jewelry and Metalsmithing from the Alberta College of Art + Design.  She currently works with post-consumer materials infused with craft-making skills to explore themes relating to domestic spaces and interactive relationship with objects found within.  Her multidisciplinary practice is hinged on traditionalism and unusualness.  Career highlights include, acting as a visual arts advocate with non-profit organizations such as; The Women’s Art Museum of Canada, CARFAC and being an active participate in a onetime session with TouVa’s Performance Art Research Collective broadening her understanding of contemporary practices.  As a perpetual learner, her work builds on past and present experiences.