Events

  • Welcome to Visual Arts: Orientation for 2020!

    (a screen shot from the welcome by Professor Shawn Serfas. Watch the video below.)


    Brock University is launching the first-ever Virtual Welcome Week.
    During this year of the pandemic the Orientation activities are all online.
    Watch the welcome below and visit the official Orientation page for all the details!


    The Department of Visual Arts (VISA)

    Welcome new VISA students to our asynchronous orientation video! It’s always nice to put a name to face, so we took some time to prepare this video, so that you can get acquainted with some of the awesome people in the Department of Visual Arts. We look forward to meeting you in person in the near future. Stay safe, VISA.

    Professor Shawn Serfas, Chair of the Department will be holding office hours on September 8th from 2-3 pm on Teams.
    Drop-in and say hi! (click here)


    The Department of Dramatic Arts, Music, Visual Arts, and the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture are all part of the Faculty of Humanities.

    The Associate Dean, Dr. Neta Gordon, Professor of English, welcomes you to Brock University! She’s prepared an 11 minute video to introduce to you to the Faculty of Humanities:


    Michael Gicante is your Academic Advisor for studies at the MIWSFPA.
    He prepared this video for the April open House:


    Koreen McCullough is the Experiential Education Coordinator for the Faculty of Humanities.
    Watch her 3 minute presentation about Experiential Education opportunities at Brock University:


    The Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts

    Located at 15 Artists’ Common in downtown St. Catharines, the MIWSFPA is home to four academic programs. We are right next door to the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre on the main street of St. Catharines, St. Paul.

    Each program at the MIWSFPA is offering a special welcome to their students.  For example, if you are a beginning your studies as a major in Dramatic Arts, check out what that Department has scheduled for you and plan to join in the fun.  You are also welcome to join the activities of each program at the School even if you are only taking one course or beginning a minor program.  The activities and welcome messages from each program are listed below.

    Professor David Vivian, of the Department of Dramatic Arts (he teaches design and production for theatre), is the Director of the School:

    David will be hosting office hours on September 8, 2020, from 12-3:00 pm,on Teams.
    Drop in and say hi! (click here)


    We all wish you a very successful year at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts.

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  • Assistant Professor in Visual Arts (Digital Media and Design): Candidate Research Presentations

    The Brock and wider community are warmly welcomed to attend the online presentations by the short list of candidates for this position.

    Each will give an hour-long presentation and engage in discussion about their current research interests and focus upon their contributions.

    GUSTAVO CERQUERA BENJUMEA

    WEDNESDAY, MAY 20TH, 2020
    Research Presentation 1:00pm (1:00 – 2:20pm)
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    Gustavo Cerquera Benjumea is a Colombian Canadian Toronto-based digital media artist, animator, music video director, and teacher. He specializes in computer animation, video installation, and drawing. His work explores psychedelia, plant biology, and Latin American histories. His work has exhibited internationally including at: Slamdance Film Festival, Glas Animation Festival, Ottawa International Animation Festival, Art Spin Toronto, the Niagara Artist Centre, Summerworks Festival, Nuit Blanche Toronto, among others. He has directed music videos for Lido Pimienta and Chancha Via Circuito. He is the current programming chair at the Toronto Animated Image Society. Gustavo teaches at OCADU and Brock University.

    TROY DAVID OUELLETTE

    THURSDAY, MAY 21ST, 2020
    Research Presentation 1:00pm (1:00 – 2:20pm)
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    Troy David Ouellette is an artist/researcher specializing in Assemblage Theory. He received his PhD, in Visual Arts, from York University in 2014 and his M.F.A. from the University of Windsor in 2007. He has taught Design, Sculpture and undergraduate courses, at various universities and colleges, in Southern Ontario. From 1999 until 2005 he was the Sculpture Facilitator at the Banff Centre for the Arts. Ouellette is a founding member of the London Ontario Media Arts Association (LOMAA) and the sound art collective Audio Lodge. His work has been included in several solo and group exhibitions in Canada, Australia and  the United States. He resides in Hamilton, Ontario.

    GWEN MACGREGOR

    FRIDAY, MAY 22ND, 2020
    Research Presentation 1:00pm (1:00 – 2:20pm)
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    Gwen MacGregor is a visual artist and geographer working across the disciplines of installation, video, photography, and geographic scholarship. She has artworks in collections such as the Art Gallery of Ontario, Oakville Galleries and the Royal Bank Collection. Recent exhibitions include The Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, Ontario and Phoenix Projects Athens, Greece. She has exhibited extensively internationally and has also participated in numerous international art residencies including the International Studio Curatorial Program in New York. She is a Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts Award holder and is represented by MKG127 in Toronto. MacGregor is a PhD Candidate in Geography at The University of Toronto. Her dissertation explores the constructions and contestations of nationhood in contemporary art practices presented at art biennales.


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  • New for 2020: Advanced Art Practices presents their capstone exhibition online.

    NOTHING HAPPENS
    UNTIL SOMETHING MOVES
    Launch: Wednesday April 8 at 7pm
    visa3m90.wordpress.com

    Join the students of VISA 3M90 Advanced Art Practices for the launch of their final exhibition on Wednesday, April 8 at 7 pm.

    This year-end presentation features new work from a multi-disciplinary course where cross-pollination is key. During the academic year the students investigate artistic research and creation from the perspective of project oriented, independent production.  They have been mentored by instructor Donna Akrey in the development of artistic practices emphasizing concept through to realization processes.

    In this Spring of COVID-19 the students will show their work online: physically distant, but not socially.

    The featured artists include:

    Nothing happens poster

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    KENDRA BOSSE
    TERI LYNN DITZEL
    PERI GOODMAN
    I.J.IROGBENACHI
    GABRIELLA JONES
    UGO MADUKA
    LAUREN MARCO
    JESS MCCLELLAND
    AMA OKAFOR
    SOPHIA STRACHAN
    CHARLOTTE TARR

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  • The MIWSFPA welcomes Landon Mackenzie to Niagara

    Signal (Red Star), 2017-2018. oil and synthetic polymer on linen, 82 1/2 x 126 in.

    Walker Cultural Leader Public Lecture and Artist Talk by Landon Mackenzie 

    March 12, 2020 at 7:30 p.m.

    Robertson Theatre, FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre, 250 St. Paul Street, St. Catharines, L2R 3M2 Walker Culture Series logo

    reception: March 12th, 5 p.m. at the VISA Gallery and Student Exhibition Space, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine & Performing Arts. (This is also the reception for the CrissCross exhibition, above.)

    Niagara welcomes one of Canada’s most celebrated painters!Landon Mackenzie

    The Moon is the Message: A survey of works traversing over four decades.  A revealing personal exploration of creativity, painting and mapping.

    Landon Mackenzie is an acclaimed visual artist based in Vancouver. Her international exhibiting and teaching career has been awarded the inaugural Ian Wallace Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Golden Jubilee and Diamond Jubilee Queen Elizabeth II Medals for outstanding contribution to culture in British Columbia and Canada, and the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts (2017), among others.

    Blue Star / Red Light, 2018-2019. oil and synthetic polymer on linen, 82 1/2 x 126 in.

    Blue Star / Red Light, 2018-2019. oil and synthetic polymer on linen, 82 1/2 x 126 in.

    This is a free community event. No tickets required. Join us for the reception at the MIWSFPA at 5 p.m. and then walk over to hear Landon talk about her work in the Robertson Theatre of the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre at 7:30 p.m.

    For more information about her work visit www.landonmackenzie.com


    Landon Mackenzie is an acclaimed visual artist based in Vancouver. The National Gallery of Canada, Vancouver Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Ontario, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, and Confederation Centre for the Arts are among the institutions that collect her paintings. As well, her large format works are in several Canadian embassies. Her works have been shown in over 100 exhibitions in Canada and internationally. Recent exhibitions include a 40-year touring survey of her works on paper, “Landon Mackenzie: Parallel Journey, (1975-2015)”, accompanied by a book by Black Dog publishers; “Landon Mackenzie: Nervous Centers” at the Esker Foundation in Calgary; “Emily Carr and Landon Mackenzie: Woodchopper and the Monkey” at the Vancouver Art Gallery; and “Tracing Mobility: Cartography in Networked Space” at HKW, Berlin.

    Mackenzie is a passionate educator starting at Concordia University followed by 33 years at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver where she was appointed the university’s first full Professor. She has been a visiting artist at over 75 universities, art departments and galleries in Canada, US, UK, Europe and China. She has served on many juries including the Canada Council for the Arts, VIVA, BMO 1st, and RBC Painting Award. She has been a trustee of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and Joseph Plaskett Foundation. Her work is represented by Art 45 and Nicholas Metivier Gallery.

    Mackenzie holds a BFA from NSCAD and an MFA from Concordia University. Her work has been extensively written about and she has received many awards including the inaugural Ian Wallace Award for Excellence in Teaching, both the Golden and Diamond Jubilee Queen Elizabeth II Medals for outstanding contribution to culture in British Columbia and Canada and the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts (2017).

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  • CrissCross, a new student exhibition at the MIWSFPA

    EDITOR’S NOTE: This exhibition is unavailable for viewing until further notice. It is closed as part of Brock University’s ongoing efforts to protect the health and safety of students, faculty, staff and the community in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Please check here again.

    CrissCross, a new student exhibition at the MIWSFPA

    March 5 – 28
    opening reception: March 12th, 5 p.m.
    (This is also the reception for the Artist Talk by the Walker Cultural Leader, Landon Mackenzie.)

    VISA Gallery and Student Exhibition Space, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine & Performing Arts, 15 Artists’ Common, St. Catharines, L2R 0B5.
    Crisscross poster

    The gallery is open Tuesday-Saturday, 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
    An exhibition by students from the Studies in Arts and Culture and Visual Arts programs. Our hybrid assemblages celebrate incongruity and unfettered associations. Whether abstract or figurative, paintings, or texts, they are intended to trigger reactions, prompt comparisons, and challenge the usual. Beyond the immediate effect of surprise, they provoke, their apparent disparateness nevertheless generates, on closer view, a semblance of overall coherence.

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  • Sacred Spaces: a student exhibition about mental health, at the MIWSFPA

    Sacred Spaces:Student Exhibition

    Feb. 6 to 29, 2020
    Opening reception: Feb. 12, 2020 — 5 to 8 p.m.

    VISA Art Gallery and Student Exhibition Space, MIWSFPA
    15 Artists’ Common, St. Catharines

    The gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m.

    With a focus on mental health, an exhibition about understanding emotional vulnerability and self-reflection, while unpacking the human need for comfort. Featuring Visual Arts students Kaitlyn Roberts and Chardon Trimble-Kirk.

    see the review in The Sound by Bart Gazzola.

    Sacred Spaces – Artist Statement
    Kaitlyn Roberts and Chardon Trimble-Kirk

    Mental illnesses often destroy from the inside out. It is a sickness that is hidden through the action of covering oneself from the world, in fear of discovery. Doctors will prescribe medication in an attempt to cure mental illness; medication that comes with dizziness, fatigue, loss of appetite, bruising, sexual dysfunction, and countless other side effects. All of which to shut out the voices from inside one’s mind. Voices that proclaim that you are not good enough, you do not deserve to be happy, you do not deserve to eat. I would much rather stay in bed. If I stay in bed, the medication isn’t necessary. The demons and monsters can be let out and no one will ever know.

    When living with mental illness, it is living a double life. One must hide behind a mask, only finding true relief in the intimate space of the bedroom, amongst the comfort of bedding. Only within these spaces is one truly allowed to express the realities of mental illnesses, whilst finding safety in the sacred spaces of the bed.

    Each work represents the safety and intimacy found within these spaces, whilst offering a juxtaposition between the covering and uncovering realities of the illnesses. The uncovering comes from personal texts written across these spaces, as well as the exposure of the body, and curiously the covering of the eyes in each figurative work. The text which is a direct thought, and nude figures which are an indirect representation of vulnerability, invite viewers into the sacred spaces of one’s true thoughts. The vague figures and various text will resonate with viewers, bringing awareness to mental illness, its prevalence, and its resonance within many.

    The works aim to de-stigmatize some of the most serious and misunderstood mental illnesses, all within the sacred spaces of our beds.

    VISA Sacred Spaces poster

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    Kaitlyn Roberts is currently in her fourth and final year at Brock University, achieving an Honours Bachelor of Arts with a major in Studio Art. Her artistic education birthed an attraction to explore autoethnography. Roberts’ studio practice, specifically, surveys the complexity of mental illness translated through visual art while highlighting how it affects both the artist and the viewer.

    Roberts is currently using her practice to investigate the relationship between the mind and the body, through the artistic process of ‘mapping’. This includes research into the connections between mental illnesses and the physical sicknesses that follow, including trauma.

    Roberts has shown her work in juried shows around Ontario including, St. Catharines City Hall’s Transformations, Niagara Artist Centre’s Fortune Favours, and the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington’s The VAC 39th Annual Juried Show where she was the only student, and youngest person to be accepted. Roberts has also shown her work in exhibitions including; Niagara Artist Centre’s Small Feats, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine, and Performing Arts’ Art Block: BAC
    on the Block, as well as many exhibitions hosted by Mahtay Café.

    Roberts will be showing her thesis work titled, Dear Euodia, in April 2020 at Rodman Hall in St. Catharines, Ontario alongside co-artists Chardon Trimble-Kirk, Brianne Casey, Rachel McCartney, Zach White, Kira Pretty, Curt Richard, and Jess McClelland. Opening reception is Friday, April 3rd at 7 pm.

    Roberts is planning on pursuing a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts once she graduates from Brock University.

    Chardon Trimble-Kirk is a Canadian painter based in St. Catharines. Through the use of figuration and pattern making, themes of femininity and gender roles are explored within her work. In addition to this, Trimble-Kirk is interested in the themes of sexuality, vulnerability, repetition and mental health, and their intersections within femininity. Thematic and aesthetic contrasts are often included within the work, allowing viewers to interpret the work individually while also thinking critically about the concepts presented.

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  • Imagined Urban Gardens opens at Rodman Hall Art Centre

    Imagined Urban Gardens: Student Exhibition
    Jan. 30 – March 1, 2020

    Imagined Urban Gardens poster

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    Rodman Hall Art Centre
    109 St. Paul Crescent, St. Catharines, ON

    Responding to the explorations of urban architecture and its materials in Teresa Carlesimo and Michael DiRisio: more light than heat (on exhibition at the Rodman Hall Art Centre), Imagined Urban Gardens also reflects on today’s global warming and how we could live in the future.

    We dream of green spaces and pleasantly warm cities.
    Students in Visual Arts and Studies in Arts and Culture envision in text and image what could be in a livable world.

    See the YourTV Niagara video spotlight about this exhibition, featuring interviews with the artists and curators.

    Read the article by Bart Gazzola in The Sound STC.

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  • Donna Szőke presents ‘On Invisibility’, January 21 at the MIWSFPA

    On 21 January, the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture welcomes artist Donna Szőke, Chair of the Department of Visual Arts and a member of the recently created Research Centre in Interdisciplinary Arts and Creative Culture, as a Walker Cultural leader for 2020.

    Szőke will present an artists’ talk “On Invisibility” at 7:00 pm at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts of Brock University (MIWSFPA). This is a free community event and everyone is welcome to attend.

    Invisibility is this year’s theme at The Small Walker Press, a small press valuing interdisciplinary cooperation and the exploration of image and text, homed in the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture (STAC) at the MIWSFPA.

    Szőke creates expanded animation, media art, video, drawing, and collaborations. She investigates immanence, embodied perception, and the fluidity of lived experience.

    In her artist’s talk, she will present her work and her current book project The Dark Redacted in cooperation with author Gary Barwin, to be published in April 2020 by the Small Walker Press.

    In an excerpt from the forthcoming volume, editors Catherine Parayre and Derek Knight write:On Visibility poster by Donna Szoke

    Donna Szőke thoughtfully investigates the fluidity of meaning and presence. Rather than elucidating a concept or an experience, she proposes a semi-abstract perusal of collective or intimate issues. Offering a reflection on the evocative instability of the biographical and the personal, and opting for an approach close to autofiction, her work constellates subtle possibilities and its scope defies the limitations of certainty. The artist is a compelling storyteller for whom the quest for meaning and the vagrancies of that search are more significant than plain facts. For The Dark Redacted Szőke proposes traces of a fragile story and never-faltering endurance. Her sequence of images alternates beautifully detailed natural life – a buffalo, intricate vegetation – and minimally sketched-out human presence and personal objects. As a result, her work addresses the viewers’ intuition and sensitivity to the environment.

    The event is presented by the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture for the Walker Cultural Leader Series, generously founded by Marilyn I. Walker. The Walker Cultural Leader series brings leading artists, performers, practitioners and academics to the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts at Brock University. Engaging, lively and erudite, these sessions celebrate professional achievement, artistic endeavour and the indelible role of culture in our society.

    Join us on January 21, 2020 at 7-8:30 pm.  The presentation takes place in the Art & Val Fleming Smart Classroom (MWS 156), located on the lower level of the MIWSFPA.  Limited parking is available at the MIWSFPA, with additional parking nearby at the Garden Park/Carlisle Street Parking garage and adjacent lots.

    Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture: Walker Cultural Leader Artist’s talk
    ‘On Invisibility’, with Donna Szőke
    21 January 2020, 7-8:30 pm, MWS 156

    download the poster

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  • Translations, an invitational photography exhibition to begin the new decade

    image: Sarah Martin

    Translations

    An exhibition of photography by visual arts students.
    A reception will be held on January 15, 2019 – 5 p.m to 8 p.m.
    Presented in the VISA Art gallery and Student Exhibition Space of the Marilyn I Walker School of Fine & Performing Arts, 15 Artists’ Common in downtown St. Catharines.

    Translations is a curated show consisting of photographs created with analogue, experimental and digital processes.  The combination of the photographs is intended to instigate a reflection on the practice of creativity and what it means to make photographs.  It is also an exhibition that contemplates what a photograph is and how we each see and experience photographs. The students were individually invited, and work was individually selected for the exhibition by Professor Amy Friend of the Department of Dramatic Arts.

    Work in the exhibition includes photographs by students from the Department of Visual Arts and other programs at Brock University.

    The gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m.

    Download the Translations poster.

    see the short video produced by YourTV Niagara

    The participating artists include:

    Tabitha Holloway, Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Studio Art
    Chance Mutuku, Bachelor of Kinesiology
    Sarah Martin, Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Studio Art With First-Class Standing
    Amber Lee Williams, Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Studio Art
    Kaitlyn Roberts, Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Studio Art, Minor in French Studies

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  • Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Indigenous Art Practice: Candidate Research Presentations

    The Brock and wider community is invited to attend the presentations by the three Indigenous artist/researchers who are finalists for the Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Indigenous Art Practice at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts.

    Our candidates are visiting the Marilyn I. Walker School in January. Each will give an hour-long presentation and engage in an additional half hour of discussion about their current research interests and focus, and about what they would hope to achieve as a Canada Research Chair at Brock University in the next five years.

    MATTHEW MACKENZIE

    Research presentation 5 – 6:30 pm,
    Friday January 10, 2020
    MWS 156

    Edmonton playwright, director and producer Matthew MacKenzie (Métis) is Artistic Director of Punctuate! Theatre, as well as the founder and an Artistic Associate with Pyretic Productions. In 2018, his play Bears won Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Production, was named a co-winner of the Toronto Theatre Critics Outstanding New Canadian Play Award, and won the Playwrights Guild of Canada’s Carol Bolt National Playwriting Award. This past fall, Punctuate! premiered MacKenzie’s play The Particulars, which was named one of the top ten productions of 2019 by The Globe and Mail.

    MARK IGLOLIORTE

    Research presentation 11:30 am – 1 pm,
    Friday January 17, 2020
    MWS 156

    Mark Igloliorte is an Inuk artist born in Corner Brook, Newfoundland with Inuit ancestry from Nunatsiavit, Labrador. His artistic work is primarily painting and drawing. Igloliorte’s work has been featured in several notable national exhibitions including the 2015 Marion McCain Exhibition of Contemporary Atlantic Canadian Art, curated by Corinna Ghaznavi; Inuit Ullumi: Inuit Today: Contemporary Art from TD Bank Group’s Inuit Collection; Beat Nation, curated by Kathleen Ritter and Tania Willard; and The Phoenix Art-The Renewed Life of Contemporary Painting, curated by Robert Enright. In addition, Igloliorte has been profiled in features in Canadian Art magazine and Inuit Art Quarterly. Igloliorte is an Assistant Professor at Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

    SUZANNE MORRISSETTE

    Research presentation 5 – 6:30 pm,
    Wednesday January 22, 2020
    MWS 207

    Suzanne Morrissette is a Métis artist, curator, and writer. Using various research-creation methods Morrissette addresses the philosophical roots of historical and contemporary forms of injustice facing Indigenous peoples. Her current and future research looks at the role of locally-based Indigenous knowledges within Indigenous community-based curatorial practice as a way of entering into conversations about robust and unexpected strategies for representing Indigenous art both within Canadian and international contexts. Currently she holds the position of Assistant Professor at OCAD University.r University of Art and Design.


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