Lucile Beaudouin, C'est celui qui dit qui y est. multimedia installation, 2022
As an artist (living in Tiohtià:ke - Mooniyaang - Montréal), I talk about what I live: I question intergenerational links but also the feminine identity through social injustice problematics. (mental load) (gender inequalities) (domestic work) (relation to time) (assimilated framework of patriarchy)
I reflect on my relations with my environment, and I narrate my internal dialogues. Often, the injustice or the helplessness that emanate from these personal situations brings about the need to address these issues. (Explicit the unsaid, the invisible)
To do so, I explore their complexity through superpositions of elements, by playing with the ambiguity between 2D and 3D, in painting, sculpture as well as through multimedia installations.
In space, these "collages" create a bridge between materiality and perception that are then experienced through the body’s intelligence and the position of the gaze.
In practice, I use a vocabulary linked to everyday materials that have no value but are recognizable. I mainly collect these objects from the street during my travel. (wood) (paper) (plastic) (textil)
This apparent simplicity brings me the satisfaction to give words to the material, because they are passive yet experienced witnesses of the everyday life. Through its mise-en-scène, these objects, most often from the domestic environment, speak for themselves.
This choice of materials is associated with techniques learned during childhood such as textile work, woodwork, or the Office suite on computer. These “arts and crafts” are important because they reconnect me to the legacies of those who transmitted them. I sprinkle them across my practice, using tools that belonged to them and that I have owned for years. (coping saw) (golden scissors) (embroidery threads) I engage in a dialogue with them and with those I haven't met yet.
En tant qu’artiste, (vivant à Tiohtià:ke - Mooniyaang - Montréal), je parle de ce que je vis : des questionnements sur les liens intergénérationnels mais aussi sur l’identité féminine en traversant les problématiques d’injustices sociales. (charge mentale) (inégalités de genre) (travail domestique) (relation au temps) (cadre assimilé du patriarcat)
Je réfléchis à ma relation à mon environnement et je raconte mes dialogues intérieurs.
Souvent, l’injustice ou l’impuissance qui émane de ces situations personnelles provoque le besoin de rendre visible ces états d’âme. (Expliciter le non-dit, l'invisible)
Pour cela, j’explore leur complexité grâce aux superpositions d’éléments en jouant sur l’ambiguïté entre 2D et 3D aussi bien en peinture, sculpture qu’au travers d’installations multimédia.
Ces "collages" dans l’espace créent un pont entre matérialité et ressenti à lire par l’intelligence du corps et la position du regard.
En pratique, j’utilise un vocabulaire rattaché aux matériaux quotidiens, sans valeur. Je les collecte principalement dans la rue lors de mes pérégrinations. (bois) (papier) (plastique) (textile)
Cette apparente simplicité m’apporte la satisfaction de donner la parole à l’objet, témoin passif néanmoins expérimenté de la vie de tous les jours. Grâce à leur mise en scène, ces objets, le plus souvent issus de l’environnement domestique, parlent par eux-mêmes.
Ce choix de matériaux est associé à des techniques apprises à l’enfance comme le travail textile, du bois ou la suite Office sur ordinateur. Ces techniques de « bricolages » sont importantes car elles me connectent à l’héritage de ceux qui me les ont transmises. Je saupoudre un peu de chacun d’entre eux dans mon travail. J’utilise d’ailleurs des outils leur ayant appartenus qui me suivent depuis toutes ses années. (scie à chantourner) (ciseaux dorés) (fils à broder) Je dialogue avec eux et avec ceux que je n’ai pas encore rencontrés.
Jillian Beedell, Cradle, drawn animation, 2022
States of interconnectedness are perpetual sources of inspiration for me. I am curious to explore ways in which we foster intimacy with the self, weave and unravel our intricate emotional ties to others, and devote thoughtful attention to the spaces that we occupy within community networks and ecological systems. The faces and forms that I depict through my body of work—which is largely figurative—often adopt a translucent quality, and are situated in dreamscapes or spaces of the subconscious which evoke an evolving inner world.
Jillian Beedell is an Ottawa-based artist who is currently pursuing a BFA in Studio Art at Concordia University in Tiohti:áke/Montreal. She works primarily in painting and drawing, through which she attempts to translate dream-like states, feelings of nostalgia, metamorphoses within the psyche, and the extent to which personal narratives colour our perspectives of external realities.
Justine Bellefeuille, Ce vide à devenir
Porcelain, 2022
Dans sa pratique artistique, Justine a pour but de combiner danse et arts visuels. Elle s’intéresse à comprendre comment ces deux formes d’arts peuvent se rencontrer et comment elles peuvent se manifester. En danse, les arts visuels peuvent se manifester au travers des textures et des couleurs de costumes, mais aussi au travers de la composition des corps dans l’espace ainsi que les lignes, courbes et espaces négatifs qui se créent entre les danseurs. En peinture, céramique, sculpture et estampe, la danse se manifeste au travers des formes fluides et dynamiques. Ces œuvres visuelles peuvent même devenir une partition pour la danse. Les formes et les lignes génèrent des passages pour le corps. Par cette contrainte, émerge un grand nombre de possibilités non prévues et spontanées. Par ailleurs, l’artiste s’intéresse à la précarité de la condition féminine. Elle tente de comprendre l’impact qu’ont les violences faites aux femmes sur le corps. Elle cherche à démystifier les réactions psychologiques, émotionnelles ainsi que physiques de sorte à les transposer en matière tangible. L’émancipation de la femme est aussi au cœur de sa recherche. Elle tente d’articuler les entraves auxquelles les femmes font face pour s’affranchir de la domination masculine. Au travers de sa pratique multidisciplinaire, elle explore donc une rage montante et des questionnements face aux pressions masculines. En outre, la relation à la chair est très importante dans son travail. On y retrouve fréquemment l'image de la chair de poulet déconstruite en différentes formes et différentes images. L'aspect gluant et reluisant de cette matière la fascine beaucoup. Son utilisation peut devenir autant sensuelle, étrange et bouleversante.
Antonia Brown, On Looking, sculpture
and still image projection 2022
My work embraces strangeness and undermines the human need for predictability and understanding. Through separate but intertwined practices of painting and installation, I use collage-inspired techniques and aesthetics to create contradiction, tension, and disorientation. While my paintings lean into absurdity in their mysterious scenes, my installations are more subtle. By combining projected images with drawings or sculptures, a layered reality is created that interferes with the viewer’s usual ways of perceiving the world. These methods use confusion as a tool for prompting questions about our ways of seeing.
Do the ways of thinking formed by evolution still serve us? Can we trust our default settings?
The "setting" I’m most interested in is binary thinking; the tendency to create opposites to simplify and organize the world. My work asks questions about the rigidity and realities of binaries such as good/evil, emotional/logical, sacred/profane, and real/fake. When do these concepts control rather than serve us? How do we differentiate between ways of thinking that are useful and those that are easy?
In a continuation of the surrealist tradition, my work explores the contents of the unconscious mind to deconstruct the rules of the outside world. On a personal level, my works allow me to negotiate in-between states and learn to live in the honest chaos of nuance.
Jarrah Csunyoscka, Insulator, canvas, mattress foam, paraffin wax, paper, 2022
I make art to build foundations of relation. Relation to self, land, people, work, history and reality. Process is always evident, research is central, and rigid mediums are set aside. Engaging with basically accessible and ubiquitous materials and forms of craft (e.g., canvas, appropriated images, sewing), I attempt to draw focus to the origins of my reality and its baggage. The works that are produced as a result of this are formally transient, falling between utilitarian function and art object, while being conceptually grounded in dialogue with the many faces of reality. I position myself in relation to colonial knowing, memory’s nuance, and the arbitrations of history because these essential components of our world must be understood and deconstructed in order to tend to my context in any meaningful way. This, I believe, is what art needs to be, so that is what I am doing.
Chimi Dorito, MAY BE I CAN GO BACK HOME? Sculptural installation, 2022
Where do you turn when fear is stalking you at every corner? When your body feels broken, your mind is your enemy, and your home feels unsafe and unpredictable? How much healing is needed before that fear is just a mere shadow verses a predator? These are some of the questions that keep me up at night and thrust me into creating something that can be an answer.
MAYBE I CAN GO BACK HOME? (2022) is an attempt of an answer. The surreal sculptural installation of a doll house represents my family home which housed many screams, cries, and loneliness. In homage to my inner kid, I use found materials such as cardboard, crayons and paint to create a visual representation of how she sees the past held within the walls of her former home. On the exterior of the house, ripped pages from the libretto of the musical RENT (1995) cover every inch. I chose RENT because it is one of my favourite musicals but is also tainted by shared memories with my former stepfather who was abusive. The songs I once adored are now charred in my mouth. And so, I rip apart the pages of melodies that live in me and using a needle and colourful threads, sew them back together again- an act inspired by the Japanese repairing technique kintsugi, which repairs pottery with gold in order to honour imperfections and passing of time. Much like the gold, I wish to beautifully repair all the tears within me.
Blankets, pillows, and stuffed animals surround the house which sits on the floor. This set up acts as an invitation to the viewer to get up close and personal with each item and take them back to memories of their own childhood. For those who resonate with the themes of the piece, I hope it brings them catharsis and soothes their inner children.
Chimi Dorito is the artist moniker of Selene Reya Leon // (fka. Stephanie Michelle Leon)
Chimi Dorito is a constructed persona // Chimi Dorito is a figment of the imagination // Chimi Dorito is more real than you or me.
She/They speak the truth Selene is too afraid to speak. Relentless in their passion for inner truth, they dig deep to drudge up the darkest inner secrets of a wounded soul seeking transformation. She is both saviour and antagonist to Selene, thereby being the perfect face with which to create.
Whether it be through the interventionist practices of her performance art or intimate explorations through video art, Chimi seeks to both scream and whisper the pain and complexities of being young, Hispanic, queer and invisibly disabled. They weave personal narratives surrounding sexual discovery, spirituality, and power with erotic and haptic visuals, pushing for a sense of hypnotic surrealism grounded in the use of the body as a tool to tell a story.
Inspired by Selene’s background in the performing arts, specifically as a theatrical designer, playwright, performer, and director who specialized in experimental theatre, Chimi yearns to infuse these skills and methods of storytelling into her interdisciplinary contemporary art practice. As she studies Intermedia at Concordia University, she is taking this opportunity to play with both the theatrical and conceptual spaces inside her head, while also developing her identity as a person and an artist.
Chimi // Selene is originally from Tkaronto // Toronto, currently based in Tiohtià:ke // Montreal. They are pursuing their BFA in Intermedia with a minor in Electroacoustics at Concordia University.
RECENTLY FEATURED IN A CLASS EXHIBITION NTH SPACE: distributed presence @ EASTERN BLOCK (2022)
Julie Glicenstajn, Out of Sight, Out of Mind, used face masks, 2022
as the world seems to move ahead of the coronavirus pandemic, there are certain scars that can't seem to go away.
apart from the lives lost and the psychological damages developed during prolonged periods of isolation, there is another irreparable issue the virus has left behind: the colossal amount of pandemic-related medical waste.
in order to prevent the transmission of the novel coronavirus, it became indispensable to protect ourselves with PPE’s (Personal Protective Equipment) including disposable masks, gloves, face shields and aprons. these essential items provided the necessary barrier to help us contain and avoid exposure to Covid-19, while at the same time, highlighting our indisputable reliance on single-use plastics. all of this excess waste has led us into a new environmental crisis. for instance, it has been estimated that globally, 129 billion face masks are disposed of monthly since the beginning of the pandemic. now, we are left with a bigger question: where does this waste go?
during my research process, i came across a too-good to be true institutional initiative fund that promised to create a mask recycling program as a means to keep them out of regular waste disposal. as i dug deeper into the proposed solution, i realized it was nothing but a corporate lie: the piles of collected masks were stored in huge transparent garbage bags in the quiet basements of the organizations, and never ended up at any recycling plants due to the allegedly expensive cost of recycling it. and just like that, these hundreds of procedure masks are now destined to landfill sites and sadly, the ocean.
the installation “out of sight, out of mind” (2022) grew from my urge to bring collective awareness to this oppressed crisis, as well as institutional neglect of responsibility. i collected a large amount of these “doomed” masks and gave them a new purpose: to be here today displayed as art. more than 800 used face masks have been connected to each other using nothing but themselves. as i worked with this trivial yet abject material, unexpected narratives came to life: what were the faces that were once covered and protected by these masks? as you walk under this blue woven net, you can't see their faces, their traces or their scars. but perhaps, now that they’re in sight, are they also in your mind?
i make art because i am. it is by exploring the notions of intimacy, sensitivity and fragility, that i base my artistic practice. through multimedia installations, paintings and video work, i attempt to reconcile with my personal trauma, as i dive into a cathartic exploration of vulnerability. often influenced by human fragility, my body of work engages with the complexity and heaviness of simply being alive. when the world seems to be coming to an end, what do we have left? to me, it is through moments like the Covid-19 pandemic, that such frailty comes into evidence.
Originally from São Paulo, Brazil, i am an interdisciplinary artist based in Montréal, Québec, where i am currently pursuing a BFA in Studio Arts at Concordia University. i have been the recipient of the Elspeth McConnell Fine Arts Award (2022) and the Fine Arts Reading Room Artist in Community Program (2021). my installations and paintings have been exhibited both in Canada and Brazil.
Mossy Society, Adalia Pemberton-Smith,
A Web of What? televisions, cellphones, bed installation and performance art, 2022
I am interested in the subliminal, the dark and humorous undercurrents of our minds. As a performer specializing in theatre and dance, I work with subtlety and surrealism- creating vibrant, textured realities that are otherworldly and uncomfortably beautiful. I pull inspiration from European dance-theatre, Butoh, and nature-based arts practices to construct images, situations, and people trying to communicate and love one another. I am currently fascinated with the conflict between what we present to the world and how we feel on the inside. The tension of being pulled in two directions and the mythical or spiritual guides who teach us of these dualities such as Kali, Inana, and the Trickster.
I am passionate about pushing the arts sector to be more intergenerational and community-based. Democratization of art-making and incorporation of diffraction (the act of being made different by one another) into our collaborations and society as a whole are things I explore in my collaborations. Pleasure activism, Indigenous methodologies, land-back movements, and permaculture principles are pillars in my research and creation process.
Mossy Society
Mossy Society is Montreal artist/activist collective focused on the intersection of clowning, contemporary dance, theatre, technology, and socially engaged art practices. We create interdisciplinary shows, videos, workshops, events, and sustainable art initiatives that engage the community and build bridges between knowledge holders, students, grassroots organizations, educational institutions, and vulnerable communities. (mossysociety.com)
Mossy Society, Isaac Smeele,
A Web of What? televisions, cellphones, bed installation and performance art, 2022
There is a paradox between the beauty of death and the fear of dying. My work lies somewhere between these ideas. In April of 2014, I found myself in a strange and terrifying brush with death. Two men kicked in the door of my home with guns and took everything I had of monetary value, but more importantly, they took my innocence. They left my guitar though, they said, "let him make music". and so I did, and I continued to pour the terror and pain and love into my art more than I ever had before. People told me I had to go through hell to get to heaven. My journey living with PTSD has taught me that the worst hell is probably the one I create for myself to live in. My love for tiny beautiful worlds full of life and death and humour and insanity and heart-wrenching sorrow is a testimony to that idea.
My works are gentle bad dreams and blinding ecstasies. I explore the acceptance of mortality as it relates to compulsive behaviors and belief systems that stem from trauma. Beautiful corpses erupting with flowers, tiny worlds in constant flux and the redemption of tortured souls in this life and beyond. The dichotomy of life blooming and decaying simultaneously and the fact that part of me only wants one side of the coin while the other has already let go. I find a kind of balance in spreading it all out.
Mossy Society
Mossy Society is Montreal artist/activist collective focused on the intersection of clowning, contemporary dance, theatre, technology, and socially engaged art practices. We create interdisciplinary shows, videos, workshops, events, and sustainable art initiatives that engage the community and build bridges between knowledge holders, students, grassroots organizations, educational institutions, and vulnerable communities. (mossysociety.com)
Dylan Ricci, F.L.U.D.D.,
interactive readymade, 2022
Coming out of this past summer, I found myself undergoing the most difficult transition of my life. I had no choice in this reality and was forced to adapt to the many changes that were happening around me. I constantly worried about how these changes would affect me and in turn who I would potentially become once the dust had settled. My fears led me to reminisce about the past. I unpacked old toys and trinkets, read past letters and birthday cards, laughed and cried while sifting through childhood/adolescent photos. I thought about how I could find solace in processing these memories and channeling them through my work.
The piece that you’re seeing today is a window into a childhood memory of mine. An interactive still-life of a memory that helped connect me back to who I am during a period where I was convinced I’d lose myself. The focal point of this piece is the relationship I shared and continue to share with video games as well as video game music. I find an enormous amount of comfort in listening to the music of video games that followed me throughout my life. Each era containing key sounds and instruments that have the power to immediately transport me back to their respective release periods. Through my practice, I hope to further explore the artistic merit of video games which I feel is often overlooked.
I draw a great amount of inspiration from memory in relation to how it has shaped my identity. Much of my work, which I’ve developed during my time in Concordia University’s Studio Arts BFA program, has been centred around identity in relation to animation, video games, and the horror genre. Who I am now is immensely inspired by the fictional worlds I grew up with and still spend much of my time with now. Through my work, I hope to inspire others to tap into parts of their brain that may have been previously neglected.
Gaia Pawar Shapiro, Sculptural painting attempt, oils on canvas, 2022
Portrait of a young artist in an emerging universe. Stepping out the canvas, out of myself I observe:
A theatre set
contemplating garden
early morning feelings
hiding from the world
wall of trees
vulnerable mind
calm before storm
a secret
a stage
Solitary figure
expanding universe
cool tones,
blue light
faceless figure to inhabit
tectonic shapes
pre-analytic cubism
solitary contemplation
vulnerability
My practice mainly involves oil painting on found wood and prepared canvas.
Project description:
In an attempt to make a painting more sculptural, I created a surface with canvas pieces protruding out of the flat surface. The forms resemble a maquette for a stage set or an architectural prototype.
The need to move from side to side as parts are revealed and others concealed was something i wanted to experiment with: how does the audience now interact with this three dimensional painting? How does it affect the composition?
The shift from a painting being two dimensional to it now having various sides to look at also question its place as a painting, or a sculpture.
Valkyria, Wearing the Inside Out, felted wool, ink, rope, clay and performance art, 2022
For the first time in my practice I attempt to represent mother earth as a human being. The choice between the gender of this subject abides to the general representation of earth as “her”. The first mortal woman on earth came from a man’s rib, or made out of clay, by a man of course. She begins in her most vulnerable and precarious form. The role of instinct between the man and woman with the viewer painfully reaches its limits. As a vulnerable figure from beginning to end in a passive state, she lets him guide her to destruction. The audience as a witness, if merciful, might experience some sympathy. His calculated actions of dressing her might suggest he is saving her, like he always does. Beginning with an uncomfortable scene, the audience appreciates it at the end as the abuse, imposed so carefully onto her for the entire duration of the performance, is now undone. Her identity disappears as the remainders of her are still able to hold themselves up. She wears raw wool, with water coming down from her hair. The drops then turn darker. Clay and blood embrace her as she wears the inside out. Earth is mortal, it is not a god, as much as my ancestors might believe.
I invite you to hold the garments and get more familiar with the marks left by his actions.
My work explores the natural state of the globe and the difficulties it brings to the ones living in it. The effect of climate change on wildlife is a topic that develops naturally in my works. Using textiles and printing techniques such as cyanotype and felting I highlight these issues and how the impact of human activity as an identity of greed is responsible for this. I personally find these methods faithful to my practice as they are the first of their kind, instinctively drawing the ambiance to the past, a precarious environment which was not yet close to extinction. Consequently addressing the present as a reminiscence. My generation has been put in the position to face the difficulties that come with the negative effects this greed has brought, and so through my art practice I express my duty to to educate the ones in oblivion. I do this for the end goal, to die of old age as I hope there won’t be a sooner end. Yet, the afterlife won’t reward me with going upstairs.
Liz Waterman, New Sincerity/Scorn, double-channel video, 2022.
Liz Waterman is a video artist using appropriated footage and digital collage to explore societal adaptations to the ever-growing dominance of the internet. Waterman’s work employs the use of highly dramatized characters, often portrayed by the artist, in contrast with found-media sourced online to build a tonal atmosphere of chaos and media oversaturation, mimicking the experience of the internet user. She aims to emphasize the role of performativity in blurring the line between the virtual and the real, often portraying personas that embody various aspects of the social media spectacle. Using her experience growing up online as the foundation of her work, Waterman attempts to draw parallels between the tangible and the digital, focusing on the social, cultural, and psychological effects of mass internet activity as it becomes increasingly integral to daily life. Her videos utilize amateur aesthetics and other popular visual conventions of the internet, such as memes and user interface frameworks, to critically analyze the ways in which users engage with net content. Drawn to the authorless wealth of media circulating online, and propelled by a philosophy of contribution over ownership of media, Waterman takes inspiration from the mass of images encountered while scrolling, particularly a variety of short format vertical videos and the individualistic charade of the Instagram profile. Her work is also heavily influenced by the Post-Internet movement of the early 2010s, noting especially the Instagram performance work of Amalia Ulman and the unsettling cultural reflections depicted in Jon Rafman's video work. In 2018 she was a featured artist at the Hold Fast art festival in St. John’s, Newfoundland, exhibiting her installation Year Of The Goth in Eastern Edge’s rOGUE Gallery. Her thesis video Doom Scroll was screened in July 2022 in Los Angeles at the Bob Baker Marionette Theater as a part of the Art is Life is Art variety show titled Awareness Hurts. Doom Scroll was also nominated for a BMO 1st Art award in the same year. Waterman is currently completing her BFA in Intermedia at Concordia University.
Instagram: @aphex.redditor2.0
