News

• The MIWSFPA welcomes Landon Mackenzie to Niagara

  Friday, March 06, 2020 | Posted by dvivian

  

  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

  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!

  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.

  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).

  Tags: Landon Mackenzie, Shawn Serfas, Visual Arts, Walker Cultural Leader
  Categories: Announcements, Events, Faculty & Instructors, In the Media, Media Releases, News, Uncategorised

• CrissCross, a new student exhibition at the MIWSFPA

  Wednesday, March 04, 2020 | Posted by dvivian

  

  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.
  

  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.

  Tags: centre for studies in arts and culture, CrissCross, stac, visa, Visual Arts
  Categories: Announcements, Current Students, Events, Exhibitions, Faculty & Instructors, In the Media, Media Releases, Uncategorised

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

  Saturday, February 01, 2020 | Posted by dvivian

  

  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.

  

  download poster

  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.

  Tags: Chardon Trimble-Kirk, Kaitlyn Roberts, Sacred Spaces, visa, Visual Arts
  Categories: Announcements, Current Students, Events, Exhibitions, In the Media, Media Releases, News, Uncategorised

• Imagined Urban Gardens opens at Rodman Hall Art Centre

  Saturday, February 01, 2020 | Posted by dvivian

  

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

  

  download the poster

  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.

  Tags: centre for studies in arts and culture, Imagined Urban Gardens, RHAC, Rodman Hall Art Centre, Visual Arts
  Categories: Current Students, Events, Exhibitions, Faculty & Instructors, In the Media, News, Uncategorised

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

  Thursday, January 16, 2020 | Posted by dvivian

  

  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:

  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

  Tags: Barwin, centre for studies in arts and culture, MIWSFPA, stac, Szőke, visa, Visual Arts, Walker Cultural Leader, WCL
  Categories: Announcements, Events, Faculty & Instructors, In the Media, Media Releases, News, Uncategorised

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

  Monday, January 13, 2020 | Posted by dvivian

  

  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.

  Click on the images to download the posters.

  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

  Tags: alumni, Amy Friend, Photography, Translations
  Categories: Alumni, Events, Exhibitions, Faculty & Instructors, In the Media, News, Uncategorised

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

  Monday, January 06, 2020 | Posted by dvivian

  

  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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  Please share and post this poster in your community.

  Tags: Canada Research Chair, CRC, indigenous, MARK IGLOLIORTE, MATTHEW MACKENZIE, MIWSFPA, SUZANNE MORRISSETTE
  Categories: Announcements, Events, Faculty & Instructors, News, Uncategorised

• 300 MINUTES: A One Night Exhibition on Nov. 27th!

  Thursday, November 21, 2019 | Posted by dvivian

  

  300 MINUTES is a public show brought to you by the VISA 3M90: Advanced Art Practice students. The collection of self-directed works by 3rd/4th year students are comprised of paintings, sculpting, drawings, installation work, performative work, sound and video displays. As viewers we value your thoughts, questions and opinions about the works, therefore open critique forms will be provided at each work site to capture your input which is greatly appreciated.

  300 MINUTES, the time length of the exhibition, is being held during the ‘new moon’ lunar phase. This phase, the first of its many phases, depicts the moon positioned between the sun and moon at the 12:00 o’clock beginning station. This lunar anecdote relates to the students and their first public exhibition which will provide inspiration as they move through their artistic phases like the hands of a lunar clock.

  The exhibition is a mid-year event for the class, which will lead the students towards their final show at the Marilyn I. Walker Gallery in April. Hope to see you there as well.

  DATE: November 27, 2019
  TIME: 4:00PM – 9:00PM
  WHERE: Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts building
  15 Artists’ Common, St. Catharines

  COST: Free

  Tags: 300 Minutes, 3M90, Akrey, Visual Arts
  Categories: Current Students, Events, Exhibitions, Faculty & Instructors, News

• Visual Art professor’s work chosen for prestigious U.K. exhibition

  Wednesday, November 06, 2019 | Posted by dvivian

  

  “Wayfinding in Cold Light from the Multi-Verse Series” by Amy Friend, an Assistant Professor in Brock’s Department of Visual Arts, is one of just 55 photographs included in this year’s Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London, U.K.

  (published in The Brock News TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 05, 2019 | by Alison Innes )

  Nearly 4,000 portraits by more than 1,000 photographers from 70 countries were submitted, but only 55 were chosen for this year’s Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Exhibition in the United Kingdom.

  One of those portraits is by Amy Friend, an Assistant Professor of Visual Arts at Brock’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Art.

  The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize is a prestigious annual award that attracts amateur and professional photographers alike. Only 55 of the 3,700 submissions were chosen for the exhibition. Three photos are shortlisted for the top award of £15,000 (approximately $25,000 CAD).

  “Having my work included in the Taylor Wessing Portrait Exhibition is an exciting adventure in my creative practice,” said Friend. “I had been working on this long-term project for several years, so it is uplifting to see this new work recognized. The piece has personal connections, which extends this recognition in a meaningful way.”

  Friend’s series Multi-Verse draws on her own and found photographs featuring diverse subject matter and imagery from across several time periods to explore the idea of a multi-verse. The series references both the idea of alternate realities and the numerous stories or ‘verses’ the viewer encounters in the photographs.

  She uses experimental photographic methods and manual manipulation to alter photos. While they are not overtly political photographs, her works references darker elements such as floodwaters and images of soldiers.

  “I reference the past, the here and now, the visible and invisible, literally and poetically, albeit not through overtly political photographs,” said Friend. “The medium of photography has always had a currency of possibility. In this series I work to find meaning in the chaos, to be with it and to look for an alternate story from where we are — a multiverse.”

  The exhibition opens at the National Portrait Gallery in London, U.K., on Tuesday, Nov. 5 and carries through to February 2020. The exhibition will then go on tour throughout the U.K.

  In 2017, a portrait by Finnish artist Maija Tammi, who studied under Friend, won third place in the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize.

  Tags: Amy Friend, National Portrait Gallery, Photography, Taylor Wessing, visa, Visual Arts
  Categories: Alumni, Announcements, Events, Exhibitions, Faculty & Instructors, In the Media, News, Uncategorised

• An Instrument of Colour: Student Exhibition at the MIWSFPA

  Wednesday, October 30, 2019 | Posted by dvivian

  

  A curated exhibition of student work exploring colour as language, organized by Visual Arts Professor Shawn Serfas.

  Participating artists include:

  Danielle Booker
  Sarah Cecchini
  Rea Kelly
  Lindsay Liboiron
  Ashleen Mohaupt
  Krista Nap
  Lillian Pasqua
  Taylor Sorensen
  Shania Anne Thompson
  Cree Tylee
  Blake Wilson
  &
  Various Artists Representing Geographies of Process

  exhibition:  Nov. 1 to Nov. 29

  Reception Nov. 6, 2019 — 5 to 8 p.m.

  VISA Art Gallery and Student Exhibition Space,
  Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts,
  Brock University

  The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday, 1 to 5 pm
  and for special events.

  see the ExpBU calendar listing

  see the video produced by YourTV

  

   

  Tags: colour, painting, Serfas
  Categories: Current Students, Events, Exhibitions, News, Uncategorised