Articles tagged with: 15 Artists’ Common

  • Students transform trash into treasure for new art exhibit

    Monday, June 24, 2019 | By

    Visual Arts major Caroline Holroyd, 67, works away at her plaster of paris sculpture for the upcoming exhibition, Material World.

    (From The Brock News, June 24, 2019 | By: Sarah Ackles)

    In a world where both packaging and products are marketed as disposable, Brock Visual Arts students have been challenged to rethink the concept of materialism.

    As part of instructor Donna Akrey’s Sculpture VISA 2F05 course, students were tasked with collecting various everyday items to be used as the basis for their final art projects.

    Everything from Styrofoam packing material to masking tape was fair game as students sculpted their works, which are featured in the upcoming exhibition Material World, on view from Friday, June 28 to Friday, July 19.

    In the process of creating, experimenting and working with their hands, students questioned society’s relationship to disposable materials. They also explored the often-overlooked aesthetics of simple, everyday objects, while being conscious of how everyday “stuff” is treated.

    Artist Caroline Holroyd, for example, repurposed an old speaker and plastic hockey stick handle for one of her pieces.

    “It’s an important topic because there’s so much waste all around us,” she said of working with found objects for this exhibition. “We’re showing creative ways to reuse that waste in this exhibition, but there is still so much more that we can do to combat this serious issue of waste in our society.”

    The 67-year-old Visual Arts major has been completing her degree on a part-time basis and said that working on projects like Material World alongside other artists is one of her favourite parts of the program.

    “They make me feel young,” she said with a laugh.

    Other participating artists in the show include Lindsay Allen, Meagan Benner, Kendra Bosse, Peri Goodman, Erica Greshuk, Rea Kelly, Ang Li, Sarah Martin, Ami Okafor, Harvind Sekhon, Taylor Sorensen, Miles Stanley, Jamie Tomao-Martin and Jessica Turk.

    Material World runs from Friday, June 28 to Friday, July 19 in the VISA Gallery and Student Exhibition Space at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts.

    An opening reception will take place Friday, June 28, from noon to 3 p.m.

    The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public.

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    Categories: Announcements, Current Students, Events, Exhibitions, News

  • Three exhibits this week for Visual Arts

    Wednesday, April 04, 2018 | By

    This is a busy week for exhibitions under Brock’s Department of Visual Arts (VISA).

    From April 2 to 6, students in the VISA department are presenting three exhibitions: CORE, SITE-SEER, and (un)hidden.

    Now open in the Rodman Hall Art Centre is the exhibit CORE. VISA students will have their smaller works in Rodman Hall’s Flex Space, which will be imagined as a larger site and a centre from where the work branches out to the other destinations in the show. CORE is open to view at Rodman Hall from now until April 13. Gallery hours can be found on their website and admission is by donation, but free for members and students.

    When visiting Rodman Hall, be sure to see the Brock University Department of Visual Arts Honours Exhibition: just resting my eyes, on display until April 8.

    The second exhibit, SITE-SEER, is an extension of the first. SITE-SEER is a one-night exhibition being held Wednesday, April 4 from 4 to 9 p.m., where the downtown area of St. Catharines will serve as gallery space. Students from Donna Akrey’s Advanced Art Practices course are taking their creations from the CORE exhibit and dispersing them throughout downtown St. Catharines in hopes that their pieces will lure locals into seeing sites in a new way.

    Participating artists for both CORE and SITE-SEER include: Hani Ahmed, Jess Angelevski, Teresa Badgley, Jessica Bradley, Tom Denton, Isabella Domaradzki, Kylie Haveron, Emma Hutchison-Hounsell, Laura Levesque, Avery Mikolic-O’Rourke, Amanda Misale, Anna Podvalni, Victoria Reid, Kourtney Spadoni and Desiree Veino.

    Maps with more information about the artworks, their locations and times will be available at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts on Wednesday night when SITE-SEER is held.

    Change, a contemporary exploration of Hidden Mother photography. One of many polaroid emulsion lifts featured in the upcoming show (un)hidden by Amber Lee Williams.

    Change, a contemporary exploration of Hidden Mother photography. One of many polaroid emulsion lifts featured in the upcoming show (un)hidden by Amber Lee Williams.

    A third show, (un)hidden by Brock Visual Arts student Amber Lee Williams, opens in the Visual Arts Exhibition Space ofthe MIWSFPA on Thursday, April 5 with a reception from 5 to 9 p.m. Williams is both a student and a mother of two, who gave birth to her second child while preparing for this exhibit. She is now in the process of installing her show while carrying her two-month-old baby in a sling.

    In the (un)hidden exhibit, Williams presents photographs, sculptures and installations investigating motherhood, relationships within the family and loss. (un)hidden will be open at the MIWSFPA until Saturday, April 28. Regular gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m.

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    Categories: 4F06 Honours Exhibition, Current Students, Events, Exhibitions, Faculty & Instructors, In the Media, News

  • A Special One Night Art Exhibition

    Friday, January 12, 2018 | By

    Invasive Species video freeze frame

    On January 17, students from Donna Akrey’s 3M90 Advanced Art Practices will be “transplanting their work into the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts building”. Everyone is invited to explore this one night exhibition between 4 and 9 p.m. Maps will be given out to help navigate the space to see the works – some easy to find, others more hidden.

    Invasive Species is a collection of self-directed works from third and fourth year students in the 3M90 ADVANCED ART PRACTICES course. This exhibition focuses on themes of information, architecture, the archive, regionality, subjectivity and objectivity, death, resilience, ecology, mental health, space, the institution, invasive and symbiotic species, and site-specific art. The works are comprised of painting, drawing, video, projection, animation, performance, and installation. All of the artists respond to the unique specificities and conditions of the facility and its site.

    Victoria Reid, visual arts student in Donna Akrey’s 3M90 course says her objective is “to personify objects in the architecture and space around us to show our connection to the architecture. I chose to do this in order to bring awareness to our relationship and contribution to the growing industrial landscape around us.”

    This event marks the mid-year point as the student progress to a final site-specific exhibition proposed to take over parts of downtown St. Catharines in April 2018.

    In order to provoke creativity and thought into this exhibition, Akrey asked her students, “if your work was to fit in this space (the MIW) and not the white cube – where might it go?” She says, “This allows the students to consider their work outside of the gallery and in effect pushes research further (as well as the logistics of mounting visual art in difficult spaces). The students have risen to it and are doing a great job.”

    Reid comments on what this course and the opportunity of this exhibition has taught her, “Through the process of making this work, I learned how to step outside my comfort zone and I learned that art can be art, even when in unconventional spaces apart from the gallery.”

    Donna Akrey is a part-time instructor of visual arts at Brock University. Her exhibition, Also Also held at Rodman Hall from February to April of 2017, was nominated for Exhibition of the Year: Budget Under $20, 000 (Monographic) Award by the Ontario Association of Art Galleries (OAAG). Her collaboration as a member of the Hamilton Perambulatory Unit was recently seen in the Downtown/s – Urban Renewals Today for Tomorrow: The 2017 Windsor-Essex Triennial of Contemporary Art.

    Isabella Domaradzki, artist, member of the organizational team for Invasive Species, and student in the 3M90 course says what she looks forward to most about this one night exhibition “is seeing our hard work in creating our art and planning this show come to life. We have learned so many valuable lessons throughout this experience that have shaped our identity as artists, and I think it will be exciting to visualize our growth and progress!”

    This one night exhibition is a free event held at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts from 4 to 9 p.m. on Wednesday Jan. 17. Refreshments and snacks will be served in the MIWSFPA lobby. Visit the Invasive Species Facebook event page to stay updated with this exciting event.

    See the article in the Brock News.

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    Categories: Current Students, Events, Exhibitions, Faculty & Instructors, In the Media, News

  • Colour Constructs at Rodman Hall/Constructions en couleurs à Rodman Hall

    Monday, November 20, 2017 | By

    Pictured: Material Girls exhibit. Exhibition: Colour Constructs/constructions en couleurs

    Pictured is a view of the exhibition Material Girls at Rodman Hall Art Centre. (source: RHAC)

    In fall 2017, Rodman Hall invites visitors to experience the exhibition Material Girls, which brings together Canadian and international female artists from across artistic disciplines and cultural backgrounds. Giving particular attention to the colourfulness and jubilance of this exhibition, in Colour Constructs, students in Visual Arts, Studies in Arts and Culture, and French Studies explore the materiality of colours in their own diverse ways. Student works are complemented by graffiti art by Niagara-based artist Mat Vizbulis, a classroom guest during the semester. Curators Catherine Parayre and Shawn Serfas. /

    A l’automne 2017, Rodman Hall invite ses visiteurs à découvrir l’exposition Material Girls, qui regroupe des artistes femmes du Canada et d’ailleurs, dont les pratiques artistiques et l’environnement culturel diffèrent. En s’inspirant des couleurs et de la gaieté de cette exposition, des étudiants-e-s en Arts visuels, Arts et cultures et Etudes en français explorent dans Constructions en couleurs la matérialité des coloris par le biais d’approches variées. Les graffitis de l’artiste Mat Vizbulis, établi dans la région du Niagara, complètent les oeuvres des étudiant-e-s. Commissaires: Catherine Parayre et Shawn Serfas.

    Article from the Brock News: Bilingual exhibition to shed light on Material Girls
    TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2017 | by Darien Temprile

    A new Rodman Hall exhibition aims to help visitors experience Material Girls in a new way.

    Geo, a piece created by third-year Visual Arts student Lilliana Pagliaro

    Geo, a piece created by third-year Visual Arts student Lilliana Pagliaro, will be featured in the Colour Constructs/Constructions en couleurs exhibition opening at Rodman Hall Thursday, Nov. 30.

    Colour Constructs/Constructions en couleurs, opening at the downtown St. Catharines art centre Thursday, Nov. 30, features works by students in Brock’s Visual Arts (VISA), Studies in Arts and Culture (STAC) and French Studies (FREN) programs.

    The exhibition, curated by Brock Professors Catherine Parayre and Shawn Serfas, initiates a sophisticated dialogue with Material Girls, an ongoing exhibition that opened at Rodman Hall Sept. 14.

    Material Girls is a large-scale group exhibition of work by Canadian and international emerging, mid-career and senior female artists from different artistic disciplines and cultures. Curated by a team from the Dunlop Art Gallery, a unit of the Regina Public Library, it explores material process and notions of excess as they relate to the feminized body, gendered space and capitalist desire.

    For Colour Constructs, students reacted to words, colours and visuals directly related to Material Girls.

    STAC students contributed nine texts based on words and expressions found in the curatorial statement of Material Girls; FREN students provided eight written fragments in French, describing colours from Material Girls; and VISA students, in their own paintings, reference the vividness of artwork presented in Material Girls.

    In addition to the work of students, the exhibition will include a new large commission by local graffiti artist Mat Vizbulis, who describes his work as ‘genre graffuturism.’

    “As the images unfold in layers, we understand that it is truly something unexplainable,” he said. “We are then daring to define things.”

    Earlier this year, Vizbulis led Brock students in experiential learning about graffiti and its role in both high art and popular culture.

    The opening reception of Colour Constructs/Constructions en couleurs takes place Thursday, Nov. 30 at 5 p.m. at Rodman Hall Art Centre, 109 St. Paul Cres. The exhibition will continue until March 4.

    Material Girls continues at Rodman Hall until Dec. 30.

    Admission to Rodman Hall Art Centre is free, although donations are accepted. For more information in French or English, visit ExperienceBU.

    UPDATE:

    French student Amandine Faivre, right, French student Amandine Faivre, right, speaks about her poetry with French Professor Renee-Claude Breitenstein
    speaks about her poetry with French Professor Renee-Claude Breitenstein at the opening of Colour Constructs Thursday, Nov. 30. Curated by Professors Catherine Parayre and Shawn Serfas, the exhibition is a collaboration by students in Studies in Arts and Culture, Visual Arts and French Studies. Student artwork is complemented by work by local graffiti artist Mat Vizbulis, who worked with STAC and VISA students over the course of the semester. Colour Constructs is on at Rodman Hall Art Centre until March 4.
    Exhibition: Thursday Nov. 30, 2017 – Sunday Mar. 4, 2018

    Opening Reception: Thursday Nov. 30, 2017 at 5:00pm

    GALLERY HOURS:
    Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday: 10 am to 5 pm
    Thursday: 10 am to 9 pm
    Saturday & Sunday: 12 pm to 5 pm
    Closed Mondays, statutory and University holidays

    Free community event however donations accepted (suggested $5).

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    Categories: Current Students, Events, Exhibitions

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

    Thursday, December 10, 2015 | By

    (Source: The Brock News, Thursday, 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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    Categories: Faculty & Instructors, News

  • Donna Szőke: Satellite, Curated by Stuart Reid

    Monday, October 19, 2015 | By

    "Invisible Histories", phone app, 2015

    “Invisible Histories”, phone app, 2015

    Monday, October 19 – Saturday, November 28, 2015
    Opening Reception: Friday, October 23, 2015, 7 – 9 p.m.
    Location: Visual Arts Gallery, 15 Artists’ Common
    Satellite is the collected media art works by Donna Szoke, from 2011 to present. It is literally a satellite show of the exhibition Cloud, installed and running now at Rodman Hall Art Centre. While Cloud coalesces print, sculpture and multiples into one body of work, Satellite presents digital drawings, single channel video and media art works that speak to the ethereal regions of digital art practice. These digital artworks investigate the invisible, elided and mysterious.

    This exhibition is running now at the Visual Arts Gallery, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, Brock University at 15 Artists’ Common in downtown St. Catharines, and is a free community event!

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    Categories: Events, Exhibitions, Faculty & Instructors, News

  • Art is in the City

    Thursday, September 03, 2015 | By

    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:

    • performances of First Nations writer Marvin Francis’ epic poem City Treaty, adapted for the St. Catharines setting (September);
    • a Guitar Extravaganza concert featuring faculty, alumni and aficionados of the classical guitar in the local community (November);
    • Confluence, a walking project and virtual reconstruction by acclaimed artist Elizabeth Chitty offering the student community and public an opportunity to explore the environs beyond our new building (January);
    • a collaboration between the Shaw Festival and the Department of Dramatic Arts on a staged reading of George Bernard Shaw’s play Major Barbara, entitled Major Barbara/Major Predictions(February);
    • a concert by the Department of Music’s Wind Ensemble in St. Catharines’ Market Square (March).

    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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