Author Archives: samn09

The Journey II – MFA Group Show

We warmly extend an invitation for you to join us at “The Journey II”, the upcoming art exhibition held at the FINA Gallery on the Okanagan campus of the University of British Columbia. This event will display the innovative works of our first-year Master of Fine Arts students.

Exhibition Details:

– Venue: FINA Gallery, University of British Columbia Okanagan Campus

– Closing reception: Thursday, 29th February at 2-4 PM

– Exhibition Duration: 23th February to 29th February

About the Exhibition “The Journey II”:

“The Journey II” continues the exploration initiated by “The Journey,” delving into the stories and experiences that shape human existence. Every artwork embodies the unique journey of its creator, weaving together a unified narrative aimed at captivating the audience with individual tales that illuminate the commonalities of the human experience.

Participating Artists:

Negar Baghlani

Robin Hodgson

Roland Samuel

Tara Yadollahi

TRANSCENDENCE Thinking Beyond the Present

An exhibition of student artists, organized by the Black Student Association
at UBC Okanagan.

This exhibition was organized as part of Black History Month events at UBCO in the FINA gallery from February 12 to 22, 2024. Below is a list of the artists, statements and images of their work.

Anonymous

“Okpu isi-agu,” the ‘red cap’ worn by Chiefs in Igboland, represents the entire institution of leadership, authority, and power within Igbo society. Each stitch tells a story of ancestral wisdom, each hue a testament to the enduring legacy of kingship, both past and present. Resting upon the brow, it commands attention, signifying more than just a hat, but the very essence of leadership, tradition, and the resilient spirit of a community. But here, amidst the tapestry of tradition, a new narrative emerges—one of unapologetic celebration, where every boy is a king in his own right.

Peter Idoko

I am a 3rd year undergrad student majoring in Computer Science in the Faculty of Arts and Minoring in Management. My art journey has been long and tumultuous, to say the least. I have been making art for as long as I can remember, drawing inspiration from family and friends alike. I did, however, take a break for some time due to academic and life commitments during which I lost some of my touch. Art has always been a safe space for me be it through music, writing, or visual art. I have always found being able to pick up the pen cathartic and freeing. The time I spent off it was regrettable, as such, I am trying to regain that touch I once had, the creativity, the passion, all of that. Art is life and life is art, I hope I always remember that.

 

 Kiki Mobolaji

Welcome to my world of imagery! I’m Kiki, a street photographer hailing from Calgary, Alberta. I began my journey with photography on a Nikon camera about 3 years ago. When my best friend introduced me to film photography a year later, I found a new passion and dedicated more time to studying the art. As a consequence, I became very fascinated by the unique and timeless aesthetic of film photography and vintage film cameras. Among my camera collection, the Rollei 35 S stands out for its sharpness and compact functionality. Besides my wallet or phone, I must take a camera with me every time I leave my house.

Keklevi Ansah

This painting represents the timelessness of black culture and tradition. The man at the center dances Bawa, a traditional dance from Northern Ghana. He wears a traditional attire called batakari, a Ghanian smock. In what seems to be the wrong place and time, his culture and tradition still thrives

Hamerenoah Taye

This is an homage to my hair. We have not always had a loving relationship but I’m happy to say we are now the best of friends. This is a collection of photos that showcase all the different hairstyles I have done in the past. It is in a collage style to commemorate my “hair-love” journey. I used printing paper, glue, and an old canvas that needed some love. Hair is a big part of black culture, as it is back home in Ethiopia as well. When moving here to Turtle Island (aka Canada) at the age of 8, it was a culture shock to be what it felt like the only coily hair representation around me. Watch me as I learn to hold my crown up high.

Marco Adriko

Marco Tiyo Adriko is a 21 year old University student from Kampala, Uganda. He is currently pursuing his undergraduate degree at the University of British Columbia in Kelowna, Canada. He is an amateur writer and has had some of his pieces published in student-led literary journals and magazines. His work is inspired by Maggie Nelson, Toni Morrisson and Taiye Selasi. More of his work can be found on @mvarcostudio and @sxynergy on Instagram.

 

Chidera Onuorah

My name is Chidera Onuorah and I am a Nigerian Artist, my main medium of art is digital art and it’s been like this for years due to just how accessible it is to me. Inspirations for a lot of my art stem from the anime, cartoons, and comics I digested since I was a youngin. To no one’s surprise  as a black person I never really saw characters that looked like me so a lot of my art is making black characters that can do really cool stuff and can end up in an anime or cartoon like I wished to see back then. Hope these pieces make you as a black person feel like you can do anything. ~ LostBoy :/

 

Deborah Edoho

My name is Deborah Edoho, and I’m in my fourth year of psychology BSC. Growing up, I had always been interested in art, drawing characters and writing stories to go along with them. As I got older, drawing became an endeavour much like working out, as each time, I would strive to exercise my skills, learn new techniques, and become better at drawing. Unfortunately, since school became more of a priority for me, I did indulge in drawing a lot less. Despite my decreased interest in drawing, art still holds a special place in my heart, providing me a way to express myself and release all my thoughts and ideas onto the page.

 

Absolutely No Ink Area: VISA 336 Advanced Practice in Printmaking

“Absolutely No Ink Area” is an exhibition curated from this year’s VISA 336 Advanced Practice in Printmaking course at UBCO. Students have been working diligently to find their voice and unique perspectives through the medium of print, while also developing their technical craft. This upper-level fine arts course encourages students to experiment with new print media and combine methods from previous courses.

 

Join us in celebrating their accomplishments thus far.

 

The BIG the BOLD the BRUTAL: Sculpture 235

The BIG the BOLD the BRUTAL was inspired by a field trip to Geert Maas’s Sculpture Garden in early September. Geert and his wife Elly welcomed us for a tour of their studio where we learned about their creative careers and artistic processes. We spent the afternoon outdoors sketching his large-scaled bronze sculptures as we embarked on the term’s research topic of Brutalism.

Brutalism is an artistic movement that materialized after the Second World War in Europe. We can recognize the aesthetic (or design philosophy) of the era through the use of raw building materials that aided in the reconstruction of cities affected by heavy bombing.

The Sculpture 235 class has installed their artworks in the FINA Gallery for you to experience. The sculptures are made from clay, where each student sculpted their own brutalist inspired artwork in relation to their personal research. The plinths were built to reference the strength and austerity of the movement and are installed to create an interior garden-like space in the gallery.

A BIG THANK YOU to Kaila, Connor and Sam for the technical support. Congratulations to the students!

 

1. Taylor Garvey
2. Mariah Miguel-Juan

3. Ains Reid
4. Rain Doody
5. Megan Furlot
6. Eva Wang
7. Ethan Life
8. Kelly Choy

9. Stevie Poling

10. Madi May
11. Amelia Vegt
12. Austyn Bourget-White

13. Bernice Yam

14. Maya Taki

15. Talia Gagnon

7 X 7 Macedonian and Canadian Graphic Artists

One of the unique things about the varied media of printmaking is that print artists tend to work in multiples and they tend to work on paper (or a paper-like substrate).  These two characteristics open up a great many opportunities for exchange and exhibition.  Works made in multiple could, literally, be exhibited in different exhibitions at the farthest reaches of the globe at the same time.  And, being on paper, those works are relatively easy to ship from one location to another.  In that spirit, a long history of international printmaking exchanges and exhibitions have been established.  As a result, there is an extremely open dialogue between artists practicing in very different geographies.  The exhibition 7 X 7 Macedonian and Canadian Graphic Artists was conceived with that in mind.

Both Canada and Macedonia have played significant roles in the nurturing of contemporary printmaking.  The International Graphic Triennial in Bitola and the newly established International Biennial of Miniature Graphics and Drawings have, over the last thirty years brought the work of over 5000 print artists to the Balkan region.  And, the three long-standing international print exhibitions in Canada, the Biennnale Internationale d’Estampe Contemporaine de Trois-Rivieres; the Biennial International Miniature Print Exhibition (Vancouver); and the Okanagan Print Triennial (Kelowna and Vernon) have similarly brought the work of contemporary world-class artists to this country.

The works in 7 X 7 have already been exhibited in Bitola, Macedonia at the Cultural and Informative Center and have travelled across Canada for presentations and panel discussions in Halifax, Montreal and Toronto before landing for a final exhibition at UBC Okanagan’s FINA Gallery.  It is perhaps fitting that the 7 X 7 exhibition began in Bitola and is concluding in Kelowna – both are sites of significant international print exhibitions.

In his catalogue essay for this exchange exhibition, Besant poses a question about “whether there might be particular collective identities emerge from either group” of artists.  Contemplating that query is something left to the individual viewers but the opportunity to see these works and to consider the broader implications of exchange between international artists remains extremely valuable in the contemporary art world.

 

 

 

Artist represented in 7 X 7 are:

 

Segej Andreevski   Macedonia

Bonnie Baxter   Canada

Derek Michael Besant   Canada

Trajce Blazevski   Macedonia

Atanas Botev    Macedonia

Mark Bovey     Canada

Sean Caulfield   Canada

Briar Craig    Canada

Miroslava Cvetovikj    Macedonia

Ladislav Cvetkovski    Macedonia

Vlado Goreski    Macedonia

Libby Hague   Canada

Gerald Hushlak   Canada

Svetlana Jakimovska Rodikj  Macedonia

Slavica Janeshlieva  Macedonia

Guy Langevin   Canada

Jo Ann Lanneville  Canada

Ivana Nasteski   Macedonia

 

 

The Journey

13th October to 19th October 2023

 

About the Exhibition “The Journey”:


“The Journey” delves into individual narratives of human experience and existence expressed by each artist currently enrolled in the studio course for the Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) Program. Each artwork stands as a testament to its creator’s individual journey, forging a comprehensive narrative that promises to engage others through individual narratives that relate to our broad experiences. Using distinct mediums and processes artists express particular experiences making their work with concerns ranging from colour, form and layering of medium to autoethnographyand destabilizing situations globally that affect women’s fundamental rights and concepts relating to disability rights and our own realities as ‘temporarily able bodied’. Working from narratives of personal experience or aesthetic these artists bring their own journey into conversation with each other and us, as audience, asking us to relate to our own journey and our own humanity.

Participating Artists:
Negar Baghlani
Robin Hodgson
Roland Samuel
Tara Yadollahi

 

Artist Statements (excerpts):

Negar Baghlani

Untitled-2023

Oil paint on Plastic Sheet

Negar Baghlani

Untitled-2023

Oil on paper :Art Book

 

I have been recently exploring the simple shape of an oval as an individual form. The bulge and cavities, and the graceful qualities of asymmetry and dissymmetry which can mold many different forms, has become a very sensitive concern to study for me. Ovals are a combination of different shades of red, black and magenta that together give a feeling of a soft, warm and wet dense mass. It might be felt as either some untouched parts of your body or a forgotten part of your mind. The Oval project was initiated three years ago with sketches and continued with oil paint on vellum paper in different sizes. I worked on some small vellum sheets and oil paint to study the form and curves to find the one that matched with the picture in my mind the best, and I was satisfied by almost all of them in terms of either forms or colour. The way pure and undiluted red and black paints overlap, and in some other parts they are blended.

I am now visiting this project from three years ago again with oil paint on handmade papers bound together in a book. The fact that each single page satisfies me while is not assumed complete, made me ponder how exclusive the collection, as a book, can be. As if words, sentences and pages work together to define a whole concept, each page with slightly different details can add more information and feeling to the previous page and ultimately forge a detached picture in the onlooker’s mind and give them a feeling of looking at a single sheet on the wall.

 

Robin Hodgson

             

Writing on a Trickle -2023

Acrylic, Latex, Spray Paint, Accidental Oil Spill on Birch panel

Robin Hodgson

Race Night -2022

Acylic, Latex on Birch panel

The paintings I create are intuitive, with spontaneous application and vigorous brush strokes, often layered over areas of fine detail and text. These layers reveal and evoke ideas reconsidered or purposefully left obscured, yet not entirely erased, suggesting a past left behind but not forgotten. During these times of rapid social change My paintings share the complex stories of those living with disabilities through my large-scale, colourful compositions. The figures in my work are emotionally intimate, painted in a fast and loose manner that draws the viewer in. My paintings are influenced by the drama and symbolism of Renaissance painting reflected in both scale and composition and symbolic imagery. I use autoethnographic images, like race cars and helmets, that occupy the background and negative space of many of my pieces referencing risk-taking behavior, and the motor vehicle accident that led to my spinal cord injury. As a C5-C6 tetraplegic, I make work that investigates the physical and psychological nature of post-able-body life.

Working from a wheelchair, my process employs the use of both traditional techniques of painting by hand, mixed with experimental methods using tools I have built to overcome aspects of my disability..Through my conceptual paintings I seek to develop a deeper connection between the viewer and the one-in-five Canadians living with disabilities. By exhibiting disability related images in a gallery setting I hope to stimulate conversation; and remind us all that we are only temporarily able-body.” 

Roland Samuel

Ọ̀jà player in contemporary times –2023

Scrap Metal

As an African visual artist, I consider creativity to be indispensable as a means to express myself and communicate my narrative. Sculpting is an ongoing process through which I aim to immortalize my story and the narrative of the people. I craft my sculptures using a variety of readily available materials, such as fibre, wood, plastic, and metal. Notably, my recent works have involved repurposing waste resources, including discarded metal, unused wood, and disposed plastic. This recycling of waste materials not only enhances the environment but also transforms devalued materials into aesthetically valuable sculptures..My sculptures serve as reflections on our past, commentaries on our present, and preparations for our future. I depict the transformation of our way of life, juxtaposing past societal practices with contemporary social issues. Throughout the creative process, I perceive myself as a conduit, an instrument employed by ancestral influences.

In my recent sculptures, I’ve incorporated waste metals from electronic components, reflecting the current age of technological advancement and material innovation. However, my sculptures often depict historical attire, traditions, and cultures that contrast with the advanced technology of the materials themselves. This contrast between material and subject matter is evident in my piece, Ọ̀jà player in contemporary times (2023). The Ọ̀jà is a small high pitched wooden flute, approximately seven inches (18cm) long, indigenous to the Ìgbò people (

Nwachukwu, 1997). This flute has historically been used for communication during significant occasions, spiritual rituals, or to convey messages to the king. It’s a culture-bound medium for conveying messages, much like contemporary cryptography, as it can only be deciphered by those who understand it when used solely for chanting. The sculpture featuring the Ọ̀jà player is a representation that combines the enduring tradition of the Ọ̀jà flute with contemporary materials and techniques. It fuses traditional African motifs with technology, including the use of CNC laser machines for cutting found metal plates. This fusion serves to highlight the stark contrasts between what our society values and what it wastes in the modern era.

 

Tara Yadollahi

Women Fading Echoes-2023

Paper-Threads-Pins on paper

Tara Yadollahi

Zane-Rooz-2023

Digital Projection

“..many women have been censored in Iranian society over time… either by choice or by force. I remember my father always talking about the old female singers, actors and celebrities before the Iranian revolution 1979, and how much more advanced they were than their time, they somehow had more freedom in speech and even in dressing; back then, they might have been judged by people in the society because of their clothing or thinking, but there was no law to prohibit them from their clothing or behavior. But after the Iranian revolution, the law of mandatory hijab for women was officially approved, and then many of female celebrities have been faded day by day and suddenly there were no picture or name of them. Some of their images and even artworks were banned in the country because they were against the Islamic laws in Iran.

This sparked the inception of the “Zan-e Rooz” initiative. Zan-e Rooz (means “Woman of Today”) is a women’s weekly Persian-language magazine published in Tehran, Iran. The magazine was first published in 1964. The first issue hit the newsstands in Tehran on 27 February 1965, and the magazine gained an immediate success. Before Islamic revolution Kayhanpublishing company was the editorial and publisher. After the Iranian Revolution, as women’s political activity alongside men increased, publications focusing on women’s issues sprang up to answer the increased demand. Due to this, Zan-e Rooz shifted from being a Western-style gossip sheet to a publication dedicated to exploring the rights of women within the Islamic framework. This magazine has a nostalgic atmosphere for all Iranians. I remember well that my grandmother used to buy this magazine every day, and in fact, this magazine played a prominent role in my childhood. Years later, when I became a young woman, when I looked at the past and the progress of this magazine, I saw that women and women’s issues had become less important day by day, so that even in society, women were not seen and were censored. In this project, it shows the process of censoring a woman on this magazine, as well as her censoring in society. In fact, the woman gradually gives its place to the “Peyvandha” page, which is the symbol of the filter and censorship of the website in Iran. Furthermore, This page appears on the browser, in Iran, when a site is filtered by the State and Islamic law and cannot be accessed without a VPN. This filters page is a collection of state sanctioned or approved sites and topics. This page is a reminder and a symbol for me of all the filters and censors in Iran.

A few months after the creation of the “Zan-e Rooz”, it came to my mind that it is true that many women are censored in society, but I can look at this issue in another way: why should us, women, censor ourselves? And alos, in other words, if we think deeper, even society has been censored by then too!

This was the spark for me to start creating “Women’s fading echoes ” artwork. In this new collection of digital artworks, I somehow completed critically “Zane rooz” (2020). This series of works is a collection of portrait photos of these women before the Iranian revolution, like Forough Farrokhzad, Googoosh, etc. In this work, I still tried to keep some elements like the “Peyvandha” page, but this time, I censored the space around each artist. In this work, I tried to print them with the same low quality as some of the photos, and then somehow drawing on some of the images and even writing their poems and dialogues in different movies, and then by sewing them together with thread or connecting them together, by pins and tape, I conveyed to the viewer more of the concepts that were in my mind. Concepts such as disappearing and being present at the same time, concepts such as being separate but at the same time being connected.

Some Say Tragic, Some Say Funny

Some Say Tragic, Some Say Funny

VISA – 322U

FINA Gallery, UBCO

October 20 – 26, 2023

Dear Viewers,

A few years ago, emerged a new contemporary art theory that got everyone excited. It was edgy, sounded serious and it was bold. It offered something that genuinely echoed a shared common sensation emanating from art made today. Hollywood star Shia LaBeouf even refers to a manifesto synthesizing its core tenets[1], situating this theory as a trendy way of approaching art theory. However, Under the appearance of an ephemeral fab, lay an ever-relevant set of ideas. These “feelings” seem a good way to approach the Advanced Sculpture Students’ exhibition “Some Say Tragic, Some Say Funny”.

 

Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin Van den Akker, in their essay Notes on metamodernism[2], proposed a theoretical approach that would take opposites into consideration: sincerity and irony, refinement and rawness, pragmatism and intuition. They would refer to “structures of feeling” to pinpoint a state of mind specific to contemporary life. The term metamodernism itself wasn’t new, but the theory offered a perspective that straddled diverging historical perspectives and seemed to rally deeply entrenched positions regarding modern idealism and post-modern cynicism.

 

The title of this exhibition refers to this oscillation between two states of mind, and to the difficulty we are facing today in assigning value to our experiences while judging the magnitude of current events around us. I often noticed that oscillating state of mind amongst my students. The highly structured yet continuously vacillating world we are living in might not be foreign to the emergence of these conditions. The works found in this exhibition broadly explore notions specific to sculpture and succeed in generating a broad variety of thoughts and emotions. The students were free to explore and independently develop themes meaningful to them, and bring their ideas to reality using materials and methods of their choosing.

 

Samuel Roy-Bois

Associate Professor, Creative Studies

VISA -322 Instructor

[1] http://www.metamodernism.org

[2] Vermeulen, Timotheus, and Robin Van Den Akker. “Notes on metamodernism.” Journal of aesthetics & culture 2.1 (2010): 5677.

Megan Perra – Stories Behind the Statistics

Megan Perra is a UBCO alumnus.  She graduated in 2015 with a degree in Zoology. In the final year of her degree, she decided to take the two courses in Introductory-level screen printing to satisfy six elective credits.  Megan’s all-encompassing interest in drawing convinced the professor to waive the prerequisites for the courses.  And, since that time, she has not stopped drawing and pictorializing her unique vision of the natural world. Once she learned the basics of the process of ultra-violet screen printing, she set about making images that combined her interest in the academic study of the natural world with that desire to record the things she saw.

 

Since graduating, Megan has continued to pursue and combine her many varied interests.  She has completed a Graduate Diploma in Visual Journalism from Concordia University in Montreal; a Master of Science from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks and is currently working on a PhD in Environmental Biology from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry.  Along the way, she has participating in over 40 international art exhibitions, solo exhibitions, collaborative art projects, and artists residencies where she continues to engage with scientific knowledge in her creative practice.

 

Megan has returned to the UBCO printmaking studio numerous times since her graduation and the Bachelor of Fine Art’s Teaching Collection has benefitted from continued donations of her work.  This exhibition was organized from that collection and highlights selected work from a remarkable seven years of her artistic production.  The Teaching Collection exists to provide tangible examples of excellence in printmaking as an aid in the education of young artists in the BFA program.

PRINT – Works from the UBCO Print Collection

PRINT

Works from the UBCO Print Collection

 

September 5 to Sept. 28, 2023

 

We are pleased to host an exhibition of printmaking works in the FINA Gallery featuring fine arts alumni artists with works from our UBCO Print Collection.

 

The umbrella term printmaking involves a number of different methods of creating art works through the process of printing.  Typically, a print-artist makes a matrix in one form or other (an image drawn­ onto a lithographic stone, or etched with nitric acid into an etching plate or made as a stencil on a silkscreen, etc) and then uses that matrix to transfer the imagery to another surface – usually paper or fabric.  While not all printmakers work in editions (multiple originals) prints do tend to be made in multiples.  Editions of an image allows a p­­rint-based work to be sent all over the world and be exhibited widely.

Amy Bugera 2023 Etching/Aquatini 2/3

Printmaking at UBC’s Okanagan campus is quite varied.  Students can work with a number of different print media – stone lithography, zinc-plate etching, relief printing (woodcut and linocut), ultra-violet screen printing, monotype printing and letter press printing.  These different media (used individually or in combinations) provide limitless possibilities for creative expression.

Liane Juchinipsky ‘Emmett Kelly’ 2009 1/1 Screenprint

Screen printing at UBCO is quite unique in North America.  Students use inks that are water soluble but can only be cured/dried by intense ultra-violet light.  This allows for the printing of minute detail and subtlety that is not normally open to a screen printer’s practice.

 

A number of UBCO printmaking students have won awards and recognition in exhibitions across Canada and internationally.

 

Strategies in Digital Art: Virtual Worlds

Strategies in Digital Art: Virtual Worlds 2023

 

FCCS instructor Emerald Benzmer (VISA 269.001 Strategies in Digital Art: Virtual Worlds) is pleased to present the class final exhibition of virtual environments that place the artwork in critical, historical, and cultural context within creative inquiry in the arts and digital media production. The virtual worlds explore non-liner storytelling, media aesthetics, modelling, animation, interaction design and coding using 3D modelling software and Unity game engine. A culmination of the students’ finest video fly-through compositions will be on exhibition for the months of July and August 2023.

The virtual environment exhibition will be shared with the larger university community in the FCCS video wall in the Creative and Critical Studies building foyer and Sawchuck Family Theatre in the university commons building.

Students Featured:

Caity Dueck

Eunis Au

Jahmaal Kennedy

Jian Suniga

Johee Yeom

Jordin Kolmel

Juan Ablan

Kaito Hyde

Kelly Choy

Maddy Bohnet

Rodrigo Lopez

Telina Wales

Wenjing Wang