Articles tagged with: Amy Friend

  • Exhibition – Silent Areas: The Spaces in Between, opens Feb. 15

    Thursday, February 08, 2018 | By

    Silent Areas Exhibit Feb. 15

    Brock Visual Art student Sarah Martin and Brock Visual Arts Alumna Caterina Stambolic present photographs and sculptures investigating the interruptions between mind and body.

    Exhibition: Thursday Feb. 15 to Saturday Mar. 24

    Regular visiting hours are Tuesday through Saturday 1-5 pm.

    Opening Reception: Thursday Mar. 8, 5 – 8 pm

    Location: Visual Arts Exhibition Space, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, Brock University

    15 Artists’ Common, St. Catharines, ON

    This is a free community event!

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    Categories: Alumni, Current Students, Events, Exhibitions

  • World-class photographer with a Brock connection

    Monday, December 18, 2017 | By

    One of Them Is a Human #1. (Erica: Erato Ishiguro Symbiotic Human-Robot Interaction Project.)

    “One of Them Is a Human #1” by Maija Tammi won third place in this year’s Taylor-Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize. Tammi studied photography at Brock in 2008-09 with Visual Arts professor Amy Friend. (Image copyright Maija Tammi; Used by permission).

    (Source: The Brock News | Friday Dec. 15, 2017 by Alison Innes)

    At first glance, the photo is a portrait of a young woman.

    On closer inspection, the ‘woman’ isn’t human at all. It is, in fact, an android called Erica, developed by Hiroshi Ishiguro Laboratories in Osaka University, Japan.

    The photograph, taken by Finnish artist Maija Tammi and titled “One of Them is a Human #1,” won third prize in this year’s prestigious Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize.

    The photograph also has a surprising Brock connection.

    Finnish artist Maija Tammi, who studied at
    Brock University in 2008-09

    Tammi spent a year studying film and art at Brock University in 2008-09. Although she already had a background in photojournalism, her experience at Brock, and in particular a course with Professor Amy Friend, encouraged her towards art photography.

    “The Visual Arts program at Brock offers an abundance of opportunity for one-on-one interactions in class with students and professors,” says Friend.

    Such interactions allow for personalized and concentrated instruction that allow students to reach their potential.

    “Maija flourished in this environment and took advantage of the surrounding community with her interactive installations and thought-provoking course projects,” says Friend.

    Tammi cites the film Five Obstructions, which she first saw in Friend’s course, as particularly influential.

    The 1967 film shows the remaking of the same story five times, each with a different obstruction. This process of rethinking and reframing inspired Tammi.

    “Once you have thought of a concept,” she explains, “you rethink it several times from different perspectives.”

    Tammi was immediately interested in the ways obstructions can encourage creativity and used the idea in her class project, redoing the same photograph multiple times with different obstructions.

    This experience in Friend’s course influenced her approach to photography. She gives herself obstructions, such as limiting her camera gear, to encourage her own creativity.

    Tammi is particularly attracted to portraiture, which she says tells us more about ourselves as viewers of the photograph than the subject of the photo as we project our stereotypes on them.

    One of Them is a Human #1 has attracted a lot of attention in the arts community. Although the Taylor Wessing contest rules state that the subject needs to be alive, Tammi’s photograph was accepted because it raises important questions about what it means to be human.

    “I’m very excited about the conversation that has arisen,” Tammi says. “It is time to think about what it means to be alive.”

    Tammi doesn’t shy away from difficult subjects; she is currently completing a practise-based PhD exploring representations of sickness in art photography.

    “I like topics that are very difficult and people don’t like to talk about,” she says.

    Friend, who exhibited work in the same show as Tammi in New York in August 2015, has been watching her former student’s success closely.

    “Her success is indicative of the connections that many students make with classmates and professors,” Friend says. “When I see opportunities that fit her areas of expertise I send them her way. These are the types of extended interactions that happen when we are given space to know our students.”

    Tammi’s work was one of three finalists chosen from more than 5,717 submissions. Selected submissions, including the shortlisted portraits and competition winner, are on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London, England.

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    Categories: Alumni, Announcements, Faculty & Instructors, In the Media, News

  • Work of Visual Arts prof featured on Diana Krall tour

    Friday, November 03, 2017 | By

    Brock prof’s art featured on Diana Krall tour

    The artwork of Brock Fine Arts Assistant Professor Amy Friend is being featured on the international tour of renowned Canadian musician Diana Krall.

    (Source: The Brock News, Thursday, November 2, 2017 | By: Maryanne Firth)

    When the e-mail popped into Amy Friend’s inbox, she was certain it couldn’t be real.

    But a feeling inside prompted the Brock Fine Arts assistant professor to respond to the inquiry, which asked about her artwork and whether she’d consider collaborating with renowned Canadian musician Diana Krall.

    It was soon after that Friend found herself on the phone with the Grammy Award winner discussing possibilities for her upcoming tour.

    Friend’s experimental photography has since helped Krall to set the scene on stage, acting as her backdrop as she captivates crowds in venues across North America and Europe.

    Brock University Fine Arts Assistant Professor Amy Friend.

    Friend’s work has been featured on the jazz singer’s international tour since June and the partnership is expected to continue through to the summer.

    The project, which includes art pieces from three different bodies of work, has been “particularly fulfilling,” Friend said.

    She has enjoyed the challenge of working with Krall to find pieces that fit the mood and message of individual songs, while also complementing the title of the tour and Krall’s most recent album, Turn Up the Quiet.

    “It’s about trying to respect your own work, while also seeing how you can accommodate a vision that will fit within the repertoire they’re working with,” she said.

    Friend is currently working to select new pieces for Krall’s Canadian tour dates, including a Nov. 24 show at Massey Hall in Toronto that she plans to attend.

    “I’m looking forward to seeing her perform and to seeing my work filling the stage in a concert hall where I have heard musicians like Johnny Cash, Tom Waits and Nick Cave perform,” she said.

    Krall’s latest repertoire will include a cover of Bob Dylan’s Simple Twist of Fate, which Friend is particularly excited to find a piece to accompany.

    “Much of my work revolves around ideas of memory, impermanence, history and time,” said Friend, who has worked at Brock for the past decade. “I am less concerned with capturing a ‘concrete’ reality. Instead, I aim to use photography as a medium that offers the possibility of exploring the relationship between what is visible and non-visible.”

    Work featured on the tour includes hand-manipulated photographs, pieces featuring floating handkerchiefs once belonging to Friend’s grandparents, and artwork inspired by snippets of film from her childhood.

    Over the past few months, Friend and Krall have shared many inspiring conversations about family, creativity and women in the arts.

    “She has been so great to work with, you could almost forget her status in the music world,” Friend said.

    Krall often emphasized the need to respect Friend’s work and always checks in with the artist to ensure she’s pleased with the end results of each tour stop.

    Friend called it “refreshing” to be able to engage with other artists.

    “It exposes you to experiences that have commonalities and, at times, interesting variances,” she said. “It’s also wonderful to see how my work found a place to exist far beyond my initial intentions.”

    The team responsible for the on-stage initiative also included Judy Jacob, a video and visual content director, and Paul Normandale, a lighting designer, who Friend said “took the project to the next level.”

    In addition to her work with the tour, Friend has been busy over the past year with international exhibitions in Spain, Korea, Poland, Portugal and France. She has shows coming up in Boston and Italy and plans to release a new book in the near future.

    Amy Friend's work featured on Diana Krall's tour

    The artwork of Brock Fine Arts Assistant Professor Amy Friend is being featured on the international tour of renowned Canadian musician Diana Krall.

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    Categories: Announcements, Faculty & Instructors, In the Media, News

  • Speaker provides chilling reminder of Canadian slave history

    Sunday, October 29, 2017 | By

    Charmaine Nelson, far right, spoke on Colonial Print Culture and the Limits of Enslaved Resistance on Oct. 19 as part of the Walker Cultural Leader Series. She is pictured here with Department of Visual Arts Professors and event organizers, pictured from left, Keri Cronin, Linda Steer and Amy Friend.

    Charmaine Nelson, far right, spoke on Colonial Print Culture and the Limits of Enslaved Resistance on Oct. 19 as part of the Walker Cultural Leader Series. She is pictured here with Department of Visual Arts Professors and event organizers, pictured from left, Keri Cronin, Linda Steer and Amy Friend.

    (Source: The Brock News, Thursday, October 26, 2017 | by: Alison Innes)

    Charmaine Nelson worked to paint a picture for the audience, one that detailed the experiences of Canadian slaves and the horrors they endured throughout history.

    The renowned scholar, known for her groundbreaking contributions in the fields of black Canadian studies, visual culture of slavery, and race and representation, delivered the first 2017-18 public lecture of Brock’s Walker Cultural Leader Series on Oct. 19.

    Her address drew more than 150 people who gathered at the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in downtown St. Catharines to listen to her presentation, Colonial Print Culture and the Limits of Enslaved Resistance: Examining the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth-Century Fugitive Slave Archive in Canada and Jamaica.

    A professor of Art History at McGill University, Nelson has published seven books and held a number of prestigious research chairs across North America. She is currently the William Lyon Mackenzie King Visiting Professor of Canadian Studies at Harvard University for 2017-18.

    As the first and currently only black professor within the discipline of Art History at a Canadian university, Nelson, through her website, is an advocate for the field of Black Canadian Studies.

    Her latest research, which she shared in her talk, attempts to understand the black experience in Canada by examining fugitive slave advertisements for details about the process of creolization in slave minority (temperate) and slave majority (tropical) locations in the British Empire.

    Nelson explained how she reconceptualizes fugitive slave ads — once produced by slave owners seeking to recapture their runaways — as portraits of enslaved people. The ads can provide information on a group of people who often leave no record of their own, she said.

    These portraits, however, are imperfect, since the subject is an unwilling participant and the depiction is written by the white slave owner. In addition, only slaves considered sufficiently valuable were pursued through advertising.

    Fugitive slave ads provided detailed racialized descriptions of enslaved people, including complexion, hairstyle, clothing, language, accents and bodily marks. In some cases, the ads offered rewards for the recapture of a fugitive slave, encouraging white participation in the criminalization of fugitive slaves.

    While the ads provide a portrait of enslaved people, they are also a lop-sided truth, Nelson explained. Some owners maligned fugitives with sweeping generalizations about their character, while others detailed specific crimes the enslaved person was alleged to have committed. Such descriptions helped associate blackness with slavery and criminality.

    Nelson draws on a variety of archival sources in her research to flesh out these portraits, tracing fugitive slave stories through estate ledgers, bills of sale, poll tax records and workhouse and jail ledgers.

    Nelson’s talk also explored the link between print and slave culture. Printed newspaper ads in the 18th and 19th century permitted white slave owners to assert their ownership over long distances.

    Although printers facilitated slavery by asserting rights of white people to own slaves, the abolitionist movement eventually used the same fugitive slave ads, with their references to injuries, scars and branding, to show the horror of slavery.

    As Nelson pointed out, many Canadians are unaware of Canada’s history of enslaving black and indigenous peoples.

    “Slavery is not a black history,” she explained, “but a multi-racial, transatlantic history. Who were the slave owners, the ships’ captains, the printers, the jailers?”

    The narrative of the Underground Railway, which Canadians eagerly embrace, spanned a period of about only 30 years, Nelson explained. She went on to challenge listeners to consider why the preceding two centuries of slavery in Canada have been erased from history.

    In concluding her talk, Nelson encouraged the audience to change the lens through which they see history. The opportunities in the field of Canadian slavery history are immense, she said, while directing her words to students. Since so few people are studying the black Canadian experience, there are many contributions to be made.

    The talk is part of the 2017-18 Walker Cultural Leaders Series, organized by Professors Keri Cronin, Linda Steer and Amy Friend the Department of Visual Arts and funded by the generous legacy of Marilyn I. Walker.

    The author, Alison Innes, has assembled her live tweets about the lecture at Storify.

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  • Brock Talks: “Finding Photographs” by VISA Professor Amy Friend

    Tuesday, February 07, 2017 | By

    “Finding Photographs” by Brock Visual Arts Professor Amy Friend
    The process artists undertake in their studio practice involve various amounts of experimentation and discovery. Professor Amy Friend, Department of Visual Arts, will present behind-the-scenes aspects of studio practices by several photographic artists working with found photographs and highlight the complex navigation and issues related to the specific act of ‘finding photographs.’

    Wednesday, February 15, 7 – 10 pm
    St. Catharines Public Library
    54 Church Street, St. Catharines

    For more information, connect with us on our Facebook event page.

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    Categories: Events, Faculty & Instructors, News

  • VISA instructor Amy Friend featured on MoMA Instagram!

    Tuesday, January 24, 2017 | By

    VISA instructor Amy Friend’s piece, “Hands on Water”, is featured today on the Instagram page of the Museum of Modern Art as part of their MoMA R&D Salon 19: Modern Death. Have a look! Congratulations, Amy!

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  • Lauren Regier’s Bioart piece Aroma Illius Laqueo.

    Wednesday, January 18, 2017 | By

    (Source: The Brock News, Wednesday, January 18, 2017 | by . Photo: Lauren Regier (BA ’14) works on her photographs in studio.)

    Three classes into her first Brock University art course with Professor Keri Cronin, Lauren Regier (BA ’14) knew she wanted to study art full time.

    She has since continued to nurture her passion for art and recently launched a photography exhibit at Malcolm Gear Studio in Welland.

    Regier called her connection with Brock and the local arts community, as well as an artist residency she took following graduation, critical to her artistic development.

    It was her professors at the University who explained the residency process and shared their professional experiences to help guide her in an appropriate direction.

    With the support of professors Amy Friend, Irene Loughlin and Donna Szoke, Regier opted to participate in the Sointula Art Shed Residency Program near Vancouver Island in March 2016.

    Lauren Regier’s Bioart piece Aroma Illius Laqueo.

    The residency was an important opportunity for her to explore functional and survival properties of plants, humans and animals, and to apply that research into the construction of the plants in her Bioart series.

    The series is a collaboration of science and art that creates new, interesting organisms by meshing together existing bits of plant matter.

    Regier’s work combines plants with industrial products to create strange new prototypes. She documents her creations in black and white photography, hand-tinted with watercolours.

    Regier’s current exhibition, Fantasy Fleur, is an offshoot of her Bioart series.

    “I wanted to break with the notion of idealized beauty — something that is manufactured and very commonplace when it comes to depicting nature, such as floral wallpaper and furniture patterns,” Regier said.

    The Fantasy Fleur photographs feature plants in different stages of their life cycles. They are printed on aluminum; the highly polished surfaces allow for interactive play between the viewer and the work.

    “Similar to species that bloom at specific times of the day, these metallic prints respond to their environments and viewers are forced to physically interact with the work in order to see the image,” Regier said.

    Producing the pieces has been a highlight for Regier over the past year.

    “Meeting wonderful people in the community through Brock University and Rodman Hall has been crucial in developing my practice and providing me a platform to show my photographs,” she said.

    Regier first met Malcolm Gear in her curatorial art class at Brock.

    The artists recently reconnected at a Rodman Hall event at Mahtay Café, which ultimately led to Regier’s exhibition being launched at Malcolm Gear Studio, 464 East Main St. in Welland.

    Her work is on display until Jan. 31.

    Regier’s photography is also available for viewing on her website.

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    Categories: Alumni, In the Media, News

  • Visual Arts students build camera obscura at Walker School

    Wednesday, November 23, 2016 | By

    (Source: The Brock News, Wednesday, November 23, 2016 | by Alison Innes. Photo caption: Brock Visual Arts students work to build a camera obscura in front of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts.)

    Constructing a large outdoor camera has given Brock Visual Arts students a freeze frame of photography techniques of the past.

    As part of the Walker Cultural Leader Series, 40 students from Prof. Amy Friend’s Camera and Darkroom Process Photography course and Candace Bodanski’s Baroque Art and Architecture course worked to build a three metre by three metre camera obscura in front of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts in downtown St. Catharines

    The camera obscura gave students an opportunity to experience an early form of photograph making.

    “Their interactions with the structure coerced new methodologies and much trial and error to achieve a successful photograph,” Friend says.

    After working with New York artist Liz Sales and Friend to build the camera, the students used it for about a month to produce photographs.

    The result is a new exhibit at the downtown Brock opening Thursday, Nov. 24.

    The term camera obscura was coined in the early 17th century and means “a darkened room.” The device works on similar principles to a pinhole camera. A dark room or tent with a small hole in one side allows light to pass into the darkened space and create an image of an object. This image can be captured on photographic paper or by drawing.

    Making the structure light-tight was a challenge, requiring students to hand stitch the black-out material directly onto the structure so wind couldn’t lift the fabric and allow light to leak in and interfere with the exposure of the silver gelatin paper during production.

    Friend said that she witnessed some hesitancy with the new structure at first, as it disrupts modern understanding of what a photographic capture is.

    “As a practitioner,” she said, “I love that reaching into the vaults of history reveals new ways of seeing and thinking. Students pushed their experiments with impressive results.”

    Other Brock Visual Arts classes also interacted with the camera obscura while two high school classes visited the project and attended a workshop with Sales and Friend in which they engaged with the camera and darkroom facilities to produce photographs.

    In Light and Darkness: A Camera Obscura Project with Artist Liz Sales and Brock Visual Arts Students runs until Dec. 9 in the MIWSFPA Art Gallery, and also features work from Sales’ own camera obscura series The Weather Inside. An opening reception and artist talk by Sales will be held Thursday, Nov. 24 from 6-7 p.m. in MW151 at the downtown campus.

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  • Brock students team with NY photographer

    Monday, November 21, 2016 | By

    (Source: St. Catharines Standard, Monday, November 21, 2016 | by John Law. Photo caption: An image from photographer Liz Sales’ series The Weather Inside. CREDIT: Liz Sales / Submitted)

    New York photographer Liz Sales will team with Brock University Visual Arts students for a camera project opening Nov. 22.

    In Light and Darkness will spotlight the results of a ‘camera obscura’ collaboration on the grounds of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts in downtown St. Catharines.

    Prior to an opening reception Nov. 24, Sales will host an artist’s talk at 6 p.m. in the school’s Foundation Studio (MW 151).

    “(Liz) has a knowledge base that’s quite extensive,” says Department of Visual Arts assistant professor Amy Friend. “And she’s quite adventurous. She doesn’t have a traditional set of what is expected, and I thought that would be really useful for the students.”

    Sales currently teaches at the International Center of Photography. Her work focuses on the relationship between perception and technology, and is seen in several photo-based magazines.

    Friend was already familiar with Sales’ work when the photographer contacted her two years ago for a magazine interview. She knew her unpredictable style and methods were ideal for Brock’s visual arts students.

    “She’s definitely an experimenter, which was really important to bringing her to work with the students. She has a background in motion picture cameras, and also builds her own cameras by hand to shoot her photographs.”

    In addition to student work, the show will feature selections from Sales’ camera obscura series The Weather Inside.

    Camera obscura is the optical result of an image projected through a small hole, seen as reversed and inverted.

    Friend says the students built a ten-by-ten foot tent with blackout material as an exterior darkroom for the project. It’s located directly in front of the Marilyn I. Walker school.

    “There’s quirks whenever you’re building something new in a different place, so it teaches them not only about the construction and function of the camera, but also the learning that happens along the way for everyone.”

    jlaw@postmedia.com

    • WHO: Liz Sales and Brock Visual Arts Students
    • WHAT: In Light and Darkness
    • WHEN: Nov. 22 to Dec. 9
    • WHERE: Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts; 15 Artists’ Common; St. Catharines

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  • Visa Photography Instructor Amy Friend mounts exhibition.

    Tuesday, November 01, 2016 | By

    image_559Photography Professor Amy Friend presents Eternal Light at the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre in Toronto.

    November 2 – 30, 2016
    The Gallery at the J
    Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre
    750 Spadina Ave. (at Bloor), Toronto Ontario

    In Jewish tradition the death of a loved one is commemorated by lighting a yahrzeit candle, often with a prayer beginning with a passage from Proverbs, “. . . the lamp of the Eternal is the soul of humanity . . .” For most Jews who perished in the Holocaust, and so many who died before, there is no surviving family to observe this ritual. It therefore falls to future generations. For a visual interpretation of the theme Future of Memory, Neuberger HEW commissioned artist Amy Friend. Exploring the notion of light, Friend used archival photographs of European Jewry before the Shoah from UJA Federation’s Ontario Jewish Archives, Blankenstein Family Heritage Centre. She carefully perforated each reproduced photo and shined light though the small openings, bringing new light into the image and recreating it as a unique work of art; a poignant and eternal tribute to life, love, and loss.

    Amy Friend is a Canadian Artist and Assistant Professor of Fine Arts at Brock University. Friend has exhibited nationally and internationally, exploring issues related to history, memory, personal archives and phenomenology. She works with the medium of photography pushing its anticipated boundaries through installation and material experimentation. Recent exhibitions include Assorted Boxes of Ordinary Life (Rodman Hall, Canada), Heaven on Earth at the DongGang Museum of Photography (South Korea) and at the GetxoPhoto Festival (Spain). She has been selected as a top 50 photographer by Critical Mass International Photography Competition for three years running. Amy Friend is represented by C3 Arts.

    Exhibit Curated by Mira Goldfarb. Generously co-sponsored by Sally & Mark Zigler in honour of their parents, Fanny & Bernard Dov Laufer and Etty & Salo Zigler.

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