History of Art & Visual Culture course is happy to announce the launch of a new course this winter term. For more information on this “timely” addition to our course offerings please contact Professor Linda Steer.
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.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 20TH, 2020
Research Presentation 1:00pm (1:00 – 2:20pm)
stream.lifesizecloud.com/extension/3327547/cf3bdaf1-eac4-4aa9-8116-3fdc308ebef8
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.
THURSDAY, MAY 21ST, 2020
Research Presentation 1:00pm (1:00 – 2:20pm)
stream.lifesizecloud.com/extension/3327527/6fd67857-4515-484b-9d04-9ea9ea756a71
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.
FRIDAY, MAY 22ND, 2020
Research Presentation 1:00pm (1:00 – 2:20pm)
stream.lifesizecloud.com/extension/3326867/e156311e-7437-4e53-a009-eada0c2fcfff
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.
Assistant Professor in Visual Arts, Candidate Research Presentations, Digital Media and Design, GUSTAVO CERQUERA BENJUMEA, GWEN MACGREGOR, MIWSFPA, presentation, TROY DAVID OUELLETTE
Categories: Announcements, Current Students, Events, Faculty & Instructors, Future Students, In the Media, Media Releases, News, Uncategorised
image: Fischli & Weiss: Equilibres / Quiet Afternoon, 1984.
In response to COVID-19, and the suspension of all face-to-face classes, the Department of Visual arts is busy reinventing one of their very popular Spring and Summer session courses, VISA 2F05 Introduction to Sculpture.
Instructor/artist Donna Akrey will launch the new original online course in sculpture beginning the week of May 04, 2020.
Donna remarks,“This is hard but a great opportunity to think about how to deliver content this way and to still get students to think and problem solve. I am hopeful about it all.”
Do you have a laptop, phone, computer and consistent use of the internet?
Do you have a table?
Do you have everyday objects like scissors, tape, paper, recycling material?
Are you up for the challenge of working solo and thinking sculpturally?
Are you interested in problem-solving, ingenuity, DIY, working with what you have and collaboration? Come and experiment with us!
For more information about VISA 2F05 Introduction to Sculpture please see the Academic Calendar and the Registration Guide.
covid-19, donna akrey, Sculpture, VISA 2F05
Categories: Current Students, Faculty & Instructors, News, Uncategorised
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:
download the poster
KENDRA BOSSE
TERI LYNN DITZEL
PERI GOODMAN
I.J.IROGBENACHI
GABRIELLA JONES
UGO MADUKA
LAUREN MARCO
JESS MCCLELLAND
AMA OKAFOR
SOPHIA STRACHAN
CHARLOTTE TARR
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
300 Minutes, 3M90, Akrey, Visual Arts
Categories: Current Students, Events, Exhibitions, Faculty & Instructors, News
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
colour, painting, Serfas
Categories: Current Students, Events, Exhibitions, News, Uncategorised
Fourth-year Visual Arts student Chardon Trimble-Kirk completed the new International Centre Global Commons mural over 240 hours this summer.
(From: The Brock News, TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2019 | by Mike Morrison)
Before graduating from Brock University next year, Chardon Trimble-Kirk hoped to leave a vibrant mark on campus.
And after committing more than 240 hours of work to a project at Brock’s International Centre this summer, the fourth-year Visual Arts student has done just that.
Trimble-Kirk was drawn to a request for proposals posted in April that sought someone to create a mural in a commonly used community space within the centre. She had an idea, which she named “Connections,” and submitted a scaled-down version for review.
Fourth-year Visual Arts student Chardon Trimble-Kirk worked from June to August to complete the new mural in Brock’s International Centre.
Her vision featured chrysanthemums flowers, which are “symbolic of friendship and well-wishing,” she said. “Connecting them to a variety of countries intends to showcase the friendship that can be found in individuals regardless of their country of origin.”
Leigh-Ellen Keating, Director of Brock International, said the design chosen for the project had to meet certain criteria, including being reflective of the entire Brock community, including faculty, staff and students from more than 100 countries around the world. It also needed to highlight the importance of internationalization and globalization, a key part of the University’s new Strategic Plan.
After careful deliberation by a committee of Brock University representatives, Trimble-Kirk’s design was selected for the project and she began the painting in June.
The newest symbol of Brock’s growing international community now stands more than 15 feet wide and nine feet tall in the Global Commons, a student lounge inside the International Centre that’s home to events and activities open to the entire Brock community.
It is by far the largest project that Trimble-Kirk has ever worked on. Her previous record was four six-by-three-foot paintings for a third-year class.The experience led to a number of firsts for the artist.“
I used scaffolding for the first time to complete the higher sections,” Trimble-Kirk said. “I had also never painted directly on brick walls and found myself learning to work with the texture rather than fight it.”
The mural will be officially unveiled during Brock International’s Open House on Wednesday, Sept. 4 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the International Centre.
Trimble-Kirk, who will continue doing freelance paintings after she graduates, plans to apply to a Master of Fine Arts program in the coming years.
