CODA
4F06 Honours Exhibition Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts Brock University
Introduction The pandemic of 2020-21 has affected many aspects of our lives but for the artists who have participated in CODA, installed at the Rodman Hall Art Centre between May 12-26, 2021, the opportunity to show their work collectively was an important goal. For viewers, in reality, it will be only experienced on-line in documented form. Participating artists are 4th year honours students from both the 2019-20 and 2020-21 cohorts at Brock University and two graduate students who were invited to participate in lieu of an exhibition in April, 2020 when COVID-19 produced the first lockdown and resulted in the closure of galleries across Ontario. A year later in which artists have had to dig deep into their resources, working remotely and often under duress, the exhibition is a remarkable tribute to all involved, from the participating student artists to the instructors and staff who have extended their support and vision, with a determination to fulfil this last professional obligation, a graduation show. I was privileged to visit the exhibition and to experience the range of work in the various spaces, from the downstairs galleries to one of the 3rd floor studio spaces. Rodman Hall Art Centre provides the viewer with a unique range of experiences set within this mid-19th century Victorian home once owned by Thomas Rodman Merritt, son of William Hamilton Merritt, builder of the First and Second Welland Canals. Converted into a gallery in 1960 and expanded in 1961 and 1975 respectively, the Rodman Hall Art Centre established itself as one of two stalwarts including the Nagara Artists Centre dedicated to programming and exhibiting contemporary art. These fourteen student artists extend that legacy, if lamentably for the last time as Rodman Hall has been sold to a local developer. Derek J. J. Knight Associate Professor, History of Art and Visual Culture Department of Visual Arts, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, Brock University
CODA: Into the Forest of Signs By Derek Knight
As one enters Rodman Hall we are greeted by the name of the exhibition: CODA along with the names of the 14 participants. Defined in the dictionary as an ending or supplement, CODA not only concludes an academic year but one also unprecedented in the challenges it posed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The previous honours exhibit was cancelled as a result of the first lockdown instituted in March of 2020, but the course directors, Professors Shawn Serfas and Donna Szőke, offered the opportunity to students from both 2019/20 and 2020/21 cohorts to participate in a combined show. The strongest impression I am left with is the deft installation of a variety of works, from acrylic or oil on canvas or panel to an upstairs room in which acrylic murals have been executed directly on the walls with markers; from photography to a more experimental vein of a photo emulsion lift; from embroidered clothing or hoops to diazo emulsion prints; from illustrated cartoons or storyboards to sculptural objects in the form of cardboard or a hanging mobile. The Ali and Corinne Hansen Gallery which one enters to the left of the entrance vestibule is dominated by two mantled fireplaces. It reinforces the theme of the two artists –James Kershaw and Kira Pretty– who ostensibly explore aspects of the home, especially under COVID-19. Kershaw offers four paintings along with two sketch books as a homily to a more reflective life in which the mundane and personal possessions –plants and the items that make up a domestic setting– are cherished for their familiarity. Deceptively simple, Absence (2021) foregrounds an empty chair, which also conjures the metaphysical question: rather than Vincent van Gogh’s
candle in his homily to Gauguin, the empty shoes signify life but also the immutable presence of loss. Kershaw pushes himself beyond the prosaic presence of a cherished plant in Eternity (2021) that signals commitment to another life form to address only what art can allow: a deeply poetic insight into memory, where regret or happiness both reside. The artist presents himself in the foreground of Wave (2019) working at his computer and in the middle ground his partner who sits on a sofa. The normalcy of the scene is disrupted by the presence of a mouse on the desk and the cat whose attention is focused on his partner. The ‘cat and mouse’ game that toys with instinct and survival is amplified as we look beyond the fenestrated glass wall to the tsunami wave that gathers momentum in the distance. Is it a nostrum for oblivion or survival, the painting asks? Most poignant, I suggest, is the small painting Now I Lay Me (2021) that reveals the view through the window of his home the artist sees as he wakes up –a hopeful image in which the rays of sunlight infusing the awaiting day and the cruciform of the window frame are discrete reminders of how we find solace in the minimal language of symbolism. Three black and white C-prints, Unfulfilled Desire (2020) by Kira Pretty, speak to the isolation of the times. Her camera is pointed at the windows of her family home –the gauze window covering obscures our view of the central image, although hinting at what is beyond. A garden and the outline of other houses that speak of a neighbourhood are further obscured. Yet, the arched shaped window alludes to the potential elegance of the décor of what may be inside this home –details of which we are not privy to. The transition between a literal ‘inside’ and ‘out’ is suspended as we tilt on the edge of apprehension. The window is less an opening to nature or the built fabric of the neighbourhood, than a veiled impediment. What does Pretty’s reference to unfulfilled desire refer to? Is
it an insight into the artist’s frame of mind, or could it be a negation of the viewer’s impulses or expectations? We are left with a fragmented point of view where the photographic frame is itself suspended or broken into partial elements in the two supporting images in what appears to be an image of the bow window through a secondary glass door. The silhouetted pine branch cannot be read with certainty in the third image –is it a partial tree viewed through the window, or is it the ornamental branch of a Christmas tree? Photography’s documentary role is disrupted by the distortions and ambiguities that cannot be fully resolved by the viewer, which makes for an engaging exchange. Similarly, the three black and white C-prints by Kaitlin Roberts, now an MFA student at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design, posit photography as a time-based medium. The figure in let’s try this again (2020) takes on the ghosted quality of a time-elapsed image in which the subject is both fleeting and ethereal in its blurred qualities. To think of the infinite number of ways to photograph the human figure, Roberts elects to pose her figure in the bathroom where the images are generated or composed from the doorway. Process, chance and performance are each suggested in the blurred movement of the clothed female subject in eliciting an impromptu playfulness before the camera. Such an approach reminds one of the intimate self-portraits Francesca Woodman made of herself in empty, derelict rooms in Rome or Rhode Island. Here, Roberts makes the best of what may have been confining circumstances under the pandemic to create a more introspective variation of the female figure. On the opposite wall are six drawings made from Botanical ink on paper by Aidan Frenette. They are schematic renderings of plant forms that she has identified along the banks of the Welland Canal.
Although she includes their Latin names, they may be familiar to us: Reseda Lutea, Astera, Rhus Coriaria, Oryzopsis Hymenoides, Cirsium, and Daucus Carota. From medicinal uses to making dyes, from foraging sources for humans and animals alike to weeds such as Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus Carota), these plants have dominated the underbrush, fields, wetlands and environs of the Welland Canal for centuries. They complement Frenette’s works shown in the large gallery, which also focus on other aspects of the Welland Canal and its industrial ecology. Across the hallway beside the vestibule is a small experimental space. Carefully organized with drawings by Zach White mounted on the wall and 50 small ink illustrations from Boxed Madness (2020) by Jess McClelland displayed on the ledge running around the ornate room as well as drawings in a glass display case in the centre of the space, it presents as a shrine to the art of caricature or graffiti and the metalanguage adopted by a shrewd commentator such as McClelland who offers his skew on a range of cultural issues. His drawings are mostly accompanied by statements such as “Damn You Picasso!” which accompanies the transmogrified features of a disjointed face; “Despite Popular Belief… Owls Aren’t…That Smart”, accompanying a confused looking owl wearing a Dunce cap; and “Neverland or Bust Baby”, a classical bust with the veiled reference to the late Michael Jackson’s estate and the Roman marble bust in his collection. Irony is peppered with guile and cunning. The piece In Dreams (2020) which exemplifies the strip cartoon in its presentation, begins sceptically with the idea that the subject does not believe in ‘dream interpretation’, and continues by revealing his innermost fears or anxieties. There appears to be a self-portrait in the centre of the ink drawings in the glass display case, which shows the artist at work, or at least in contemplation with cigarette in hand –a more dignified escape from
the monsters of his In Dream piece. White’s approach is different from although equally influenced by graffiti. His mark making seems to express the flow of his subconscious. The works simply titled from Number One to Number Eight, exemplify a capacity to fill the frame of the page with abstract or idiomatic motifs that morph from one form into another, head after head, gaping after grinning mouth, eye after eye, each emblazoned with check, floral or reptilian patterns. On climbing the stairs to the 3rd floor studio where Zack White’s mural fills all four walls, one encounters a kaleidoscopic experience which he titles Blast Off. The idea of horror vacui is in play as every surface is covered with intricate motifs, of which the eye is the most prominent feature in his bio-morphic, zombie creations that project throughout the space. Partial words or phrases suggest how language is disassembling or reassembling; the catch phrase “It is what it is?” is turned into a question. Coming back down on the first landing are three canning jars that hold drawings by White on acetate and are illuminated by the sunlight; they are suddenly meaningful as one turns onto the next landing where the pair of stainedglass windows dating to the 1880s are installed. These symbolize the kind of fecundity associated with the harvest or nature’s bounty. The lucid red, blue and yellow hues of White’s drawings are picked up in the exquisite colours of the stained-glass windows. Red suddenly transforms into a basket of apples or peonies, blue into pansies and yellow into oval sunbursts. The connection to the floral-themed oil paintings downstairs by Chardon Trimble-Kirk is also there to be seen. The poppy leaves in the stained-glass windows easily translate into the plant types she paints as part of her Vibrancy series (2019-20), although these are more the hardy succulents or cacti grown for dry arid conditions
but marketed for indoors. Her installation titled Intimacy (2019-20) is a mobile of a series of hands and fingers whose outlines are delicately embroidered onto circular hoops. At the point of contact and with intertwined fingers or hands, she highlights the intimacy of touch with silver or pink thread to reinforce the physical bond. If, typically, indoor plants are dependent on us to water and sustain them, relationships require as much if not more. Her three large panels which she titles Growth (2020-21) on the other side of the room show plant forms outlined with coloured rope on a dark background; tulips or bulbs can be made out. Next door, intimacy is transported into a vestigial palace of male phallic display by Renz Baluyot. Combinations of acrylic panels objectify the male organ in graphic terms. Erect or post coital the penis is often emblematic of sexual pleasure and in this instance, also of camp erotica. The flatly painted figures are scantily clad with athletic wear and sometimes emblazoned with bold patterned backgrounds. None of this deters from the fixation the artist has for engorged members, which also telegraphs in a more developed work such as Fried Twinky Queen Dream (2020) to a clever form of irony where popular idioms of consumption have been subverted by gay porn. Other titles such as Fruit of the Elven Loom (2021) explore the realm of gay sexual desire where Baluyot’s Pop sensibility lends a veneer of sentimentality to the bacchanal. The main gallery is presented as a space where the three large format, abstract canvases by Curt Richard are in contention with all else in the space. One is drawn to their strong colours and to the moments that produce small epiphanies from their abstract vein. For example, in Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol Flowing Through the Strip (2020) the dramatic, light green swipe that appears magically alongside the pink field is reminiscent of
Gerhard Richter’s technique and asserts itself over the dominant mottled blue fissure that holds the centre canvas. If we look attentively to the other areas where this filigree of green appears --a subtle, angled stripe on the lower right and above as it accentuates a black curved motif that is also frayed on the underside, we see a distinct calligraphy appear. Here, as in the other two canvases, the black shapes or curved outlines are definitive in form and stricture, especially when set in motion by the agitated colour field, be it the yellow of Beauty (2020) or the blue of I Am the Anti-Pop (2020). Rachel McCartney’s three vertically stacked canvases explore the theme of water. Typhoon (2021) is a study in tonal variation, with its rippled rather than heaving surface and air bubbles suggesting a fully immersive experience. Her deft touch suggests a controlled approach to an otherwise powerful natural event. She opts for an elevated perspective in the next panel titled Laguna (2021) which shows a female swimmer entering the frame and pushing forward. The third in the series titled Riptide (2021) introduces a more pronounced danger in that her swimmer appears to be pulled beneath the surface. Here, the full drama of the sequence is felt as the figure is caught in her struggle for breath, and perhaps life itself. Across the room on the other side are paintings by Rea Kelly. They draw attention back to the human condition, less the figure than a psychological reckoning –floating ghoulish heads that signal an anxiety in each of us. This is portraiture unhinged from its representational role and instead charged with the electricity of the dream state and the darkness from which these mask-like entities emerge. If they recall the rituals of spirit dances or the Neo-expressionist works of Francesco Clemente or Susan Rosenberg, they are confident monikers in their ability to conjure a viscous vitality on recycled canvases. Teeth
(2021) is vivid in its display of emotion and fleeting imagery (is it three or four heads?), which reminds this writer of popular cinematic memes such as the Joker in the 2019 film as played by Joaquin Phoenix who exudes a manic vitality on the screen. Kelly has the ability to transfix the viewer with her heavy pigmented colour, emphatic characterization and bold gestures. Don’t Look (2021) is a ghoulish composition in which four figures are mesmerized by the manifestation of a floating apparition –while this cannot be confused with noumenal life, it cloys at our psyche. The two other installations in the main gallery by Lillian Pasqua and Aidan Frenette lend a calming effect to the vitality of the room’s paintings. Pasqua presents a variation on the menagerie with her several white cotton items of clothing and her prints of moths and plant life. On closer inspection one discovers the beautiful delicacy of her use of thread --two bark-coloured sprigs of budded cherry blossom embroidered on the cuff of a jacket hung over the chair in the foreground; an exquisite plant form, ever so loosely attenuated to a cotton shirt that could be a web formed by the beetle on another shirt, or an absent spider. The delicate balance between nature and artistry is explored to the fullest with Pasqua’s four tools exhibited to the left of the installation in a poetic gesture to a ‘sound of its own making’. Each of her nearly twenty items is labelled individually and shows how individual components can lend vitality to an assembled whole. A similar delicacy is exhibited by Frenette’s wall in which she discovers the by-product of an inert process. If the photographic process is used typically to document and reveal truths about the objective world, here Frenette employs the photo emulsion lift as both abstracted image and artifact. Floated within a series of resin
frames, and if studied closely enough we may begin to see an image unfolding from the delicate but unruly light sensitive emulsion. With the inclusion of Stasis (2021), two blown up C-type versions –in effect documentation— we can see how photography is as much a practice in macrocosms as it is ethereal resonances. Her triptych Port Weller (2021) takes a tangible motif, in effect a major industrial marker and subjects it to the chemical stresses of the C-type process to render it both ethereal and real in the way Roland Barthes described the photograph as a paradox between the past and the present. Yet, the technological sublime that the Welland Canal symbolizes is forsaken for a more ephemeral, floating existence; ships appear and disappear, but the engineered infrastructure dominates the rural landscape. The artist focuses on a form of aphasia, a conditioned forgetfulness that obviates the larger, overwhelming hulk of the ships in favour of smaller almost imperceptible details. Such trace elements are consistent with her prints in the front gallery which now read like a codicil over the fireplace –in effect six images of flora scribed with their Latin names. The hallway that marks the threshold between the front galleries of the original building and the back where the large addition houses the main gallery is a transitional space with the work of Brianne Casey, now an MFA student at Western University. Her paintings engage the idea of cosmic catastrophe, seemingly deep probes into space –her titles Toxic Universe (2019), Catastrophe (2019) and Viral World (2019) conjure the despair that many have felt this past year not only in terms of a global epidemic, but also caused by issues connected with the environment, global warming, the migration crisis in the Mediterranean or the US-Mexico border, and conflict in the Middle East or Asia. In exploring the metaphoric power of a title Casey aligns painting with the topical issues of the day, or at least a state of mind, although her abstract
canvases are non-specific in their galactic schema –we catch the outline of a lighthouse at the centre of Toxic Universe but all else revolves around this mechanical sun in a swirl of vivid fluorescents. Yet, Untitled (2021) which hangs separately on a feature wall is a study of a truncated fir tree which metamorphosizes from is natural state into a framed painting. Is this an example of art triumphing over nature, where idealized states of being can be indulged? Cultural memory is compellingly strong, especially where nature is concerned in Canada, and Casey addresses this on her own terms in acrylic on wood panel. Admittedly enigmatic, it drives to the heart of the paradigmatic image, whether Emily Carr or Jeff Wall, and re-envisions the exoticization of nature. Finally, Taylor Sorenson presents Dead Pixels (2021), a video installation accompanied by a series of C-prints in the small vestibule adjacent to Casey’s paintings. In basing her aesthetic response to her interaction with the World Wide Web I am struck by the interplay between the computer and its modes of communication. In addition to a screen on which she programs a repetitive action, a process that appears to replicate the sourcing of digital images from the immutable flow of the image hive, she also reproduces a series of small hand drawn images that she photographs. These are emblematic of both human and machine vision where the overlaid pattern of digitized tiling (glitches?) are combined with drawings of human features emphasizing eyes and brains. The 404 error code appears over two her drawings, which begs the question of how we are to read such a broken connection: is it a simple error, or is it something more ominous?
Acknowledgements: Professors Donna Szőke and Shawn Serfas, Department of Visual Arts, were the lead instructors for VISA 4F06, Honours Studio. Special thanks to Sarah Martin, gallery assistant, Lauren Reiger, preparator, and Erika Selby, student assistant to preparator. Thanks to Jimmy Limit for the photography, Gilgun Doran, Marketing and Communications, for the catalogue design and to David Vivian, then Director, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, for facilitating promotion. To the artists who conducted online studio visits with the 4F06 students supported by an Experiential Education grant from the Centre for Pedagogical Innovation: Visual Arts Instructor and artist Donna Akrey; and artists Syrus Marcus Ware, Camille Turner and Stylo Starr, we give our warmest appreciation. Many thanks to Derek Knight, Associate Professor, History of Art and Visual Culture for his essay “CODA: Into the Forest of Signs”, and to Amy Friend, Associate Professor, Studio Art and Visual Arts Department Chair for her support.
Content warning: CODA includes sensitive and mature subject matter.
My art mainly focuses on a love for homoerotic combined with the game Dungeons and Dragons. These two subjects present my characters in colourful pin ups, all of them serving the hypersexualized and homoerotic ideals of the male body within a fantasy world. This is a way to express my queerness, one where I cannot express within my traditional Christian family. I get my inspirations from artists such as Tom of Finland (Touko Laaksonen), Patrick Fillion, Gengoroh Tagame, and Robert Mapplethorpe – all who focus on homoeroticism and the hyper sexualization of gay men and their bodies. Overall, my works’ purpose is to have a fun, gay, sexy time with all these well-endowed fantasy men. For this exhibition, I wanted to continue this path and turn it into a graphic advertisement-like painting, where my characters are posing as poster boys of certain Dungeons and Dragons branded items but with a silly, homoerotic twist to them. I based four of the five larger paintings on products that have sexual innuendos pertaining to semen and the penis and for the others, I went for my usual pin-up style, focusing on their larger-than-life bodies and present a little personality. I like to undress my characters and put them in these stylized and seeminglytoo-small athletic wear and lingerie paired with vibrant, funky, and colourful backgrounds.
RENZ BALUYOT
(Left to right, top to bottom) Don #1 2021, 16x16”, acrylic on wooden panel Quinten #1 2021, 16x16”, acrylic on wooden panel Syn #1 2021, 16x16”, acrylic on wooden panel Zanrik #1 2021, 16x16”, acrylic on wooden panel
My vision of the world sees the rabbit hole of life as sequences of events that we have no control over. The hopelessness and darkness fulfill our existence as we attempt to grab onto something and never let go. What we grab onto can either destroy, help, or make our lives more durable. The year was 2020 and environmental injustices are ravaging the planet. Leaders are incapable of setting the chain reaction for society towards a healthier future, and we are the ones who carry the strength. Despite the best efforts from the people who wished for change, we lost the battle. One by one we succumb to death and despair; the apocalypse is upon us, a pandemic struck and thus killing thousands. In a near future, we now rebuild ecosystems and regain the independence that humans once had but there is a new being at the top of the food chain. Known as the Creationists, they are gathering materials to emulate what Earth was like before. What does it mean to be human? What does love, loss and sorrow feel like? When the world ends, who are you taking hold of as you desperately try to protect those who you care for? Walking amongst the debris of a distance path, the Creationists come and recreate what once was in a sculptural attempt of bringing back their ancestors. The gruesome reality of their own doing comes back to life and is put up as a reminder that they cannot walk the same path that we did. Toxicity will engulf their souls and rip out every ounce of hope they once had and now with a fresh start to life and a new evolutionary trail, they are the ones re-writing the future as we have failed as a species to save ourselves from the impending doom. However, amongst the heartache and the harsh realities that we face presently, the future is bright and full of hope. Activism is taking over our planet like a pandemic and we are being infected with hope. Humans are a resilient species and as a creationist, I wanted to come back to the past to let you know that your story lives on and that the path that once was set in stone has been rewritten.
BRIANNE CASEY
Untitled, 2021, 20x20”, acrylic on panel
Catastrophe, 2020, 15x15”, acrylic and luminous beads on canvas
Toxic Universe, 2020, 56x68”, acrylic and luminous beads on canvas
Over the course of the past year I have used my time to research, explore, and visually render essential elements of the canal system. I have created a variety of pieces that are each relevant to the subject matter in a different way. For example, the first realistic graphite boat drawing referenced early boat photography while also accurately depicting the cold, removed nature of the ship itself. In my natural pigment pieces, I removed any trace of constructs, and through the display of local canal flora and fauna I focused on the often overlooked ‘natural’ beauty of the area. My lumen prints juxtapose the unfeeling nature of a tanker and the bubble-gum pink, hypersaturated aesthetic of the medium, resulting in engaging obscurity. In further developing this body of work, I began cementing crucial concepts formed within first semester, like experimental photography. This can be seen within my emulsion lift tiles created from resin and my own photographs of boat-related areas. Finally, I created several distorted photographs from images I took earlier in the year. Using mechanical alteration, the images became obscured and graphically interesting. Finally, I suspended an emulsion lift in a block of resin to engage with the pre-existing resin tiles made in the first half of second semester. The body of work intends to showcase the delicate nature of a vastly mechanical network of commerce.
AIDAN FRENETTE
Port Weller, 2021, 13X19”, lumen prints
Stability, 2021, photo emulsion lifts, resin
Stasis, 2021, 24x24”, set of 2 c-prints
My art practise is rooted in exploring and experimenting with the portraiture genre. I am interested in how humans and emotions are portrayed in portraits; how the human face can be challenged to reveal something beyond a superficial understanding of facial features. Through my work, I use the human face and form to understand one’s identity and visually express the more unflattering natures of the experience of human emotion. My process of working is intuitive. I do not aim to fully represent or fully abstract the image, and instead operate in between representation and abstraction. The result of my rendering of faces is not to capture an exact likeness, but to produce a psychological emotion using the face as a point of reference. I hope to capture a feeling of unease, unsettledness, and even the uncanny. These faces could sit uncomfortable for the viewer while I work to show the “internal” on the “external”. These portraits are not about the likeness and features but about the internal conflicts we experience as human beings. I explore this idea through the distortion of my subjects’ face. It is an intentional and unrefined look, mirroring the messiness and unpredictability of emotions. I favour bold and harsh colours using layers of paint and densely applied oil bar. With an expanding history of portrait painting behind me, I question how I can use the genre of portraiture to not necessarily flatter the subject, but to use the face and figure as a vessel for depicting the more uglier, painful, and even humorous internal experiences. The psychology of the figure takes precedence over any kind of accurate visual representation, as I challenge the viewer’s pre-conceived notions of what portraiture is and what it could mean.
REA KELLY
Don’t Look, 2021, 78x90”, acrylic, medium, and fabric on canvas in collaboration with Shania Thompson Untitled (Susan) 2020, 3x4ft, acrylic and oil stick on wood The Lady 2, 2020, 26x20”, ink, acrylic, oil stick on yupo
Teeth, 2021, 78x90”, acrylic and oil stick on canvas
Untitled (Susan) 2020, 3x4ft, acrylic and oil stick on wood
Originally from Niagara Falls, Canada, I was born in 1946 to conservative Baptist white parents. As a teen, I would sit on the church’s back seat on Sundays, feeling a warm breeze from the open window behind me. Looking out, I’d see school buddies cycle by with their fishing rods draped over handlebars on the way to Chippawa. Almost mute, I moved to Toronto at twenty-one. It took me over ten years to get comfortable with changing environments. Starting to attend life drawing groups at various locations, using multiple marking methods to define form, offered me a sense of place and presence. Persistence nurtured a feeling of being anchored in something bigger than me. I discovered the human form presented a foundation for my painting and drawing. An introduction to hand-lettering at a community college continued to thirty years of employment in display advertising. Through experience, I found my voice and surprisingly, businesses profited from my services. My present work reflects the personal crisis of a global pandemic and global warming’s imprint on humanity in the immediate state, including nature’s role. I direct readers to Jailhouse (2020) and Eternity (2021). Valuing mentorship with tips on observing, I relish rare opportunities to paint others who are not posing. I remember the recent past sitting on a comfortable sofa taking in the life of shoppers who passed the day in the mall. Saving their expressions and gestures in my sketchbook was my art. Drawing from life helps me locate a language once held from me but has emerged clear and robust. Furthermore, painting and drawing are a release and shape my future.
JAMES KERSHAW
Dependent Self, 2019, wire Eternity, 2021, 24x24”, acrylic on birch panel
Self, 2019, photogram Wave, 2019, 36x48”, acrylic on canvas
I am weightless as I float in an endless sea. My pulse lowers as the coolness of the water gently brushes my hair. The sounds of the world fade away as sink deeper into the void and it is here that I find true peace. I am in my safe space. Nothing exists except for the sounds of my conscious. Here, I am left with my thoughts, I process my emotions, and decompress as I let go of life. Here, I become transcendent from myself. Water is transcendent. In eastern philosophy, oceanic imagery is continuously used to teach about the cyclical nature of life, and its all-encompassing emotions. We are all waves, different from the larger body of the ocean but not separate from it. We flow through life on our intended course, our wave crests and crashes, then recedes back into the sea, and the cycle starts again. It is always constant, though we are not, and through this we must come to embrace and find peace in the dependency and cycle of the wave. Upon diving into the concept of water, and through reflecting on its significance to me I have come to discover these three truths. Water is often the site for internal conflict. Often personified as an emotional being, I find I seek out water when I myself am drowning in a wave of emotions. It acts like a support to see my own feelings reflected in the swirling chaos before me. This kinship of energy is strengthening. Water is associated with hope. The distant horizon line serves as a reminder to the world of possibilities before me. A sea of currents readily available to sweep me in any which direction. It is all consuming and overwhelming, but each passing wave strengthens my ability to trust the process. For now, all I can acknowledge is the existence of that hope, and its ability to manifest itself as however I choose in the future. Lastly, water is congruent with change. From a scientific perspective water exists in our world in multiple forms and is in a constant cycle of change. Humans, consisting of mostly water, share a commonality with water as they are everchanging. This is why water creates deeply resonating imagery in media that speaks to change, and therefore is an appropriate choice in subject matter given the whirlwind of events over the course of the past year. There is no need for me to discuss the global events, for those who were there already understand. From a personal standpoint however, at this point in my life I am experiencing a great period of change, full of endless possibilities and endless conflicts. At this point in time, I am the ocean, finding my wave.
RACHEL MCCARTNEY
Typhoon, 2021, 24x48”, Laguna, 2021, 24x48”, Riptide, 2021, 24x48”, oil on canvas
Typhoon, 2021, 24x48”, oil on canvas
Riptide, 2021, 24x48”, oil on canvas
Comics and cartoons have always played a pivotal role in my life. Even from a young age, I perceived comics as a worthy and important means of communicating my thoughts with others. It is a medium that has great potential for clear communication between the artist and the reader. In comics, I see a careful balancing act between text and image that offers artists great freedom in clear dialogue. It presents its own language and vocabulary that is easy to grasp through its own iconography. In careful consideration of the relationship between comic books and the realm of fine art, I seek to bridge the gap between these seemingly distant worlds through my own artistic practices. I experiment and analyze specific elements and trademarks of the comic book medium, including the ‘vocabulary’ of comics and the ways in which comics are framed. In my exploration of comic book vocabulary and styles, my body of work has helped me connect comics to the gallery space in thought provoking ways. The relationship of text and image offers unique control to interact with the art at the viewers’ own pace. In Dreams (2020), is a sixpage comic narrative that provides a humorous glimpse into a multi layered dream scenario, exploring strange encounters and unique characters. In comic books and cartoons, dreams are a distortion of all that we know. The piece is narrated through my own inner dialogue, providing commentary on the unusual circumstances of my dream. My work provides a glimpse into an abstraction of reality and how I perceive elements of daily life through the lens of comics and cartoons. A great cartoon can simplify but enhance elements of daily life. In Dreams has elements of a strange nightmare that explores how cartoons can frighten viewers in their distortion, an example in how I believe comics offer experimentation in making complex work. The intent of my practise and work shows cartooning as both a fine art and form of intimate communication with a viewer.
JESS MCCLELLAND
In Dreams, 2021, 22x34”, poster prints Boxed Madness, 2021, series of 50 ink illustrations
On the Twelfth Day of Quarantine, 2020, set of 12 ink illustrations
In Dreams, 2021, 22x34”, poster prints Boxed Madness, 2021, series of 50 ink illustrations
The background of my art practise is found in interdisciplinary explorations in illustration, fashion design, and pattern drafting. This body of work features various elements of the natural world superimposed onto hand-draped and sewn garments. Having a history with uniformed schools and workplaces, I came to appreciate the pristine white of a dress shirt as a blank canvas rather than a restriction of creativity. By layering designs onto clothing that is typically worn without embellishments and in a uniform-like fashion, I hope to create a sense of juxtaposition. I use embroidery because its impermanent nature allows me to create and alter any design, I see fit. Conceptually, I am also drawn to embroidery because it represents the ephemerality of much of the subjects of my designs. The threads are delicate and will eventually be undone, much like how the flowers, animals, and body parts they depict are surrounded in impermanence. In addition to embroidery, I also incorporate the use of screen printing to superimpose natural and botanical imagery onto my work. These pieces represent a compromise between the concept of uniformity and creativity, as well as a compromise between two artistic practices. With this body of work, I aim to discover the boundaries between these two things.
LILLIAN PASQUA
3D Beetle Embroidery, 2021, embroidery on cotton Moth Silkscreen, 2021, silkscreen Centipede Embroidery, 2021, embroidery on cotton Chrysanthemum Silkscreens, 2021, silkscreen
Installation detail
Unfulfilled Desires is a collection of interior photographs taken at the artists’ family home. This body of work explores the concept of human longing as a desire for wellbeing alongside the role of family and its relation to the multidimensional aspects of home. Mental illness generates a continued longing for security—a burning desire for consistent happiness and comfort throughout life. Human longing presents as both beneficial and detrimental to one’s own mental health in the form of hope and hopelessness. Happiness is not a static state, but rather an intricate melody of emotions that ties in the yearning and longing aspects of happiness, such as crying tears of joy, or the sensation of missing someone before they have left. Home is a safe place—a place of rest, comfort, and happiness—a break from the confinements of mental illness. Home extends beyond just the physical walls of a house, similar to how family extends beyond the borders of biology into the realm of one’s chosen family, made up of close friends, significant others, and four-legged companions. Family dynamics play a crucial role in defining home, and how the presence of family, or lack thereof, determines one’s happiness and outlook on life. As material items come and go, home will always have a permanent presence in one’s life through the form of family. Through this body of work, the artist attempts to challenge the traditional definitions of home, family, and well-being, and re-work them into something that is both tangible and conceptual.
KIRA PRETTY
Unfulfilled Desires, 2020, 312x44”, c-print
When trying to make a mark in the art world, it’s always good practice to try to do something that is different than all the others. That is what separates one artist from another, it is the ability to create individually distinct works of art. The idea for this series of work was to form a visual impression of the reaction to music. Each piece is based on how the effect of listening to complete discographies of particular rock bands had on the artist, and each piece is titled to allude to which band was used. The use of traditional and non-traditional tools as advocates for marks is based on how each song made the artist react, and the resulting different layers and textures is the artist’s way of conveying a cathartic and subconscious self portrait of the metaphysical self.
CURT RICHARDS
Beauty, 2020, 78x90”, Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol Flowing Through the Strip, 78x90”, I Am the Anti-Pop, 78x90”, acrylic on canvas
Beauty, 2020, 78x90”, acrylic on canvas
I Am the Anti-Pop, 78x90”, acrylic on canvas
Dark Water is a throat clenching. It’s that weird gross ball of build-up that won’t go away no matter how many times you swallow. Dark Water is one. two. three. four. five. six. Dark Water is waking up in the morning and still not being able to see what you’re doing. But you’re moving anyway. It’s going to three different jobs in one day and then coming home to do more work and not remembering doing any of it. It’s moving so fast that you don’t have time to think. There is something that happens to the mind when you’re wet. The body begins to have control again, letting the anxiety fall into the background. The hot steam shifts me as I become aware of every molecule of condensation. It’s a reset. My mind is clear again. It is vulnerable and yet it is empowered.
KAITLYN ROBERTS
let’s try this again, 2020, 20x20”, series of 3 c-prints
All year I had to listen to “Imagine being alone” during this pandemic. And of course, artists are dealing with “what is art during a pandemic” or “what will it be after.” This past year I was barely living, let alone being creative. In expressing that “my mental health was bad” and finding myself dismissed, I should have found my stresses and anxieties avoidable. Handling life and figuring out how to continue living while being stuck in a routine was a battle with disappointment. The art I have made no longer exists, like how Agnes Martin would tear up her art if she didn’t like it. No reworking it, just in the trash. I tore my art up, the paper, wood panels, canvases and stretchers. Art only means something to the artist; and to me there is no importance in my work. The “perfect” artwork worth millions could bring me fame, and I wouldn’t hesitate to tear it to shreds if it came with a bad memory. I had no art-making process this year. This is no statement of the art I made and will make. this is simply a goodbye.
TAYLOR SORENSEN
404, 2021, 20x20”, c-print
days after, 2021, digital video
My art explores contrasts of light and darkness, joy and depression, femininity and masculinity, found in negative space and chaotic mark making. In my practise I reflect on my thoughts, interests and fears. Exploring this through my materials is an integral aspect of my work that holds deeply personal and intentional meanings. I intend to show these contrasts co-existing, shown in my work Vibrancy, Intimacy and Growth. Vibrancy explores my love of botanical life, serving as a metaphor to the strength it takes to overcome darkness and depression to find joy in the natural world. Through the variety of bold and surreal colours, I take the beauty of the natural world and create an image that becomes a fantasy. The plants glow with vibrant hues and rich oil colours, contrasting with the darkness creeping around it. Intimacy is an installation of embroidery that explores healing and being gentle with ones’ self. I choose the traditional practise of embroidery to reference femininity and reflect on my own struggle with finding my place in the world. Intimacy reintroduces the motif of the darkness, depicting empty space as an ever-present void. Growth speaks to the contrast of femininity and masculinity through my material. Using rope as an inherently masculine material, I bend and form the rope into organic curves of feminine botanical shapes. Alongside the contrast of masculinity and femininity, is the darkness and light, which in this piece act as oil and water. The darkness of the canvas and brightness of the rope do not mix except for a few messy moments within the piece. The work is highly literal while also depicting my personal growth and strength fighting against the darkness, with the ropes acting as a metaphor for my newfound strength and flexibility.
CHARDON TRIMBLE-KIRK
Growth (series of 3), 4x5ft, 2019-20, oil and rope on canvas Vibrancy, 2020, 16x16”, acrylic on canvas Intimacy, 2020, embroidery hoops
Vibrancy, 2020, 16x16”, acrylic on canvas
Intimacy, 2020, embroidery hoops
Blast Off is a series that invites the viewer to my personal world of characters spiralling in an environment surrounded in bright colour and intricate patterns. My five-year journey as a student artist has culminated into building a unique style and subject matter that is undefined by any specific movement or style of art. My practise references my influences of art movements and styles I continue to deploy in my work. I use styles such as stippling, cross hatching and loose line that reference my original interest in realistic styles of art. Vibrant colours pull the viewer as an homage to post-impressionists, where I learned that colour choice can breathe emotion into artwork. Layering and patterns is something I explored when I dove into spray paint and graffiti street art where intricate line and perspective exist simultaneously. My subject matter is born out of the concept of photography, when the scientific and artistic communities came together to create the camera. In this invention, many people once believed that practises of art like drawing and painting would succumb to the ease of the perfect capture of a photograph. However, these mediums persisted because artists learned that art does not need to replicate life but rather show life through the eyes of the artist. These pieces work to convey a cacophony of emotions and ideas that are constantly moving throughout my own head. During the creation of this series I suffered a few concussions playing sports and although they made it difficult to focus my attention on one specific idea, they forced me to create by bouncing from one thought to the next and ultimately leading to the universe of fractured characters and altered perspectives that embodies this series of work.wave.
ZACH WHITE
Blast Off, 2019-20, mural installation
Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts 15 Artists’ Common St. Catharines, ON T 905 688 5550 x4765 brocku.ca/miwsfpa Rodman Hall 109 St Paul Crescent, St. Catharines, ON L2S 1M3 T 905 684 2925 brocku.ca/rodman-hall