12/18/2025
Victoria McFarlane is a multidisciplinary artist whose creative roots stretch back to early childhood in Winnipeg, where she spent her days at her Grandma Marie’s daycare drawing "The Groovy Girls” comic books for her friends. A lifelong creator, she has always felt most at home in artistic spaces, excelling in any form of expression – from illustration and language arts to baking.
Her practice today is grounded in mixed media, with a deep focus on acrylic painting, digital work, and, most recently, clay. During her artist-residency, clay became a transformative medium for her – an imminent, hands-on way to shape full stories and feel their impact in real time.
Victoria’s work is driven by her identity as a tri-racial, q***r woman of colour and by the realities of navigating the world through a neurodivergent lens. Culture, spirituality, and lived experiences of joy, resilience, love, as well as social injustice form the backbone of her art. Even when a piece isn’t explicitly about neurodivergence, she considers it inherently neurodivergent – an extension of how she receives and processes the world.
Her creative process is intuitive, nonlinear, and deeply connected to the people who inspire her, especially her mom, dad, brother, partner Bolade, and the communities she has served through frontline work. Through pieces like “Ni**as Can Meditate, Ni**as Can Levitate,” she explores not only histories of harm but also abundance of light, life, and liberation.
Victoria hopes viewers walk away from her art with a different perspective because, to her, experiencing life through another person is the key to universal empathy. Her time at Artbeat shifted how she views art, success, and herself, shaping how she moves through the world as an artist.
The Royal Alchemy: 41st biannual art exhibition runs December 15 to 19, 12 noon to 5 pm at 4th floor - 62 Albert St.
[ID: A photo of the artist on a background of purple stars.]
