The floating rock
formations of Gayle Buzzi’s piece, with the incomplete title, On a Scale of…, is
made of Styrofoam, acrylic paint and fish skins. It spews fishy debris. The
rocks are floating as if in the sky, but the fish emanating from a pipe end at
the floor are dead. It’s a surreal setting for what is likely an environmental
statement.
Katie Kramer’s
piece, Identity, is made of wood, flocking, transfers and resin, amongst other
objects. The pieces are little collage styled worlds; little museum guides
where dendrochronology help the viewer to understand our close relationship and
use of nature, in time, place and function with human activity.
Asia Schultz’s
ink-on-paper portrait of her mother reveals a brilliant use of technique evoking
multiple reactions from what is ultimately a loving portrait. The stark and
comic combine with youth and age due primarily to the clever use of shadow. The
lips and regions of skin above the eyes are both clown-like yet endearing as if
Asia’s mother had used makeup in this way intentionally, but it’s a play of
shadows working on your mind.
Syrian Distress
Call, by Claire Everett is a ceramic piece where dozens of faces in the shape
of Syria’s borders is a topical piece serving to remind us that such a place is
filled with human beings. Each face appears a little comical, rather than
completely tragic, but they certainly look helpless, incapable of movement
because they have no arms or legs to help them escape or change their fate. Are
they drowning? It certainly looks like they want to escape whatever is
restraining their movement, as they are sunk into the wall.
Some of the works
mentioned here have won prizes. It’s wonderful to see the support of the
community where local businesses and institutions contributed funds for prize
money to the many deserving students, just a small sample represented here.
One of the bigger
prizes, the Lakehead University Alumni Association Award, went to a landscape
styled acrylic painting called, Dawn, by Bronwyn Boden. With a high degree of
competency in its use of subdued colours, strong composition and dramatic
contrast of light and shadow the painting rekindles exactly the feelings you
might get crossing that same bridge or any bridge like it.
Certain to be a
collection piece in the popular culture vein is Watch Out, a ceramic three
headed dog monster with an angry golden snake over its shoulder. Mandy Toope clearly
didn’t want this piece to sit quietly on a shelf with little paperweights, wood
boxes, teacups and spoons. Approach with caution.
Surrealist and
lover of cosplay, steam punk and sundry other costume manifestations is Samantha
Piche, whose ink on paper painting is a floating severed bleeding heart.
Samantha’s works are always wonderfully self-expressive and daringly personal.
Within the heart she has depicted a Popsicle with a little teddy bear who holds
a bag from which emanates a thorny stemmed rose. A simplified version of this
painting would make an awesome tattoo for those who want to express a
complicated emotional history. Piche has ripped out her heart and yelled, “Here
I am!”
Taking on sundry
human qualities is Vanessa Magee’s, I Wait Weighted, made of Masonite, plaster
and steel. It’s green and blue suggesting a relationship between earth and sky.
It combines a contrast of height. Part of it is bent like a spring and part of
it stubbornly immobile. The piece is intended to look like it has a function while
simultaneously mimicking human movement.
Possibly it mimics a person with a kite or someone walking a pet. There’s
enough motion and resemblance to human qualities that its contrasts and motions
can be read multiple ways.
More wonderful
works from six students receiving their Honours Bachelor of Fine Arts this year
will show their work in the Major Studio exhibition where opening night is
April 7 at 7:30. The show runs from March 31 to April 24.
Four instructors in
the Visual Arts Department ask their students to develop an exhibition proposal
where, in their fourth year the students apply their previous three years of
study and practice. The students chose a subject and have six months to produce
several works for the show.
Instructor,
Roland Martin, states, “Students graduating with an HBFA degree carry with them
a clear understanding of how to conceptualize their work, organize a long term
plan, produce a cohesive body of work and how to bring it to an audience in a
gallery setting.”
This upcoming
exhibition and currently running show combine an incredible amount of work,
thought and dedication where the students, as Roland explains, “…begin to
really feel a strong sense accomplishment and have more confidence in their
ability to resolve the ideas into works of art.”
Duncan Weller’s
latest books are a novel called, Flight of the Silk, with over a hundred
illustrations, and a special expanded second edition of the award winning
picture book, The Boy from the Sun. Duncan hocks his books and paintings
Saturday mornings at the Country Market.
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