Fourth year Visual Arts student Brittany Brooks has just released a CD titled Shadow Songs as well as a feature video for the song Oh Susana.
For more information and to view the video please click HERE.
Brittany Brooks, Creature Speak, Oh Susana, Shadow Songs
Categories: Alumni, Current Students, News
MEDIA RELEASE
R00125
2 September 2015
Brock University — Communications & Public Affairs
Art is in the City
As Brock University’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts opens a new era in its new urban setting, it is launching a performance series to celebrate the bond between the community and the new arts centre of excellence in downtown St. Catharines.
The series Imagining the City – part of the Walker Cultural Leaders Program, 2015/16 – consists of performances, exhibitions, concerts and conferences, all themed around ideas of the urban, and the relationship between the City and the University.
“Our goal is to invite the community to engage with us in a series of celebratory events, 40 or more, that run the course of the academic year,” said Derek Knight, MIWSFPA Director. “Formal or improvised, these activities will take place in our dynamic new building and in venues across the City, from the café to the concert hall, the theatre to the gallery, the outdoor environs to the street itself. What a wonderfully immersive way to bridge between our communities and to strengthen our ties.”
Knight said events will build on the creativity and vision of faculty, students and the professional talents of many sister organizations and collaborators. “The idea that the city is a crucible for creative interaction and collective reflection, is a powerful concept and demonstration of the arts at their most compelling,” he said.
The series will be dynamic and original and appeal to a variety of people, whether they are fans of theatre, musical performances, exhibitions or discussions.
Imagining the City will bring Brock, the downtown and the greater Niagara community face-to-face with leading arts professionals and educators, with events occurring at the MIWSFPA, Rodman Hall, and venues within the developing creative arts hub of St. Paul Street.
“At this crucial moment in the revival of our downtown the vitality of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts is manifest in programs such as the Walker Cultural Leader Series,” Knight said.
The series will consist of more than 40 wide-ranging events, including:
The full program can be found here. Stay connected on social media by following @miwsfpa and #itc.
All events for Imagining the City are free, and open to the public (the only exception being Poor by Essential Collective Theatre, co-presented by FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre with production assistance by DART).
For more information or to arrange interviews: Marie Balsom, Communications Coordinator, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, Brock University mbalsom@brocku.ca, 905.688.5550 x4765
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Sarah Beattie’s winning painting of a woman sneezing.
Sarah Beattie grabs her camera and tries to capture the moment – at least a re-enactment of it – and use it as a muse for her next painting.
She seems to have found the perfect inspiration. Beattie has been chosen as the regional winner in the BMO 1st Art! Awards for her painting of a young woman sneezing.
“It’s pretty unreal,” Beattie said. “I didn’t think I had that good a chance of winning because the competition could have been any form of art.”
Now in the 10th year, the BMO 1st Art! Awards is a national competition for artists graduating from university. Entrants are chosen by Deans and instructors based on student skill and imagination.
In the end, one national winner and 12 regional winners – one from each province or territory – are selected by a panel of judges.
The award comes with a $5,000-cash prize. The winners’ work will also be on display at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto from Oct. 3 to 28 and be published in Canadian Art magazine.
It’s critical exposure for a young artist embarking on a professional career and trying to make a name for themselves, said Beattie, who graduated with her bachelor of arts this past spring.
Her winning painting is one of a series of six called Say Sneeze that Beattie painted during her honours studio class earlier this year at Rodman Hall. Each work captures someone on the verge of sneezing that she photographed up to 100 times first.
“A photograph is an instantaneous thing, just like a sneeze,” she explained.
The series is a work in progress and will eventually include a self-portrait of Beattie herself on the brink of eliciting a ‘Bless you.’ Beattie hopes to eventually do a solo exhibition of her work.
“I’d like to have 10 different ones, like a big simultaneous sneeze,” Beattie said.
Prof. Donna Szoke, who taught Beattie during her honours studio class, called her a gifted painter who stands her ground when it comes to how she creates.
“She’s very insightful in her own process and she trusts her process implicitly. That’s unusual for a young artist,” Szoke said. “She’s very determined.”
Keri Cronin, chair of the Department of Visual Arts, said the award is well-deserved.
“Sarah is a hard-working, innovative young artist who excelled in her classes at Brock,” Cronin said.
Cronin predicts there will be more accolades for students, particularly once the new Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts moves to its new space in downtown St. Catharines in 2014.
“We have excellent instructors in the Department of Visual Arts and our small class sizes allow for students to receive a lot of one-on-one instruction and mentorship. This kind of environment plays an important role in allowing students to grow as artists and to achieve their full potential,” she said. “This dynamic coupled with the state-of-the-art facilities we will have in our new downtown building will lead to more of these sorts of awards and honours for our students.”
BMO 1st Art! Awards, painting, Sarah Beattie
Categories: Alumni, Current Students, News