John Mcfetrick

I live and work on the unceded traditional territories of Penelakut, Hwlitsum, and Tsawwassen First Nations people on Galiano Island, Canada.

I work with a camera the way some people work with silence. I wait. I watch. I breathe. The world shifts when you stand still long enough. Things line up that shouldn’t. A bird crosses a billboard. A shadow lands on a stranger’s face like it belongs there. It feels like fate, or a trick of light.

I live for those collisions. The petrifying coincidence. Two unrelated things leaning into each other for a heartbeat, saying something neither could say alone. My lens catches them mid-sentence.

Meditation slows me down. Mindfulness holds the moment open. The viewfinder is a trapdoor. I step through and the ordinary tilts toward the surreal. I press the shutter.

The pictures are simple. Fragments. Proof that reality is stranger than we admit. They ask you to stop, to look twice, to wonder if the universe just winked at you.

My photography is a journey through the surreal, where the boundaries of reality blur and the unexpected becomes profound. Rooted in mindfulness and meditation, my work captures moments of stillness amidst the chaos of life, inviting the viewer to pause and contemplate the ...

• Past Visiting Artist and Honorary Fellow, University of Edinburgh - Division of Psychiatry & The Royal Edinburgh Hospital, Edinburgh. 2013 - 2016
• BA - Communication, Simon Fraser University, 2003
• BFA - Writing, University of Victoria, 2000

• Metchosin Art Pod STILLlife: Art to Seize the Moment, 2025 (Juror's Choice Award winner)
• Sooke Fine Art Show, Sooke, July 2024
• In a Small Way, public exhibition, Galiano Island December 2023
• Sooke Fine Art Show, Sooke, July 2023
• Arts on the Islands Exhibition, Salt Spring Island, 2023
• Galiano Ocean Front Inn Gallery, August 2021
• Sooke Fine Art Show, Sooke, July 2021
• In a Small Way, public exhibition, Galiano Island December 2019
• Sooke Fine Art Show, Sooke, July 2020
• Galiano Ocean Front Inn Gallery, August 2018
• In a Small Way, public exhibition, Galiano Island December 2018
• Yellowhouse Gallery, Galiano Island, December 2017
• In a Small Way, public exhibition, Galiano Island December 2017
• Yellowhouse Gallery, Galiano Island, August 2017
• Sooke Fine Art Show, Sooke, July 2017
• Babes in the Woods, Galiano Island, August 2016
• Saanich City Hall Gallery, 2015
• The Arts Centre at Cedar Hill, Victoria 2014
• Bay Centre Gallery, Victoria. 2014
• Babes in the Woods, Galiano Island, October 2014
• Catherine Holahan Gallery, Galiano Island. August 2014
• Tidal Fire Gallery, Edinburgh Scotland. July 2013
• The Reverie, Edinburgh Scotland. April 2013
• Stick Factory Gallery, Edinburgh Scotland. February 2013
• STIL...