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VIRTUAL VOLATILITY

FANSHAWE FINE ART ADVANCED DIPLOMA PROGRAM GRADUATION EXHIBITION 2021

Virtual Volatility is the title of this year’s Graduation Exhibition, selected by the 15 students of this year’s 49th Graduating Class of the Fine Art Program. During the three-year program, the students progress from foundation studies to independent studio, constructing an individual and art world practice in tandem with their studies. The Graduation Exhibition represents a diverse peer group, exhibiting work from the traditions and challenges of drawing and painting, sculpting and installation, photography and video, performance and new media, and the art is intelligent and humorous, quiet and loud, political and aesthetic, individual and cultural. In this Exhibition the art embodies challenges and successes with imagination, and in so doing, define pandemic days/year(s) with quiet confidence, in a virtually volatile era.

VIRTUAL VOLATILITY | EXHIBITING WORKS

CONGRATULATIONS TO THIS YEAR'S AWARD WINNING ARTISTS:

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WANT A COPY OF THE CATALOGUE?

PRICE: $10. Orders and pick-up can be scheduled through Ben Robinson: BERobinson@fanshawec.ca 

AUSTIN BENSON

Derived from private experiences, source imagery is constructed from posed personal photographs that are then recomposed digitally to create contemplative narrative scenes with anonymous figures. These images are then interpreted through rigorous layered linear graphite drawing using mark-making that suggests speed and motion guided by handmade tools and architectural rulers. 

JAY BOLT

These boldly coloured gouache and watercolour paintings explore mental health disorders, as well as themes of gender identity, sexuality, and isolation due to COVID-19. The self-portraits feature randomly generated colour palettes and a playful obsessiveness with repetitive shape to communicate these serious subjects in a stylized manner. 

KAILEY CLEARY

Small painterly sketchbook studies lead to heavily textured acrylic paintings on shaped, cut and bent cardboard. These unsettling pieces explore the overlooked dark side of life - drains, sewers, and even human body parts. These intimate scaled paintings are then grouped together in perplexing wall installations. 

PHILLIP FRITZ-SOEHNER 

These works explore themes of isolation and identity through choreographed movement using stop-motion animation. The animations suggest universal human experiences told through a minimal aesthetic using simple objects and unique soundtracks. Bright colours are selected based on association with particular emotions. 

CELINE MORENO

Variable scale silhouetted figures in the act of crouching, falling, dancing, walking, and diving are intuitively created from assembled recycled pieces of roughly cut, torn, and layered painted card. These now mysterious figures are merged together and positioned on walls paying attention to each work’s relationship to the exhibition space. 

CALEIGH REID

Experimentation with washes of watercolour on paper lead to brightly coloured organically shaped stains. These ‘blobs’ are then cut out and assembled into overlapping variable arrangements on a wall surface paying attention to their inherent aesthetic relationships. 

CHANTAL SANDS

A process-based practice grounded in repurposing and transforming discarded materials leads to sculptures, photographs, and paintings. Multiple handmade cardboard cubes in varying scales are painted with bold colours. These cubes are installed in various locations and are aesthetically photographed. The practice is furthered with acrylic paintings made with freehand geometric textured blocks of bright colour. 

MELISSA SCHLICK

A performative process of creating illusive works that consider location and changing times of day aims to capture and translate specific moments and emotions. Serene immersive experiences are created through the interaction of projected light casting shapes and shadows from black lines on rounded and flat glass surfaces. Electrical tape lines also traverse space in response to specific sites. 

MIREYA SEYMOUR

An intuitive process of in-camera manipulation is essential in creating a series of ethereal miniature prints or large-scale light projections. Camera movement and projected coloured light are important tools in the construction of these photographic compositions. The illusion of expansive space created in these works negates the humble cardboard and bubble wrap used to create them. 

EMILY SINGER

Urban forest environments inspire sculptural textile works made from felt, wool, painted cotton, crocheted yarn, rocks, and recycled stuffed animals. Chicken wire structures support textured abstract organic forms that are bound together and embellished with patterned textural surface details. These enigmatic representational and fantastical sculptures are either a placed object or dangling in space, to ignite their surrounding environment. 

ANGELA SMITH

Video projections of sculptural installations made from recycled materials along with spoken word, silkscreen prints, and digitally printed multiples explore the relationship between medicinal flora and the microscopic viruses they historically combat. Each work evolves through a multi-faceted process including research, material manipulation, coloured lighting, shadows, and digital editing. 

SABRINA SMITH

Inspired by the beaches of Barbados, and the plastic debris that pollutes the waters, these various sized acrylic paintings employ washed and poured paint as well as organic mark-making to create an uneasy relationship between surface and depth. An expansive palette engages blues and warm hues to evoke a floating disoriented space. 

DREW TENASCO

Digital media works are inspired by feelings of isolation during the Covid-19 lockdown. The ongoing pandemic progression is evident through the year’s seasons correlating with bright colour palettes. A figure, with a box on the head, changes body position for each season while being secluded within an infinite realm of virus like shapes. Claustrophobic spaces express feelings many people relate to during the pandemic.

CLARA TUCKEY

Recycled fabrics and garments, animal furs and wax resist dyeing methods, are combined to construct new textiles that are placed on the body, or installed in interior spaces and exterior landscape locations. These installations are then photographed to create new visual narratives that speak to prevalent and historical attitudes towards animals and nature focusing on life, death and rebirth. 

DORIAN WELBOURN

Inspired by trends and techniques associated with a career in hairdressing, layered translucent cut-paper sculptures combine screen printing with braiding and sewing. Through the integration of plastic substrates, bright colours, and both real and synthetic hair, these relief sculptures comment on the unnatural, unattainable beauty standards society imposes on women. 

CHANTAL SANDS
CLARA TUCKEY
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