Category Archives: FINA Gallery Exhibitions

The FINA gallery in the foyer of the Creative and Critical Studies Building hosts exhibitions throughout the year.

Rooted Sentiments

By UBCO Master of Fine Arts student Michaela Bridgemohan

Rooted sentiments seek our individual memories as a point of origin. In Sisters of the Yam: black women and self-recovery (1993), bell hooks assert that “knowledge of who we are and where we come from…is an act of political resistance.” In this exhibition, four Okanagan artists explore identity and place through rooted self-determination and testimony. As we continue to endure the pandemic, social calamities and multiple emergencies, how can Black, Indigenous and artists of colour define presence in the Okanagan through personal creative power? Is there comfort within this sentimentality?

We notice these artistic gestures of the ‘self’ located within land and space. Some pieces explore this diasporic experience through film and sculpture. Maura Tamez examines how to be at home when such a place is rooted in a physical relationship with Land, while Moozhan Ahmadzadegan’s suspended textile piece Where Are You Really From? evokes a floating place of cultural in-betweenness. With Promises in Vacationland, Shimshon Obadia interrogates the ways our Okanagan home, as a tourist destination, is crafted and presented for outsiders, and the intersections of gender and sexuality in such a performance of place. Cassandra Adjetey’s intimate portraits speak to the idea of home as a site in the imagination—making home is an act of creation, revealed through the material production of familiar faces.

All exploring these intimate details as intersections of diasporic belonging, Stuart Hall’s essay on Cultural Identity and Diaspora, reminds us that “diaspora identities are those which are constantly producing and reproducing themselves anew, through transformation and difference” (235). So, within each artwork’s intimate detail, creative power begins at hybridity and testimony. Cultivation and Language. Land and Body. Spectatorship and the Gaze. Each work looks back at you and then away.

Rooted Sentiments is a self-reflexive exhibition; that is, is a contemplation. I invite you to consider the ways we make home for ourselves–the sentimentalities of understanding how the home fits within the land where we currently reside–and the ways we invite or exclude others from doing the same.

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Both Sides Now

By Connor Charlesworth

Upon entering the gallery, visitors are greeted with a wall drawing. I came across this funny passage a while back in Roland Barthes memoir where he lays out some of his most favourite, and least favourite things. They appeared pretty random and lots of them made me laugh. In charcoal on the wall, I copied his list over. I liked how it set up a binary; likes and dislikes, good and bad, right and wrong. I then went through and annotated his writing with snippets of my own thoughts; some doodles in the margins, erasing things I didn’t know, calling him out. Earlier that day I was listening to Joni Mitchell in my studio. Her classic “Both Sides Now”, read different than usual. Something about the importance of nuance, bridging divides (and probably a bit of the charge from her and Neil Young pulling out of Spotify over Rogan’s delusions).

The work in the show is a combination of recent drawings and paintings. Ranging from abstractions, to suggestions, to more naturalistic depictions. I consciously chose to contrast works that are more urgent (like The Dome Drawings), alongside works that are much more slow (like Giant Looks Down to Consider the Lives of Others). The content of the works differ. Some are concerned with sustainability and the climate crisis, others are concerned with art history and aesthetic decision making. It is my hope that viewers are able to make some personal meaningful connections, but also just enjoy the various surface qualities in the works.

 

Connor Charlesworth is a contemporary visual artist currently based in Kelowna on unceeded Sylix territory. He received his MFA from the University of Victoria (2018) with a specialization in painting, and his BFA from the University of British Columbia in Kelowna (2015) with a minor in Art History and Visual Culture. His subject matter varies, however his current work is primarily concerned with the space between painted images and objects; often looking back at the history of modernist painting. Connor has taught drawing and painting at the University of Victoria, Thompson Rivers University, and the University of British Columbia in Kelowna.

www.connorcharlesworth.com

 

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Embodiments: Work by 4th year BFA students

EMBODIMENTS

VISA 482

Embodiments is a collaborative and collective showcase of the Creative and Critical Studies fourth year BFA graduating class. Within this exhibition lies a variety of artists working with a wide selection of materials, techniques and viewpoints. One of the exhibit’s principal strengths is the showcasing of these diverse artistic practices. The majority of these artists’ works represent the culmination of years of exploration and investigation within UBCO’s Creative and Critical Studies department.

The journey of each artist has been carefully developed and cultivated to reach this apex alongside their peers, many of whom have greatly contributed to the fruition of this exhibition. Though each artist’s work resides in an individual space and artistic expression, the curatorial vision highlights a cohesive and balanced exhibition. As students who grew and learned, relying on each other through past years, so now do these works on display enrich the diverse voices of this class collectively.

Embodiments represents the first of two exhibitions planned for this cohort in 2021/22. We look forward to a return to the larger year-end exhibition in April, 2022 with great enthusiasm. We hope that you will join us to celebrate our achievements at that time as well!

 

Credits to: Candice Hughes for the writing & Kenzie Beeman and HongYu Zhou for the images

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Treading Lightly

How does one navigate the space between the intimate and the public, between the undiscernible emotion and the hyperobject[1]? How does one, in an era of radical ecological, technological and social transformations, positively anticipate tomorrow? The work of current UBCO MFA students points to a concerned perception of things to come, while refusing to succumb to a pessimistic outlook. The work that they are creating embraces the possibility offered by the act of making as a way to share a sense of urgency and to propose a measured yet positive gesture towards the future.

We live in a moment that can certainly be described as an ever-expanding collage of images, events, places, data, notions, etc. It would not even be strange to portray our everyday primarily as ‘content management’, where the current and pressing challenge is to cope with the overflow of data rather than experiencing scarcity of information. It is not surprising that, facing such overload, one ends up increasingly relying on heuristics and other mental short-cuts. The work found in Treading Lightly seems to precisely contend with this sentiment. This exhibition gathers creative strategies ranging from antique book illustration to recent digital technology, from which emerges a natural convergence towards the notion of a composite reality and where culture is parcelled and fabricated rather than simply fully transmitted, and where the self is in constant formation and negotiation with its social and physical environments.

The complexity of contemporary life and the sentiment of uncertainty that we all experience are at the core of the students’ conversations. But it possible that, in response to a perception of a collapsing world, the most adequate thing to do is to express fragility and delicateness? Instead of recoiling in a glum anticipatory stance, the idea of ‘looking forward’ holds on with a lasting sense of potentiality. And this attitude is expressed without the ambition of turning the world around, but rather to recollect, repair and to keep contributing in a positive light.

Samuel Roy-Bois

Associate Professor, sculpture

VISA 582/583 Instructor

[1] Timothy Morton describes hyperobjects as “things that are massively distributed in time and space relative to humans. 1 A hyperobject could be a black hole. A hyperobject could be the Lago Agrio oil field in Ecuador, or the Florida Everglades. A hyperobject could be the biosphere, or the Solar System. A hyperobject could be the sum total of all the nuclear materials on Earth; or just the plutonium, or the uranium.”
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Dwellings

 

Dwelling(s) presents the work of students in the Advanced Sculpture course, with Renay Egami, who are cultivating their independent pathways. And yet, the notion of ‘dwelling’, be it lingering in the mind, inhabiting the body or spaces, uniquely links all of these works together. Longing for one’s motherland, human-nature tensions, inward reflection and everyday rituals are some of the ideas manifested in this embodied engagement with materials and form.

 

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Bridges In Print – Works from the National Art Academy and the Art Faculty at Sofia University

Printmaking-based work made by students at the National Art Academy and the Art Faculty at Sofia University can currently be seen in the FINA Gallery.  The collection of work by ten students was organized as a Special Presentation within the 2021 Lessedra Mini Print Annual.  The works were curated by National Art Academy Associate Professor Rumyana Karastamova.

Professor Karastamova writes “the students of the printmaking Department of the National Art Academy study all classical printmaking techniques – woodcut, intaglio techniques, and lithography as well as more contemporary ones like screen print and digital print.  The students are motivated to study classical methods but also to experiment with new ways of printing to combine different approached and techniques.  As a teacher in that department, I find it really important that printmaking art is comprehended not just as a technology but also as a specific way of creating the composition of an artwork and expressing its message and concept.”

The exhibition at the FINA Gallery was initiated by the organizers of the Lessedra Mini Print Annual as part of an on-going exchange partnership with the printmaking area at UBC’s Okanagan campus.  Printmaking students from UBCO have been honored twice by mounting their own Special Presentation of prints in the Annual exhibition in Sofia.

Bridges in Print is particularly beneficial during the global pandemic as a means to maintain our students’ awareness of what is happening beyond our restricted borders in the global art world.

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Weaving together

Exhibition featuring artists from Cool Arts Society along with community members

Cool Arts, in partnership with the Ponderosa Fibre Arts Guild, the Rotary Centre for the Arts, and Kelowna Museums, wove together a colourful fibre art banner over the summer of 2021. Much thanks also go to the City of Kelowna and CLBC who provided support to the project.
The generosity of many volunteers through time and knowledge, and the participation of Mayor Basran and his son added positive vibes to our piece. With gratitude Cool Arts is pleased to present this textural, energetic, inclusive, and multi-generational fibre art banner. The end result stands out as a special success, it shows how even in the midst of a global pandemic, where there is a will there will be a way to come together safely and support each other. Together we explored creativity, learned something new, shared space, and made a community art banner that will be enjoyed for years to come.

 

The exhibition was in the FINA Gallery from October 15 to 28, 2021.

 

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The Circle of Ubuntu

Exhibiting and giving a voice to BIPOC artists: The Circle of Ubuntu Exhibition

Curated by the 2021 City of Kelowna Artist in Residence Lady Dia, Co-curator, Trophy Ewila, and project administrators in collaboration with the African Caribbean Student Club, The Circle of Ubuntu exhibition in the FINA Gallery expresses and celebrates BIPOC stories. The Circle of Ubuntu highlights and commemorates the works produced by black UBCO students Jane Udochi, Garvin LeBlanc, Binta Sesay and Nyashadza and features Sylix high school student Kristine Tom and emphasized the Ubuntu philosophies of  “I am because you are.”  

The Circle of Ubuntu exhibition is available to view in person at the FINA gallery from OCT 6 – 14th 

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Survey by Sara McDonald

Survey, a retrospective exhibition by alumni artist, Sara McDonald, is hosted by the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies as part of Homecoming UBCO.

 Originally from the Greater Vancouver area, Sara has lived in Kelowna since 1990. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts (2000) and Master of Arts (2011) from UBCO.Sara has maintained a visual arts practice since 2000, although life has sometimes gotten in the way of regular studio production. Mediums of choice are those that allow her to work in stages and layers – printmaking, drawing, collage and painting.

 Artist Statement:

 In art school I discovered printmaking and took off with the etching press – printing collagraphs, etchings and monoprinting with objects. I naturally work in layers, so this method of artmaking was a perfect fit for me. Since then I have continued to print using my own press, but rather than produce limited edition works I have often used my prints in mixed media pieces. Themes in my work lean towards the ideas of sanctuary, quiet places, spirituality and implied narrative.

In 2003, I founded Cool Arts Society* and I consider this this to be an important component of my art practice. My commitment to Cool Arts caused me to wrestle with issues concerning who can lay claim to be an artist and the inequities of access that exist in the art world.

*(Charity dedicated to providing Fine Arts opportunities to local teens and adults living with developmental disabilities)

 

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