News

  • Visa professor gets funding for project profiling women animal rights activists

    Associate Professor of Art History Dr. Keri Cronin has received major funding for her research on the history of animal rights and the role of women in this advocacy during the 19th and early 20th centuries:

    While researching the history of animal rights, Brock visual arts professor Keri Cronin realized that women did much of the advocacy work in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

    She also noticed that, quite often, there was little information about these women. For example, it was common for a woman’s first name to be omitted from the record, with only her married name – Mrs. Smith, for example – being listed.

    That got Cronin and her friend, award-winning photographer Jo-Anne McArthur, thinking.

    “What we’ve noticed again and again is that it’s always women on the ground, raising the money, holding the bake sales, protesting, and it’s usually men at the head of the organizations,” says Cronin. “This is true today and obviously in the 19th century, too.”

    “We thought, ‘all these women are doing amazing work and they’re not getting credit, they’re not being celebrated.’ We want to change that.”

    For the full story, please click here to read the Brock News article, and click here to visit the project website for The Unbound Project: Women on the Front Lines of Animal Advocacy.

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  • Director of the MIWSFPA to deliver lecture at Alliance Française

    Associate Professor of Art History & Studio and Director of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts Derek Knight will be delivering a lecture on the work of Le Corbusier at the Alliance française de Toronto. For more information on this lecture click HERE.

    Wednesday, March 16
    7:00 pm
    Spadina Theatre
    24 spadina road
    M5R 2S7 Toronto, ON
    Canada

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  • Brock Art Collective Juried Exhibition: Million Dollar Pink

    The Brock Art Collective has mounted a juried exhibition at the Niagara Artists’ Centre at 354 St.Paul Street in St.Catharines.

    Million Dollar Pink
    February 17 > 26
    Reception: Friday, February 26 7 PM – 9 PM
    Niagara Artists’ Centre

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    Categories: Events, Exhibitions

  • Visa instructor Judy Graham announces upcoming exhibition.

    raw-and-re-imagined-event-posterVisa instructor Judy Graham has work featured in the upcoming exhibition:

    Raw & Re-imagined: Photo Exhibition

    February 29 – March 5, 2016
    Opening reception: February 27, 6 – 9 pm
    Willowbank
    5 Walnut Street
    Queenston, ON.

    For more information on this exhibition please click HERE.

     

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  • Brock instructor’s work one of Time’s top 10 magazine covers of the year

    (Source: The Brock NewsThursday, December 10, 2015 | by )

    Time Magazine has recognized the photographic work of Brock University visual arts instructor Amy Friend. A photograph created by Friend for the cover of The California Sunday Magazine’s April 5 edition is one of Time’s Top 10 covers of the year.

    “Our selection of the top 10 covers of 2015 displays an exquisite use of photography,” writes Kira Pollack in Time’s online article announcing the best covers. “With this unranked selection, we’ve witnessed that the cover still holds the power to be iconic and, at the very least, move and delight us.”

    Other covers on the list include the Vanity Fair image of Caitlyn Jenner shot by famous photographer Annie Leibovitz, New York Magazine’s issue featuring black and white images of 35 women who claim to be victims of Bill Cosby and a Harper’s Bazaar photo of singer Rihanna in the mouth of a shark.

    Friend said she is thrilled her work is included in a collection of so many amazing images.

    “It gives a boost to the aspects I really believe in regarding photography and its ability to reach a certain and specific sentiment with people,” she said. “When you are struck by an image, it remains with you.”

    As a fine arts photographer, Friend works with light.

    In her photographic series Dare alla Luce, she uses light to re-make vintage photographs.

    “We loved the work of Canadian artist Amy Friend, specifically her series Dare alla Luce, in which she manipulates archival photographs with a needle and then projects light through the images,” said the magazine’s creative director Leo Jung.

    More and more, artists are being approached to work with mainstream media.

    The California Sunday Magazine cover is inspired by that series and shows the silhouette of a woman with spots of light shining through, giving it a poignant quality. John von Pamer took the picture of the woman and Friend applied her technique on it and then re-photographed it. It goes with the story Death, Re-Designed.

    “The resulting image has an otherworldly, ethereal quality – a perfect metaphor for this story,” said Jacqueline Bates, photography director.

    Friend said it’s not unusual for artists to work in editorial realms.

    “More and more, artists are being approached to work with mainstream media,” she said, noting that’s opening even more doors for her students at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts.

    “There’s fertile ground between the fine arts stream and with editorial based work,” she said.

    Friend said Brock visual arts students are exposed to both digital and analogue photography thanks to the MIWSFPA’s brand new darkroom.

    “It’s what really sets us apart from many other universities, which are mainly concentrating on digital,” she said.

    As a photographer, she knows the value of a well-rounded education in the art form.

    “Every time a student develops a photo in the darkroom, it’s a completely magical experience,” she said.

    In her photography, Friend said she concentrates on elements of history, time, memory and impermanence.

    “Despite photography’s traditional connection with the real, I am less concerned with capturing a ‘concrete’ reality, and instead aim to use and explore photography as a medium yet focus on what lies beyond its immediate visual representations,” she said.

    In much of her work, Friend uses found images and vintage pictures.

    Dare Alla Luce has been published in book form by photolucida.org and one of the images featured hangs in the new FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in St. Catharines.

    Friend’s recent work will be on display at Rodman Hall from Jan. 29-May 1 in a show called Assorted Boxes of Ordinary Life, curated by Marcie Bronson.

    An opening reception will be held Jan. 28 at 7 p.m.

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  • Visa student releases CD and video.

    creaturespeakFourth 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.

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  • Visa instructor Amy Friend announces upcoming exhibition.

    amyfriend-isoldeThe photography of Visa instructor Amy Friend will be featured an the upcoming exhibition.

    Amy Friend: Dare alla Luce
    December 4 > January 30, 2016
    Opening Friday, December 4th at 5:00pm

    For more information please click HERE.

    Pictura Gallery
    122 West 6th Street
    Bloomington, IN

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  • Visa Instructor Donna Akrey announces exhibitions.

    craft-martVisual Arts Instructor Donna Akrey is part of two upcoming exhibitions:

    Stories of the City Exhibition
    SB Contemporary
    1017 Church Street
    Hamilton
    Open 12pm – 4pm, Wednesday through Saturday November 6 – 23
    33 University Ave. West
    Open 1pm – 6pm, Friday and Saturday November 20 – December 5 (or by appointment)

    For more information click HERE.

    (F)NOR
    Hamilton Artist Inc Craft Mart.
    December 11 and 12

    For more information click HERE.

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  • Visa Instructor Amy Friend announces exhibitions.

    friend_a-04Photography Instructor Amy Friend is part of the following events:

    CRITICAL MASS

    Amy Friend is one of fifty photographers included in Critical Mass. The selection is based on a juried portfolio process by 200 curators and professionals in the art field. For more information on this click HERE.

     

    FESTIVAL INTERNACIONAL DE FOTOGRAFÍA GUATEPHOTO 2015

    Amy’s work is featured in the group exhibition titled, Seeing Connections, in Antigua, Guatemala, curated by Dr. Rebecca Senf (Curator of Photography at the Phoenix Art Museum and Creative Center for Photography, USA).

    Amy will also present the recently published monograph from the same series at the Photobook exhibition in the Guatemala Photo Festival, and she will also participate as a panelist at the Museo Arte de Guatemala in Guatemela City on November 21, 2015. This panel discussion will focus on New Initiatives and Platforms for Photography on an international scale.

    For more information click HERE.

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  • Visa Instructor Judy Graham featured in exhibition.

    noise_0Visa drawing Instructor Judy Graham will be exhibiting drawings at the Niagara Artists Centre, opening Nov. 7th, 2-4 p.m.

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