Folio — Issue 4

folio

Issue 4 ­­— Fall 2010 McGill Art + Design

Folio Staff Michæl Beauvais Claire Bourgeois Elle Bourgeois Tyler Chau Jordan Deutsch Jurg Haller Joseph Henry Maggie Horikawa Marissa Lee John Levesque Milena Lorsignol Milena Paprok Benjamin Peck Leah Pires Erin Spangler Contact foliomag@gmail.com foliomagazine.ca

About Folio is a student-run art and design magazine that acts as an ongoing archive of McGill’s artistic community by providing a venue for student artists to showcase their work. It is published biannually.

Cover: Jamie Ross Facing page: William Thurman All contents © the respective artists.

Opinions expressed in Folio are not necessarily those of McGill University.

folio magazine : Issue 4 — Fall 2010 ­ Contents Cells and Leaves Jacqueline Riddle

Kunst Matthieu Santerre

Acid Westerns Leah Pires

Interplay Dominic Popowich

자기야 Meaghan Préfontaine

Geometrical Interpretations William Thurman

Untitled Anna Foran

Biboon Geamhradh Jamie Ross

Why more people aren’t handing out scripts as party favours Cody Scharfe

JACQUELINE RIDDLE Cells

DOMINIC POPOWICH Interplay

ANNA FORAN Untitled

MATTHIEU SANTERRE Kunst

JAMIE ROSS Biboon Geamhradh

MEAGHAN PRÉFONTAINE 자기야

LEAH PIRES Acid Westerns

WILLIAM THURMAN Geometric Interpretations

CODY SCHARFE Why more people aren’t handing out scripts as party favours

folio contributors ANNA FORAN gets tired of words, so she makes collages out of photographs pilfered from relatives, antique shops, and garage sales. Hours of clipping lead to displacing and replacing disparate images to form new and curious wholes. She finds inspiration in knick-knacks, cabinets of curiosity, clutter, and small children.

LEAH PIRES is inspired by psychedelic patterns, topographic maps, Kodachrome photos, and the landscapes of the Southwest U.S. She likes National Geographic magazines printed between 1962 and 1975 because they sometimes combine all four in a single issue. Her contribution to Folio is named after a film genre from the same time period as her source material. El Topo would be a good place to start.

DOMINIC POPOWICH’s work can be both personal and political. Manipulating texture and colour, he focuses on the relationship between nature and structure, creating photographs from multiple exposures.

This is especially apparent in his interactions with urban spaces. He sees art as liberation from the confines of academia, as thought need not always be logically driven. Juxtapositions and experimentation matter too—just ask Laurie Anderson.

MEAGHAN PRÉFONTAINE ridicules photography for its technical simplicity, yet relishes its direct relationship with time and its ability to construct narratives. 자기야, pronounced jagiya, is a Korean pet name that roughly translates to “sweetheart.” In this series, she documents a high school relationship with a Korean boy who spoke limited English. Language and cultural barriers notwithstanding, 자기야 is a nostalgic testament to adolescent romance and transnational idealism.

MATTHIEU SANTERRE, a political science major, carries his sketchbook everywhere and draws spontaneously on the spot. He is inspired by architecture and monuments, which he sees as an open book to civilisation. Super-fine-tip drawing pens (0.3 mm—take note) are his weapon of choice.

JAMIE ROSS is a visual artist, magician, and writer. His video work, which deals with themes of storytelling, genealogy, homoeroticism, and geography have screened locally and internationally.

He is at work on his first novella, entitlled Coldwater, set in the fertile, marshy wetlands of his native Ontario, as well as his next film: a dribbling gash-slash beater flick entitled Girls of Prey, shot in Montréal. Visit him at jamierosspower.blogspot.com.

CODY SCHARFE speaks the language of computers. For this issue, he used a Ruby script to manipulate a photo of a bronze and granite sculpture by CJ Fleury. He likens McGill to a hashtable with tension mapping to creative release: “They provide a strong theory basis with which to work, plus, you can always expand and elaborate on previous structures and ideas, chaining off onto new ones.”

WILLIAM THURMAN uses basic math systems and many rulers to reveal the unseen geometry of architecture and to subvert the rigidity and authority of “perfect” forms. One of his contributions to Folio superimposes Bauhaus forms over a photo of Nuremberg to critique the contradictions in Hitler’s concept of “degenerate” art. William is interested in cosmology, Sol LeWitt, Aphex Twin, James Turrell, and Stockhausen.

JACQUELINE RIDDLE observes both art slides and lab slides, and emphasizes the ways in which colour tempers our perceptions of the world. Using batik techniques, she visually renders leaves under microscopic observation with wax and paint, allowing full control of colour forms.

This work encapsulates her struggle to reconcile art and science throughout her academic work, where chemistry and art clash to form visual compounds.

Thanks to the AUS Fine Arts Council and the Students’ Society of McGill University for their generous support.