Sarah Thiessen - Contributing Artist
Sarah Thiessen is a self-taught visual artist living in Victoria, BC. Skilled in analogue light art, mixed-media sculpture, interactive festival installations, large-scale puppets, screen printing and graphic design, Sarah loves exploring new mediums and creating connections through collaborative projects. She is known for her playful, biology-inspired art that draws people in through vibrant colours and dream-like imagery, encouraging a child-like sense of curiosity and wonder.
Sarah has contributed her textural expertise to several of our interactive machines and honoured us with a drawing of her vision of the Artcade’s brightly coloured alien world.
We asked Sarah 10 Questions:
When did you first realize you are an art creature? Was there a specific childhood moment (finger paints, crayons, mud pies…) when you knew you were going to make stuff forever?
I was always an artistic kid and made plenty of (emo) art throughout my teenage years but it wasn’t until my early 20’s that I really started to realize the power of being an artist.
Friends who were doing cool artistic projects of their own started asking me to draw their album art, screen print their band merch, design posters for their shows or even hand paint a giant 30ft backdrop for their fringe play.
I realized that not only did I love doing these things, I loved the collaborative process of making art for others. It was during this period that I really came to appreciate the gift that is to be an artist and the essential role that we have as communicators and connectors in the community.
Frog Wild, 2024, Sarah Thiessen & Scott Amos on view at the Artcade
As a self-taught visual artist, who are your art heroes? If you could form an art supergroup with anyone (living, dead, or imaginary), who would be in the band and why?
Mr Dressup, Jim Henson, and sea anemones.
Honestly, it sounds corny as heck but my biggest art hero is definitely mommy nature. Nothing turns my art-crank more than inspecting lichen up close or booping a sea anemone.
In fact, my interest in understanding nature on a deeper level (specifically mycology) even led me to go back to school to get a Biology degree which really helped to unlock even more layers of complexity and artistic inspiration.
Pom-de-Terre, 2024, Sarah Thiessen & Scott Amos on view at the Artcade
Your portfolio is a mixture of mediums, two-dimensional, three-dimensional, and sometimes layered light art. What connects all these forms for you? Are you a raccoon collecting shiny things?
If I had to make a connection between my current artistic forms, I would have to say something like: satisfying textures, vivid colours, and a whimsical, hand-made feel.
I love having a healthy ecosystem of art mediums to choose from and feel so inspired by the fact that there are literally infinite possible mediums out there. Anything can be an art medium and choosing the right medium for the message is just as important as what you do with it.
Dream Machine, 2024, Sarah Thiessen, Scott Amos & Julianna Strybosch, on view at the Artcade
At the Artcade you’ve built immersive alien worlds like the Dream Machine, Frog Wild, and Pom-de-Terre in collaboration with Pom-foolery and Monkey C. How does collaboration fuel your art?
There is some incredible alchemy that occurs when artists with different skill-sets come together to create a unified vision. Sometimes I like the simplicity of working alone but at the end of the day, collaboration pushes me to challenge myself and allows me to create things that I would never think to do otherwise (and actually finish them!).
I am so grateful for the collaborative relationships that I have with Monkey C, The Soft Storm Collective and the Puzzle Lab. These collaborations have helped me gain so much confidence as an artist and solidified my feelings that Victoria is exactly where I need to be.
The Soft Storm Collective at Open Space Gallery in Victoria, 2025
Your work often invites people to play. What excites you about making art that does something back to its audience?
I think art that invites playfulness or feels like a game is disarming and allows people to get out of their anxious heads and connect with each other in ways that they wouldn’t otherwise.
Something about having a task can be really soothing, and having a shared task with another person can make you feel like you are immediately on the same team, even if the task is just pushing a button on an art machine, layering objects on an overhead projector or playing i-spy with a giant eyeball monster named Blorb.
Pom-poms embody soft playfulness, it is their inviting unseriousness that really appeals to me as a medium.
There are goofy little kids inside us all just waiting for an opportunity to express themselves. I want to make art that helps people feel safe to be soft.
PompAdore (large), pom-pom wall hanging with mirror, 2025
The Dream Machine, Frog Wild, Pom-de-Terre… these sound like Saturday morning cartoons. What’s the weirdest story or happy accident that happened while building one of these worlds?
Not exactly related to the machines, but one of the weirdest things that happened to me at the Artcade has got to be when I was hired to dress up in my giant eyeball monster costume and be a shoe model for Fluevog.
For a bit of backstory, I had a photographer friend see me at a festival while I was gallivanting around inside Blorb (my 10 ft tall eyeball monster puppet) who afterwards reached out because they thought that Blorb would be a great fit for the “Kidult” Fluevog ad campaign that they were working on.
Blorb & the Playblorb Blorbies at What If in Merritt, BC, 2025.
Of course I said yes and we did a full day photo shoot at the Artcade. I/Blorb modeled up a storm, playing with all the machines and interacting with the space in creative ways, all the while thinking such thoughts as “have I made it?” and “I wonder what celebrities will contact me first” and generally feeling like I was a super model in Zoolander. (Turns out modeling feels a lot easier when your entire face and body is hidden).
But in a hilarious (not hilarious) twist, out of all the photos taken that day the ones that Fluevog ended up running (shoe pun) did not include Blorb, like… at all. :,( (...unless you count the bottom of his tassles)
That’s showbiz, baby!
“Kidult” Fluevog with Blorb ad photo, 2025.
Your colours are loud, playful, almost juicy. What attracts you to them, do you pick them or do they pick you?
For the Artcade pieces I selected vivid neon colours that grab attention and feel surreal in a whimsical but also unsettling radioactive nuclear waste kind of way. I also thought a lot about how the colours would look under the colour changing LED lights and black lights and wanted to pick colours that would really come alive.
At the end of the day (and sometimes even at the beginning) I am a loud, maximalist person with loud, maximalist taste.
PompAdore, three of five pom-pom wall hangings featuring mirrors and inspired by mold growth, installed at the Artcade, 2026.
You’ve been with the Artcade since day zero. What made you say, “Yes, sign me up for this indescribable thing”?
I remember feeling a profound gut-deep longing to be artistic collaborators with Monkey C from the very first moment I laid eyes on their charismatic mutant machines (a few of which were in storage at a warehouse where I had started renting a studio, back when I first moved to Victoria in 2021.)
Shortly after, I met Scott at the studio and became fast friends. I'm sure I had told him I was keen to help but did not anticipate that he would make space for my weird soft pom-pom art in the Monkey C universe in the way that he did and has continued to.
The juxtaposition of the hard metal machines with the soft biology-inspired pom-poms worlds is something so incredibly unique and has become such a quintessential part of the Artcade aesthetic. Major props to Scott's mad scientist brain for coming up with the seeds of that vision and trusting me to run with it.
PompAdore (small), pom-pom wall hanging, 2025
Places like the Artcade are so important. Places that are welcoming to all, that embrace weirdness and ooze creativity. Places where people of all ages can take a moment to play together and enjoy the silliness of being alive. Places like the Artcade make a city infinitely cooler and I can attest that I feel infinitely cooler since becoming involved.
And of course, the Artcade could not exist without Scott, Heather and Dave’s hard work and immense heart. These people are pillars of our artistic community in Victoria and deserve all the success in the world, so go tell your richest friend to write them a blank cheque, wouldja? We need art spaces now more than ever.
Participants at Light Up the Hills, Langford 2025, interacting with Nightshade Lightplay
Can you tell us about what’s brewing in your studio lately?
So many pom-poms! Lately I have been scheming with Scott Amos to build some more wacky interactive art mutants for the Artcade expansion “Alien Lab” in spring 2026! Stay tuned!
PompAdore (medium), pom-pom wall hanging with mirror, 2025
Where else can people find your work (in the wild or online)?
You can see collections of my work on my website sarahtonin.carbonmade.com and on instagram @sarahtonin___.
My analogue light art projects, created using overhead projectors, include: NightShade LightPlay—an interactive light-and-shadow station presented at festivals and events for public participation. (contact me to book!)
NightShade LightPlay at Light Up the Hills in Langford, 2023
I also perform with The Soft Storm Collective, a dream-like, multi-sensory experience featuring poetry by Marie Metaphor, soundscapes and vocals by Gabrielle Odowichuk, and my live analogue projections.
The Soft Storm Collective at Open Space Gallery in Victoria, 2025
My work at the Artcade includes the Dream Machine, Frog Wild and Pom-De-Terre (mutant machines made in collaboration with Monkey C Interactive); as well as PompAdore—pom-pom wall hangings featuring mirrors, inspired by mold growth.
Frog Wild, Pom-de-terre and Dream machine at Otherworld in Laketown Ranch, 2024.
“At the end of the day (and sometimes even at the beginning) I am a loud, maximalist person with loud, maximalist taste.”
PomAdore with the artist. Two of five pom-pom with mirror wall hangings on view at the Artcade, 2026.
“Pom-poms embody soft playfulness, it is their inviting unseriousness that really appeals to me as a medium. ”
Blorb at What If in Merritt, BC, 2025.
In stores:
Puzzle Lab at 1233 Government Street in downtown Victoria carries Sarah’s original puzzle designs (Songbirds and Holly Daze).
And, the Artcade carries Sarah’s illustration Untitled, 2024, reproduced on t-shirts and posters.
“I am so grateful for the collaborative relationships that I have with Monkey C, The Soft Storm Collective and the Puzzle Lab. These collaborations have helped me gain so much confidence as an artist and solidified my feelings that Victoria is exactly where I need to be. ”