Hamilton Artists Inc.

Workshop with Colin Lyons, May 14 and 15th

2011-05-11T12:13:00.000-07:00

Free drawing workshop this Sunday Mar 27th 1 to 4 pm at the Inc. 161 James St North Hamilton ON

2011-03-23T13:38:00.001-07:00

At Christ Church Cathedral 252 James St North TONITE FRI MAR 11th

2011-03-11T12:37:00.000-08:00

FREE workshop with Wendy Wallace Saturday, March 12, 1-4 pm 161 James St North

2011-03-11T09:55:00.001-08:00

Opening of liminal spaces: new century of the city, Friday Feb 11th, during the James St N Art Crawl 7-11 pm

2011-02-08T12:56:00.001-08:00

Art's Birthday at Hamilton Artists Inc. - Impromptu New Music Jam with Members of New Harbours

2011-01-15T17:08:00.000-08:00

DON'T STAB THE CAKE
ART'S BIRTHDAY SUNDAY JAM SESSION WITH NEW HARBOURS
Celebrate Art's birthday at Hamilton Artists Inc. with an impromptu Jam Session

Hamilton Artists Inc.
Sunday, January 16th
8pm - 11pm

Drinks, pizza and birthday cake to follow the recording.

Audio streaming of the recording will occur with sound artists Ian
Birse and Laura Kavanaugh (Hull, QC)
on January 17th and 18th, at:
http://www.instantplaces.ca/artsbirthday/11/01.html
Live remix broadcast recorded by New Harbours and participants
EST 22:00—24:00, GMT/UTC January 18 03:00—05:00

and will be featured on CFMU's New Directions hosted by Olga Kirgidis,
Wednesday, January 19, 2011.
http://cfmu.msumcmaster.ca/programming.htm

Join us to celebrate the birth of Art, and participate in an
experimental music jam/audio streaming project
Art's Birthday is an annual exchange-art event celebrated on January
17th by a loose collection of artists and artist organizations around
the world. This annual event first proposed in 1963 by French artist
Robert Filliou. He suggested that 1,000,000 years ago, there was no
art. But one day, on the 17th of January to be precise, Art was born.
According to Filliou, it happened when someone dropped a dry sponge
into a bucket of water. Filliou proposed a public holiday to celebrate
the presence of art in our lives.

more info: http://www.artsbirthday.net/

Auto Agrarian works by Jefferson Campbell-

2011-01-15T17:04:00.001-08:00

2011-01-15T17:02:00.000-08:00

Visiting from Argentina - Artists Gabriela Alonso and Nelda Ramos

2010-09-01T14:12:00.000-07:00

Here's the listing for the upcoming exhibition at Hamilton Artists Inc.,
by Gabriela Alonso, Nelda Ramos, and the Zonadearte Gallery Artists, from Quilmes, Argentina

http://www.hamiltonartistsinc.on.ca/intro.shtml

DRAWINGS AND VIDEO PROJECTION AT HAMILTON ARTISTS INC. FROM ZONADEARTE GALLERY (QUILMES, ARGENTINA)

CURATED BY GABRIELA ALONSO AND NELDA RAMOS

The video compilations from the Zonadearte database include documentation of work presented during the annual Zonadeartenacción Festivals (2005-2008). The compilations contain fragments of performances by participating International artists. The curators chose works that represent a cross section of artistic production at both the local and International level, with the intent of encouraging cultural exchange/dialogue and research/production. The compilations have been divided into works that involve a LIVE performance (where the presence of the performer is integral to the work) gathered under the title "REAL YEARS", which are juxtaposed with works that contain still photography and video art, gathered under the title "VIRTUAL YEARS".

The 1st Zonadeartenacion Festival of live art, photography and urban interventions was founded in 2005. In 2006, we held a second festival thanks to the collaboration of Calixto Saucedo, with Osvaldo Glesso, Joaquin Amat and the Varalenses Artists Association - who offered their facilities for the actions. In 2007, we held an Art Action exchange with le Lieu, a contemporary arts centre located in Quebec City, QC. This exchange developed through a visit to our country by Richard Martel and artists of le Lieu, who were searching for new spaces for exchange projects. There were artists not only from Argentina and Canada in this exchange, but also from France, Cuba and Northern Ireland. The festival continues to grow beyond our expectations, and so we ran, enveloped by a spirit of freedom and energy, with which we wish to continue. - Gabriela Alonso

Zonadeartenaccion Festival

En 2005 se llevo a cabo el primer festival de arte de accion, foto performance, video and videoperformance e intervenciones urbanas. En 2006, gracias a la colaboracion de Nelda Ramos y Calixto Saucedo con Osvalo Glesso, Joaquin Amat y la Asociacion de Artistas Varelenses - quienes esta ves ofrecieron sus espacios como sede para la accion- se ha llevado a cabo el Tercer Festival Internacional Zonadearteaccion 06 - Foto performance and Videoperformance. En 2007, se realizo el intercambio de arte de accion con Le Lieu, centro de arte actual, ubicado en Quebec, Canada. Este intercambio comenzo a gestarse en abril del 2005, cuando Richard Martel y artistas de le Lieu visitan nuestro pais, en busca de nuevos espacios con los que pudiera intercambiar proyectos. En este encuentro, no solo han particpado artistas argentinos y canadienses, sino tambien accionistas de Francia, Cuba e Irlanda del Norte, que fueron protagonistas activos. Zonadeartenaccion crece mas alla de nuestras expectativas, corre y nos envuelve con aires de libertad y energia, la que no queremos desaprovechar.
- Gabriela Alonso

Women in Action - Latin Video Performance, curated by Gabriela Alonso and Nelda Ramos.
This video includes the work of:

Cintia Clara Romero – Argentina /Karina Cortez - Ecuador
Anabel Vanoni – Argentina /Amapola Prada – Perú /
Valeria Andrade – Ecuador /Eli Neira - Chile
Soledad Sanchéz Goldar – Argentina /Paola Montoya – México
Verónica Meloni – Argentina /Gabriela Alonso – Argentina
Nelda Ramos - Argentina

Mask Making Workshop Sunday May 16, 2010 2 to 9 PM at Hamilton Artists Inc.

2010-05-12T08:35:00.000-07:00

Need help creating a one of a kind mask?
Looking for time to jump start your creation?

Join us on Sunday May 16 for our 1st ever Mask Making Workshop.
2pm Hamilton Artists Inc.

Share ideas Share materials Share the fun

We'll have:
starter masks, decorating supplies, scissors, tape, glue, papier mache tips and supplies
You bring:
any interesting materials, masks already in progress, curious creativity

Sign up by contacting the Inc at 905.529.3355
or by email at board.hamiltonartistsinc@gmail.com

ARTOPIA!!!

Friday, June 11, 2010 (ARTCRAWL) at 7:00 pm to 2 am

Academica Hall
Street:
242 James St. N.

Hamilton Artists Inc presents:
ARTOPIA MASQUERADE

live music, raffles, prizes, silent auction, bar
masks of all shapes and sizes colours and designs

June 11 (Art Crawl) doors 7pm
242 James St. N.
come check out Academica Hall

Drop by the Inc to get your mask today!

Come to our mask making workshop this Sunday!

905.529.3355
board.hamiltonartistsinc@gmail.com

Mitchell Akiyama Saturday May 8th, 2010

2010-05-07T18:17:00.000-07:00

Mitchell Akiyama
New Harbours Music Series
Saturday, May 8th 2010
9:30 - 11:30 pm
at Hamilton Artists Inc.
161 James St. North
Hamilton, ON

In collaboration with Hamilton Artists Inc, the New Harbours Music Series is pleased to present a musical performance by Mitchell Akiyama in the HAI gallery space.

Toronto born, Montreal based Mitchell Akiyama has carved a niche for himself as one of Canada's premier avant-garde electronic musicians. Originally trained in classical music and jazz on piano and guitar, Akiyama began composing electronic music in the late 1990s. He has since come to incorporate traditional instruments and real world sound sources in his compositions, fusing the organic and digital. the results can be beautiful and lush, jarring and abrasive, but are, above all, always moving.

Mitchell has released albums with several noted international music labels, including Raster-Noton, Alien8 (Subtractiv), and Sub Rosa, as well as his own Montreal imprint intr-version, and has played extensively in Europe and North America at festivals such as Sonar and Mutek alongside the likes of Oval, Francisco Lopez, Kit Clayton, Pole, Jetone, and Tomas Jirku.

This event coincides with The Archive and Everyday Life Conference, administered by the Department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University.

Admission is free / pay what you can (PWYC).

http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=114518231922460&ref=ts

The Archive and Everyday Life Exhibition

2010-04-23T23:00:00.000-07:00

Archive and Everyday Life
Visual Arts Exhibition
May 1 - 15th 2010

Featuring the work of Adrienne Batke, Melissa Carroll, Amanda Delorey,
Jeffery Douglas, Keeley Haftner, Megan Hahn, Nicholas Holm, Andrea
Kastner, Philip Kingstone, Kegan McFadden, Devon Mordell, Midi
Onodera, Simon Orpana, Malissa Phung, and Maria Whiteman

Adrienne Batke
Archiving Grief Work:
Dead and Living Objects

Adrienne Batke lives in her hometown of Toronto and studies contemporary culture and critical theory. Her research interests include mourning and melancholic relationships to objects, collecting and hoarding, the production of waste and the global circulation of trash, as well as the interaction of art, politics and everyday life.

Melissa Carroll
Faces of Loneliness

Someone once said—the band Wilco if I’m being forthcoming—that to fight loneliness, you need to “smile all the time.” Sounds easy enough and I used to hold tight to that, using humor and sarcasm to mask the multifarious faces of my loneliness. However, recent slippages have left me with the unsettling realization that I am not looking to fight loneliness exactly. Rather, I’m endeavoring not to be consumed by it, not to become it. I seek, then, a more fluid relationship with my lonely bits, a friendship of sorts that leaves me both undone and smiling, safe in the uncomfortability of the sometimes hard stretches that at once invite and rebuke. This project comes out of my giving-up and shutting-down. The archival snapshot presented here betrays this moment, when, in trying to map loneliness onto the pages through words that escaped and eluded me, I stopped speaking aloud and listened instead. Ironically, I am not a crier. Tears have always seemed untenable or weak in me. Repulsive badges of vulnerability that I was convinced I had no need for. I wanted to touch tangibles. And in my attempt to secure and frame loneliness through photos, I thought if I captured the emptiness with the lens, I could leave it there, alone on the glossy page. Away from me. However, what occurred through this archive were actually the beginnings of me letting go of slices of abject-Melissas, faceless pieces of me that I love, but that relished too much in frolicking throughout the poetics of pain. So I lay myself out here, drippy and bleary eyed, replenished but tired. I am still lonely. I still have an inability to speak loneliness along coherent lines. But, loneliness’s incomprehensibility is what connects me to my own assailability, a gifted, misfitted affinity that enables me to wander the versatile corridors of my everyday spaces.

Melissa Carroll is a girl wandering around negotiating the urban landscapes of Hamilton. She is currently a PhD student at McMaster University working on her dissertation on queer affects and identities (such as loneliness) in hopes of articulating a politics of ethical humiliation.

Amanda Delorey
Walking in the City

This project documents a performance of walking in the city. Over a period of one month, I assigned myself a daily walking task with a specific method of recording and translating the walk into a map, chart, or diagram. The maps are an attempt to transform lived space and time into readable and archived space and time. I am interested in the concepts of public and private space and how the two conflate or become more apparent across different spaces.

Bio: Amanda Delorey is a writer and artist living and working in London, UK. She is a current PhD student at The Courtauld Institute of Art working on her thesis focusing on state v public intervention in architecture, from modernism to contemporary practices in Mexico.

Jeffrey Daniel Douglas
Repose

My current project examines waste material as found objects situated in rural locals/landscapes. My intention is to photograph anomalous juxtapositions of old and new technologies—or new arrangements and configurations of old technologies—as well as the remnants (waste) of commodity culture as it appears situated within what is a modern pastoral, as opposed to urban, backdrop. My objective is to determine how what might be viewed as superfluous waste material—the decay of old and new technologies/structures, ephemeral assemblages, etc.—might also be subsumed under the category of the modern picturesque.

Some of my past occupations (in rough chronological order): corn detasseler, tobacco primer, grocery store bag boy, machine shop custodian, dishwasher at a Chinese restaurant, production worker at a food processing plant, assembly line worker at a factory that made bumpers for Chrysler minivans, furniture assembler at an RV manufacturer, website administrator, assistant editor for the Canadian Poetry Press, tutor, high school English teacher, university teaching assistant, and freelance editor. I have obtained B.A., B.Ed., and M.A. degrees from the University of Western Ontario, and I am currently pursuing graduate studies at McMaster University.

Keeley Haftner
Household Artefacts

Household Artefacts is a developing body of work derived from an investigation of the everyday object as an attempt to critically explore notions of historical significance, consumerism, capitalism and capitalistic culture, as well as authenticity of authorship. The work involves a process of cataloguing personal belongings to a museum standard for certified artefacts, critically tracing a history of their acquisition, lifespan, and import to the artist’s life, as well as physically and visually describing the acquisition of objects (and how substantial such an endless acquisition may be) through the accumulated series.

Keeley Haftner hails from Saskatoon, Sk. She has travelled across Canada with the national volunteerism program Katimavik. In 2004 she received the grand prize for her submission of “Meet Beautiful Africa” to CIDA’s Butterfly 208 Project for international development. She was awarded a trip to Tanzania, Africa, and the position of Student Ambassador. Keeley then took a year of travel in Europe, after which she returned to Saskatoon for a year of apprenticeship in oil painting under local Saskatoon artist Rolf Krohn. She studied arts and sciences at the University of Saskatchewan, as well as introductory photography and sculpture. She received the E.B. Pulford Scholarship upon entry to Mount Allison University for the most promising portfolio, where she is currently undertaking her third year of her Bachelor of Fine Arts program. Keeley has since maintained Dean’s List standing, as well as receiving two times the J.E.A. Crake Scholarship, and once the James Arthur Gairdner and Mary M. McKean Scholarships for achievements in the arts. Keeley currently majors in sculpture, painting and printmaking, although drawing and alternative media are integral parts to her practice. She plans on receiving her Masters after undergraduate studies and pursue a career in the visual arts.

Megan Hahn
100 Tamarack Suite
Digital Print with
Mixed Media Applications

Photography is often how we capture the past; the photograph is the past captured. The act of photography is that of record keeping, transforming the spontaneous into a tangible form of memory and translating visions of the past into the present. Acting upon the transience which Roland Barthes studied, the drawings within 100 Tamarack Suite explore the photographs ability to shift the viewers state of the consciousness between the here-now with the there-the, merging the two together and pulling them a part. Photographs of suburban environments draw upon a reposition of the archive and its materiality to the present. By exploring the borderline between the image being a description of an event and an image embodying an event via materiality, my work establishes tangibility with memory while archiving remembrance. The objects and space depicted in my drawings, hover within a daydream depicting reality. They are created for your present, establishing a role within the archive and recollection. As Susan Sontag wrote, “One of the perennial successes of photography has been its strategy of turning living beings into things, things into living beings” (Sontag). While re-drawing upon the photograph I become lost within the captured space, reliving the moments and recapturing the movements of time.

Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida. Reflections on Photography. Trans. Richard Howard. New York: Hill & Wang, 1980.
Sontag, Susan. On Photography. New York: Picador, 1977.

Megan Hahn is currently a candidate in the Masters of Fine Arts Program specializing in Drawing and Intermedia at the University of Alberta. Her works revolve around capturing the shifting spaces memory and act of recollection can embody.

Andrea Kastner
5886-5914 Saint-Urbain
Collage on plywood

These works are part of a series of collages depicting the alleyways of Montreal. What I am interested in is the intimate, authentic feeling of this side of the city: the anti-façade. Alleyways seem to me to represent the more real side of ourselves- something slightly shadier but also far more interesting than the more polished face that we present to the outside world. The medium I have been using is appropriately unglamorous. Working on plywood, I build up a collaged surface of everyday materials including metro transfers, shopping bags, electrical tape and price tags: the sort of invisible ephemera which we pull out of our purses and pockets at the end of the day to throw in the garbage or stuff in a drawer. The subtle juxtapositions
between form and material hint at a coded message, incomprehensible despite the overwhelming familiarity of its contents. The frustration inherent in this process seemed to mirror my vaguely alienated sense of belonging to the city itself. These works strive to explore aspects of the urban consciousness, through the connection between an individual, their neighbourhood, and the stuff of everyday life.

Andrea Kastner received her BFA from Mount Allison University in 2006. Her work has been shown in solo exhibitions at the Maison de la Culture Notre-Dame-de-Grâce and the Galerie Port-Maurice (Montreal, QC), and in group exhibitions at Gallery 21 (Halifax, NS), Struts Gallery (Sackville, NB), the Niagara Artists Centre (St. Catharines, ON) and Hamilton Artist Inc. (Hamilton, ON). She has worked as an art instructor at the Visual Arts Centre in Montreal, and is currently pursuing her Masters in Fine Arts in painting at the University of Alberta.

Peter Kingstone
One A Day (excerpt) Digital Video 2002

Peter Kingstone is an artist working in installation, single channel video and photography. His work digs through history, community and narrative. He believes in a bottom up model of story telling, and that everyone has a worthy story to tell. He holds a degree in Philosophy and Cultural Studies from Trent University and a Masters of Fine Art form York University. In 2009 he exhibited at Latitude 53, Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Eastern Edge, Pari Nadimi Gallery, Ace Art and Modern Fuel. Peter Kingstone is represented by Pari Nadimi Gallery.

Kegan McFadden

unclaimed archive (2006 ongoing)

unclaimed archive (begun in 2006) consists of approximately 100 4” x 4” 126 Instamatic photographs I found in an abandoned Photo-Mat in downtown Winnipeg. Most of them date from the 1970s, though there are some from the ’50s and ’60s as well. The images in this ‘archive’ are as iconic as any family album: prom nights, marriages, first cars, first dates, drinking parties, holiday celebrations, pet portraits, and vacations. There tend to be some more risqué poses and vignettes that have fallen out of fashion for this sort of amateur photography these days. In assembling this collection, my aim is to pay homage to lost moments: all the instances which people felt the need to capture on film yet would not claim once developed.

unclaimed archive has been exhibited in Toronto at Gallery 44 as part of the three person exhibition the Make Station; in Winnipeg at PLATFORM centre for photographic + digital arts on their P_121 wall; and will be included in an the exhibition, found, at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba in Brandon. Each time the project is presented, I approach it differently … in a sense always re-working the archive for multiple entry points and various means of analysis.

Part of an ongoing investigation into found images; unclaimed archive refers to the synthesis of sentimentality and abandonment in a throw-away culture. As we are now in the digital era where seemingly ‘bad’ or ‘inappropriate’ images can be erased and forgotten with the click of a button, I want to draw attention to the danger of losing too much too quickly and the ever-increasing problem of self-censorship. What I hope to present is a patchwork of sorts that speaks to the value of memory, identity, and social mobility, questioning how such intangibles can be either lost or misplaced and the immeasurable affects of such loss.

I am an artist, curator, and writer who has worked with found material since 2002. I incorporate audio, written narratives, collage, mail, photographic material, and performance in various modes of presentation. I avoid the use of new materials for my practice, preferring instead to reuse and reinterpret what is already in existence. To produce solely through acquisition [by reusing or recycling material for my practice] is a politically conscious decision. I work with the amassed and discarded in order to bring up issues of sentimentality, commerce, authenticity, and overabundance.

Lisa Molnar
Saturated Threads: Nagymama’s Kötött Archív

This sensory archive of my Hungarian grandmother’s knitting collects “everyday voices, everyday events, everyday materials and everyday sensations” (Highmore). The memory-boxes with the knitting and family photographs are accompanied by interviews with my nagymama, father and brother that capture their feelings regarding her handicraft. As handmade work, the threads helped create the everyday experience of my childhood, while simultaneously archiving my experiences and turning them into memories. They contributed daily to the development of a familial identity. These sweaters and slippers aided my nagymama in the construction of her own subjectivity, while creating a handmade representation of her identity that I can hold and touch. Her work participated actively in birth and youth, providing baby clothes and dolls, and at the same time archived death. My grandmother’s knitting is thus both the everyday and the archive. Her projects speak to the way in which domestic handmade objects are essential to a discussion of the everyday and the archive as they are simultaneously involved in both worlds, integrating these separate discourses into a space where the past, present and future intermingle and speak to each other. This space of duality is a wound, as the archival impulse itself. Archiving channels our melancholy even if it cannot cure it. The wound is largely a series of unanswerable questions, both a site of pain and also a space of possibility.

Lisa likes singing to herself and drinking coffee. She wears her hair up at home and misses the 80’s craze of treasure-trolls. She is patiently waiting for another form of wish fulfillment other than the jewel-encrusted bellybuttons of fancy fantastical toys. Lisa is in the English and Cultural Studies PhD program at McMaster University. She completed her MA and combined English and History HBA at McMaster as well. Her primary interest within cultural studies and critical theory is Western embodiment, particularly the spectacularization of the human body. Her dissertation will examine late twentieth and early twenty-first century visual representations of spectacular body theatre, notably Gunter von Hagen’s Body Worlds exhibit.

Devon Mordell 
ETHR FM 

We are suffering from technocultural amnesia. It must have happened quite gradually, of course. But over the years, the presence of technology, once wondrous, became novel, and once novel, became commonplace. My practice is an archaeology of sorts, both unearthing long-forgotten cultural representations from the past, and excavating relics from a speculative future. By re-presenting these findings in a contemporary context, I seek to interrupt the linear, instrumental account of the history of technology that is commonly repeated; that is, the transistor begot the radio begot the satellite ad infinitum. An alternate history is buried in our cultural representations of technology.

Devon Mordell is an incurable polymath, with an art/life practice which is correspondingly diffuse; she relishes being a jack of all trades, and mistress of none. The diversity of skills resulting from such intellectual nomadism include art-making, audio and video editing, web design, wordsmithery and meaning-mapping abilities. At the core of these activities is a fascination with the cultural history of technology, and optical toys in particular. She has a BFA in video and sculpture from the University of Windsor, and an MA in cultural studies from McMaster University.

Simon Orpana
Microseizures
Found Object Assemblage

My assemblages are constructed entirely from found objects, and constitute an archive of "microseizures", a term that describes the process of appropriating cultural detritus and cast-aways, while simultaneously describing the tiny electrical tremors in the brain and nervous system that accompany the moment of discovery and re-remembering inherent in the act of collecting. As testimonials to a form of "archive fever", or the pressing desire to collect and preserve ever more traces of the past, these works are an attempt to overcome the violent tendency of the archive to destroy that which it would hope to preserve. By recombining traces of the pop-cultural elements of my youth, I hope to make monuments that encourage new constellations of memory and affect. These works seek to generate an image of collectivity that use collage and juxtaposition to gesture toward the Utopian potential concealed within the everyday.

Simon Orpana does works in collage, pen-and-ink, assemblage, and sound-collage. He is currently a PhD student at McMaster University in the English and Cultural Studies Department where he has been studying skateboarding and spatial politics. He is also working on a project examining the zombie as a figure through which to investigate issues such as marginalization, collectivity and testimony.

Midi Onodera
Movie of the Week (2009)

In 2006 –2007, I embarked on a year long project, challenging myself to make a movie a day. In 2008, I posted these shorts on my website, making them freely accessible to an online public. Unlike theatre-based films, these movies are designed for intimate individual viewing through a hand-held device such as an iPod. I began to miss this daily ritual, and so I took up the project again in 2009, creating 52 movies, one for each week. This collection spans time-specific events such as the death of Michael Jackson and Remembrance Day to fleeting daily reflections on health care, working in a dead-end job, and munching in food courts. Shot primarily with toy cameras or digital still cameras, these tiny moving images are designed as moments of meditation saturated in pop culture.

Midi Onodera is an award-winning, filmmaker who has been making work for over 25 years. She has over 25 independent short productions to her credit as well as her theatrical feature film, Skin Deep. These shorts were produced in formats ranging from 16mm film to video to “low end” digital toy camera formats such as a modified Nintendo Game Boy Camera and the VCam Now video cameras. Her most recent projects involve making 365 movies, one movie a day for one year and a non-linear DVD documentary on Japanese-Canadian artist, Aiko Suzuki. In 2009, she made a movie a week which can be viewed at: www.midionodera.com

Malissa Phung
Chinawoman

The history of early Chinese Canadian settlement in Canada tends to emphasize the effects of racist and exclusionary immigration policies on Chinese Canadian communities and Chinatowns across Canada. Chinese bachelor societies are predominantly represented in much of early Chinese Canadian literature, particularly in historical fiction. And the narratives that discuss the experiences of Chinese Canadian women usually detail the lives of those women who were legally admitted into Canada—the wives of Chinese merchants—since it appears that they made up the majority of what little women constituted the early Chinese population. But that is not to say that non-married, lower class Chinese women never entered British Columbia in the late nineteenth century. Traces of their existence, of their ‘sordid’ lives and ‘sinful’ professions, can be found in what few historical documents have bothered to record their ‘indecent’ and ‘corrupting’ presence in Canada. My archive project attempts to retrace their experience through the form of meta-fiction, to archive through the form of a meta-archive in order to add a face and voice to what little archives and history books exist that are written in English about them: the non-married, lower-class Chinese women who were smuggled into Canada near the end of the nineteenth century to work as sex workers and domestic slaves. Presented here as a historical document, my novella contests the traditional notion of the archive in order to carve out a space within the archive of the early Chinese diaspora in Canada for a gendered experience that has been all but excluded and repressed from an already marginalized history.

Growing up mostly in Edmonton, Alberta, Malissa Phung was born in Red Deer, Alberta to ethnically Vietnamese immigrants of Chinese descent. She now lives in Hamilton, Ontario, where she is completing a PhD in English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University. Having completed her comprehensive exams in settler colony literatures, she is currently exploring Canadian literary representations of Chinese settlers in her dissertation project, which analyzes how settlers of colour are figured ambivalently as colonial settlers in Canada. Every now and then, in stark moments of procrastination, she still manages to write creatively. Her current literary project—Chinawoman—looks at the history of Chinese sex workers smuggled into 19th century Canada.

Mooswa, Muskwa, PuskwaMoostoos-Digital Creations with Immemorial Relations An Exhibition of Works by Jude Norris

2010-04-01T15:06:00.000-07:00

Exhibition of works by Laura Paolini

2010-01-03T21:19:00.000-08:00

Crying Cat (Crocodile Tears) by Laura Paolini
Photo Credit: Elizabeth Underhill

Laura Paolini’s work is primarily conceptual and is expressed through media-based installations. An emerging artist and a recent graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design, Paolini’s work has been described as quirky, refreshing and seductive as well as subversively political.

As one of the first works the viewer encounters in the exhibition "Hello, Schrödinger?" at Hamilton Artists Inc., audio embedded in a blowing, inverted hand dryer invites a kind of intimate participation which belies how physical presence (or non presence) is implicated in communication. Animals are used as symbols of desired human qualities and reflect a somewhat unnerving and slightly sinister quality embodied by surrogate, media-activated toy counterparts. In the central work Crocodile Tears: (Crying Cat) the viewer encounters a domestic tableau, within which a mechanical cat cries as he gazes upon the image of his real life, video doppleganger on a nearby television. Captured within this Kantian moment of prolonged and sublime longing, perhaps the cat is aware that it will never be a real cat, and is deeply saddened.

Laura Paolini is also an active writer. Her columns and reviews have appeared in FUSE magazine and other publications nationally and internationally. Her upcoming article about artist Charles Stankivech will be featured in the next issue of musicworks (February 2010). In 2008, Paolini was a resident in the Telus InterActive Art and Entertainment Programme at the Canadian Film Centre’s Media Lab.

Annual Members Exhibition

2009-12-10T12:28:00.000-08:00

A group exhibition by our member artists continues until December 19, 2009.
Drop by for some eggnog and holiday cheer during the James St. North Artcrawl
on Friday, December 11th, from 7 to 11 pm.

The Cubans are Coming!

2009-09-04T10:58:00.000-07:00

Please join us at Hamilton Artists Inc. for the Cuban/Hamilton Exchange exhibition, during the Friday, September 11th art crawl from 7 to 11 pm. Exhibition runs until October 30, 2009. See you then!!

Hamilton Artists Inc. hosts Hamilton Artists Sadko Hadzihasanovic, Bryce Kanbara, Anne Milne and Peter Karuna

and Cuban Artists Janet Ramirez Molina, La Teoría Dorada de Popeye (Josuhé Pagliery and Noël Serrano), with Wax Mannequin, Tiny Bill Cody and Ulysses Castellanos.

Curated by Ingrid Mayerhofer

¡Ojos: The Cubanos are Coming!

Red Tree Artists’ Collective is pleased to present ReMix Institute - A series of site-specific projects by local and visiting artists will be launched on Labour Day weekend and on the September James Street North Art Crawl. This public presentation of artworks represents the second phase of an international exchange project. In Spring 2009, ten artists from the greater Hamilton Area worked with Cuban artists in Cienfuegos, Cuba, and exhibited with them in a parallel event at the Havana Biennial. Phase 2 of ReMix, the Hamilton/Cienfuegos artists’ exchange takes place during three months from August to October, 2009, at a number of sites in Hamilton and beyond.

Hamilton event highlights are scheduled for the Labour Day weekend at Dundurn Castle, Fieldcote Memorial Park and Museum, Griffin House, Workers Arts and Heritage Centre, The Pearl Company, the Labour Day Parade, and for the September James Street North Art Crawl, Friday, 11. September, at Hamilton Artists Inc, The Print Studio, Christ’s Church Cathedral and You Me Gallery. Exhibitions run from August through October at Fieldcote Memorial Park & Museum, 64 Sulphur Springs Rd, Ancaster: July 26 – September 7 The Pearl Company, 16 Steven Street: September 4 - 17, Hamilton Artists’ Inc, 161 James Street North: September 11 – October 30, The Print Studio, 173 James Street North: September 11 – October 24, You Me Gallery, 330 James Street North: September 11 – October 4

Artists’ works are available for sale at the Dundurn Castle gift shop during September.

Artists participating in the Hamilton phase of the exchange include:

Adrian Rumbaut
Alison Judd
Andrew McPhail
Anne Milne
Brian Kelly
Bryce Kanbara
Colina Maxwell
Delio Delgado
Fleur-Ange Lamothe
Janet Martínez Molina
Julio Ferrer
La Teoría Dorada de Popeye (Josuhé Pagliery and Noél Serrano with Wax Mannequin, Tiny Bill Cody, Ulysses Castellanos and others)
Pavel Acosta
Peter Karuna
René Francisco Rodriguez Hernandez
Sadko Hadzihasanovic
Shelley Niro

Performances, workshops and interventions are presented in collaboration with Hamilton’s Civic Museums, Brantford Native Housing, Workers Arts and Heritage Centre and the Hamilton and District Labour Council. Exhibitions are presented in partnership with Hamilton Artists Inc, The Print Studio, You Me Gallery and The Pearl Company.

The project is funded in part by the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.

For more information, please contact curator/project coordinator Ingrid Mayrhofer at
http://www.redtreecollective.ca/remix.htm

OPENING FRIDAY JUNE 12 7PM - SUCKERPUNCH

2009-06-09T11:45:00.000-07:00

DIRECTIONS TO ARTOPIA

2009-06-09T11:42:00.000-07:00

ARTOPIA FUNDRAISER FRIDAY JUNE 12TH!!!!
WWW.http://www.hamiltonartistsinc.on.ca/intro.shtml

Directions: To access the event is easy. Take the staircase closest to the corner of King and James. You will see a flight of stairs just on the side of the building off of James St. If you are coming before 9 pm, you can use the ground level mall entrance. Use the storefront mall access at James and King, the Artopia entrance is located by the LCBO store on the main floor of the mall. If you are coming in a wheelchair, please use the elevators by the Empire Cinemas, this will take you up to the rooftop.

Tickets 8 dollars in advance, 10 at the door
more info call 905 529 3355

ARTOPIA! JUNE 12th, and call for 12"X12" floor tiles

2009-04-29T14:48:00.001-07:00

ARTOPIA 2009
ARTISTS HOME SHOW
A FUNDRAISER FOR HAMILTON ARTISTS INC.
NEW DATE & LOCATION...
FRIDAY JUNE 12th, DOORS OPEN AT 7 P.M.
ON THE 2ND FLOOR ROOF TOP OF
JACKSON SQUARE MALL
INSIDE THE OLD BANK OF MONTREAL

TICKETS: $8 IN ADVANCE $10 AT THE DOOR
LIVE BANDS - ART AUCTIONS - FREE GIVEAWAYS -DOOR PRIZES
HOME DEMONSTRATIONS - DANCING - FOOD AND DRINKING
CONTESTS - VENDOR'S MARKET - HOME CRAFTS
TRADE SECRETS - DESIGNER TIPS - CELEBRITY GUEST STARS
DJ'S - RECIPE IDEAS - PLUS MUCH MORE...
CALL 905-529-3355 FOR MORE DETAILS
WWW.HAMILTONARTISTSINC.ON.CA

Pick up your floor tile at Hamilton Artists Inc. during gallery hours, or use your own tile with the restriction that the size must be 12" X 12" The painted/decorated floor tiles will be auctioned off with a charitable tax receipt for the value of the work assigned by the artist. Artists will also receive a free ticket to the event...Completed floor tiles are due Friday, June 5th at 5 pm and should be dropped off at the gallery. For more info, contact Ian at 905 529 3355, ian@hamiltonartistsinc.on.ca.

Nature of the Body Installation - Elizabeth Chitty - April 10th James St. North Art Crawl

2009-04-25T03:25:00.001-07:00

Window Installation by Tings Chak - April 10, 2009 James St. North Art Crawl

2009-04-25T03:21:00.000-07:00

ARTIST TALK TONIGHT - ELIZABETH CHITTY FRIDAY, MARCH 20 7:00 TO 8:30 PM

2009-03-20T13:48:00.000-07:00

WORKSHOPS FOR ARTISTS IN 2009

2009-03-20T13:47:00.000-07:00

FREE WORKSHOPS FOR KIDS - JAMESVILLE COMMUNITY CENTRE

2009-03-20T13:46:00.000-07:00

FREE WORKSHOPS FOR SENIORS - JAMESVILLE COMMUNITY CENTRE

2009-03-20T13:43:00.000-07:00

ARTOPIA HOMESHOW CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

2009-03-20T13:42:00.001-07:00

CARL BROWN - OPENING

2009-03-20T13:24:00.000-07:00

SIN CIRCUS FUNDRAISER PEPPER JACK CAFE FRIDAY OCTOBER 10TH!!!

2008-09-22T22:32:00.000-07:00

This is going to be great, looking forward to seeing you all there!!

URBAN MOORINGS PROJECT IS EXTENDED UNTIL SEPTEMBER 9TH

2008-08-31T04:58:00.000-07:00

The Urban Moorings Project is extended for viewing until September 9th at Cootes Paradise. Check out our website at www.hamiltonartistsinc.on.ca to view the great photos by Cees van Gemerden, on the pictures link.

Links to Ingrid Koivukangas' work

2008-07-20T09:39:00.002-07:00

On July 11th, Ingrid Koivukangas exhibited "Starfloats" during the James St North Art Crawl, at 252 James St North - as part of the Urban Moorings Project, sponsored by Hamilton Artists Inc. in collaboration with the City of Hamilton and the Royal Botanical Gardens.

Here's some links to her work:

http://www.ingrid-koivukangas.com/northvan.html
http://www.ingrid-koivukangas.com/digitalreliquary.html

Montreal

http://www.ingrid-koivukangas.com/arborglyphs.html

http://www.ingrid-koivukangas.com/starfloatsvideo.html

STARFLOATS AND RBG PANEL DISCUSSION FOR URBAN MOORINGS

2008-07-04T14:45:00.000-07:00

2 MORE EVENTS RELATED TO URBAN MOORINGS IN JULY

Hamilton Artists Inc. presents the films Urban Moorings and Starfloats
July 11th, 7 - 10 pm, at Christ's Church Cathedral, 252 James St. North

Starfloats by Ingrid Koivukangas: a film about endangered wetlands in
Finn Slough, British Columbia

PANEL DISCUSSION AT THE ROYAL BOTANICAL GARDENS AUDITORIUM

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF COOTES PARADISE
THEN AND NOW

Join panalists Tor Lukasik-Foss, artist from The Urban Moorings Project, Tys Theysmeyer, aquatic ecologist and historian, Nancy Bouchier in an informal discussion concerning the rich histories of people, wildlife and aesthetic importance of Cootes Paradise, from past to present.

July 13, 2 - 4 p.m. at RBG Auditorium

www.hamiltonartistsinc.on.ca

Urban Moorings - Launch of the Floating Sculptures

2008-06-22T21:27:00.001-07:00

June 21st was a fine day as we launched the floating houseboat sculptures at Princess Point. It rained briefly at the 1:00 start time, but despite this a crowd gathered to cheer the artists on. By the time Tor Lukasik Foss installed the final floating sculpture, the sun was out and his crew were sweating. An excellent group effort was made by all, especially artists Susan Detwiler, Tor Lukasik-Foss, Steve Mazza, Noel Harding, and David Acheson. Thanks to our administrator Donna Lee MacDonald, the Royal Botanical Gardens staff headed by the excellent aquatic specialist Tys Theysmeyer, and the curator, Nora Hutchinson - the day went off without a hitch. The installation can be viewed at Princess Point, Cootes Paradise until June 5th. Please check the link on our website for instructions on how to get to Princess Point. If you take the downtown trolley to the trolley at waterfront, you could stop off at the Saturday Sabawoon bazaar before getting on a second trolley for the scenic view of the waterfront with a final destination at Princess Point.

Andy Fabo and Liss Platt are DOUBLE TROUBLE!

2008-06-20T14:26:00.000-07:00

We enjoyed the opening of the Exhibition Double Trouble by Andy Fabo and Liss Platt. Double Bubble Gum was enjoyed by all, and despite a fierce rainstorm a festive mood prevailed over the event.

www.hamiltonartistsinc.on.ca - The Urban Moorings Films

2008-06-19T08:22:00.000-07:00

Location of films for the Urban Moorings Project and Starfloats by Ingrid Koivukangas has changed to Christ's Church Cathedral, at 252 James St North. See you there during the July 11th Artcrawl!

image of Starfloats by Ingrid Koivukangas
Starfloats is a film about the endangered wetlands of Finn Slough, BC

Urban Moorings Photos

2008-06-16T10:59:00.000-07:00

Its been a busy week as we prepare for Saturday June 21st, the day artists Susan Detwiler, Tor Lukasik-Foss,Steve Mazza, David Acheson and Noel Harding install floating houseboat sculptures at Princess Point, Cootes Paradise.

I've posted some photos of two of the artists working in their studios in preparation for the 21st - artists Tor Lukasik-Foss and Susan Detwiler.

The Urban Moorings Project

2008-06-16T10:54:00.000-07:00

click on image below to get all the information about Urban Moorings.

Congratulations Mario!

2008-06-16T10:44:00.000-07:00

A recent exhibiting artist, Mario Doucette, has been shortlisted for a Sobey Art Award.
Here's some photos of his recent exhibition at Hamilton Artists Inc.

Selected work from the shortlisted artists will be featured in an exhibition hosted by the Institute for Contemporary Culture at the Royal Ontario Museum and will run from August 30 to October 13 of 2008. The winner of the 2008 Sobey Art Award will be announced during a gala event at the Royal Ontario Museum on October 1, 2008.

To read more about the award, go to:
http://www.sobeyartaward.ca/LONG-LIST.htm

for Mario's bio go to: http://www.sobeyartaward.ca/winners/2008SHORTLIST.htm
and scroll down.

CONTACT Festival and Nathalie Daoust www.hamiltonartistsinc.on.ca

2008-04-05T13:55:00.000-07:00

Our exhibition by Nathalie Daoust, opened during the James St North Art Crawl on May 9, 2008 7 to 10 pm, it was part of the CONTACT Photography festival.

http://www.contactphoto.com/view.php?sec=exhibitions&eventid=1222

Daoust was also featured in the CONTACT section of shedoesthecity.com

Photos of the opening and exhibition by Cees van Gemerden

Sound Art 2008

2008-03-29T16:34:00.000-07:00

Hamilton Artists Inc. and Harbour Music Series presents:
Plomo Plopo at 10 p.m.
Orphxs at 9 p.m.

Friday, April 11th 2008
Christ Church Cathedral
252 James St. North, Hamilton Ontario
Admission is FREE

Submission Deadline May 30, 2008

2008-03-29T16:28:00.000-07:00

check out our website for the upcoming submissions deadline
on JULY 31st, 2008

go to www.hamiltonartistsinc.on.ca
click into site
click on Submissions Policy
scroll down to see the architectural drawings of our new building!

Upcoming free workshops

2008-03-29T16:23:00.000-07:00

Hamilton Artists Inc. offers three free workshops led by skilled artists in activist art making. These workshops are produced in partnership with Skydragon and WAHC. Participants will create activist art, that will be on display at Skydragonn on May 1st during the Mayday festival. Workshops will be held Saturday April 12th 1-4 pm at the Workers Art and Heritage Centre (51 Stuart Street, Hamilton), Saturday, April 19th at Hamilton Artists Inc. (161 James St. North) 1-4 pm, and at Skydragon (27 King William St., Hamilton) Sunday, April 27 from 1-3 pm. Everyone is welcome, drop-in and participate! art supplies are provided. (905) 529 3355.

On May 2 at 7:30, Hamilton Artists Inc. (161 James St. North) and the UFCW present a free film - Lost Mexicanos, and a talk regarding the struggles of migrant workers, in connection with the Mayday festival at Skydragon Call (905) 529 3355 for more info.

Upcoming at Hamilton Artists Inc.

2008-03-29T15:43:00.000-07:00

Nathalie Daoust May/June 2008
May 2 - June 7, 2008
Opening Friday, May 9th during the James St. North Art Crawl, from 7 to 10 pm.

"Entre Quatre Murs" Berlin
"Between Four Walls" Berlin

"Since my very first experiments in photography I have been fascinated by human behaviour and its various realities, by the ever present human desire of escaping and living in a dream world. The aesthetic of my new project continues and enriches this visula exploration at the border between dream and reality by the feeling of escaping which it conveys, a sensation often present in my previous projects. My objective as an artist is to push the boundaries of photography through experimental methods, working with new mediums and dsicovering new techniques in the darkroom." Nathalie Daoust

Histoires by Mario Doucette

2008-03-09T07:21:00.000-07:00

Current Exhibition

Histoires by Mario Doucette (Moncton, NB)

161 James St. North, Hamilton

Artist talk: Friday, March 14, 08 6-7 pm
Reception with the artist: March 14th, 7-10 pm

Paintings may be viewed from March 7 to April 19, 08
gallery hours: Tues-Fri 12-5, Sat 12-4

Contemporary art is experiencing a moment of juvenilia. In an attempt to unshackle art from its serious pretences it moves toward the adolescent. The images, previously suspicious as fine art, are now embraced for their teen dream-like qualities and video game and television references. The child’s eye is a mythical paradise that offers a novel way to look at the world seemingly immune to the influences of traditional historical narrative, pictorial perspective, and skill. What happens when an adult artist knowingly employs the naïve in pictorial space? The art drops any pretense of “naturalistic” accuracy, and becomes more ambiguous, perhaps closer to something free; in any case a revised vision is offered. And what happens when that same artist employs the naïve in order to address historic violence between humankind; war, genocide, expulsion, the conquering of another people, the colonization of their culture and their mind? What of the contrast between historical content fraught with the mature and images stylized to appear naive? For me, Mario Doucette’s use of the child-like calls into question the certainty of historical narrative....

(excerpt from the essay accompanying the exhibition, by Erinn Langille)

view essay at http://www.hamiltonartistsinc.on.ca/programming/2008/doucette.pdf

Please note* due to the terrible snow storm Mario's artist talk has been moved to Friday, March 14th from 6 to 7 pm.
A reception with the artist will follow, from 7 to 10 pm.
This is the evening of the art crawl so wandering up and down James St. North is encouraged.

groteskes Performance Art Event

2008-03-09T06:55:00.000-07:00

February 16, 2008

Groteskes
Performance Art Collective

Curated by Irene Loughlin
Produced by Hamilton Artists Inc.
Cheto Castellano (Santiago, Chile) 8 pm
Naufus Figueroa (Chicago, IL) 8 pm
Coco Rico (NY, NY) 9 pm
Nao Bustamante (SanFrancisco, CA) 10 pm
Nako Tako (Santiago, Chile) 11 pm
DJ Zeno 11 - 1 pm

Featured below are photos of the performances. To read the essay by Lucian Gomoll, go to http://www.hamiltonartistsinc.on.ca/programming/programming.shtml and click on brochure

(L to R) Naufus Figueroa and Cheto Castellano

Coco Rico

Exhibition by Corinne Duchesne

2008-03-09T06:50:00.000-07:00

Hamilton Artists Inc. is currently featuring an exhibition of paintings on mylar by Corinne Duchesne, at our new location at
161 James St. North, until February 23rd. Gallery hours Tues-Fri 12-5, Sat 12-4
The exhibition is entitled "Stories to Myself". This significant body of work is examined in detail in this essay by member artist Eileen Lampard.

Stories to Myself
The Work of Corinne Duchesne
Hamilton Artists Inc.
An Essay By Eileen Lampard

Inc has started the 2008 season with a thought provoking exhibition of mixed media artworks. The exhibition falls naturally into three sections: the window installation, eight collages and eight large mixed-media on mylar. The window installation works as a good introduction to Corinne Duchesne’s practice. It presents us with artistic skill, a concern for ritual and a situation of unfinished business, the kind that poses questions rather than presents answers. She achieves this by scattering samples of her academic life-drawings on the floor and multiple copies of text attached to the wall, casual placement of scrapes of crumbled newspaper, and an old wooden stool on which sits a coffee cup and a book as though waiting…

As you enter the gallery the eight collages in identical frames hang in the tradition gallery in a straight line approach, creating a situation which sets you up to forget the surroundings and to focus on the subject matter. This section of the exhibition displays artworks made up of juxtaposing segments of energetic preliminary sketches, paintings and text, collaged to create agitated compositions that become complete works in their own right. Duchesne uses the techniques of a sustained drawing alongside a more gestural approach thus alternating between objectivity and subjectivity. This with the physicality of her monochromatic renderings and her emotive use of colour, bring to the work an intellectual puzzle for us to enjoy, not to necessarily solve.

By engaging with “Sketches for Hell” we can gain insight into Duchesne’s interpretation of hell and possibly recognize our some of our own perceptions. She creates a fragmented set of images and words that cannot be read in a linear fashion. Our eyes look at the surface and sporadically stop on an image or a word, and because the positioning is not always vertical we uncomfortably bend our head this way and that. Many of the images sit at right angles to each other giving a crash effect. The variety of coloured images mixed with those of black on white ground, on a mylar ground add to the contrasts that give a sense of the theatrical. Parts of the collage spill over the matt, suggesting hell cannot be confined. Duchesne does not want us to be comfortable in hell. The words umbrage or anger or resentment and images of tornados, motifs of anthropomorphized tree trunks and spreading branches, aggressive black ravens, sometimes fixed in position with transparent tape, are the physical attributes of this work. Such elements of design create in us a version of hell but this is not the whole story.

The images stand as signs and symbols of a collective consciousness, signifying more than just a depiction of objects. It is because we recognize the images and the titles as relating to the history of western culture that we are able to enter these works rejecting madness. For example, the image of the apple rendered in bright coloured pastel in”Sketches for Eden” sets the scene, opening a train of thought for us to interpret the text of Kerberos (sic) to be Cerberus, the three headed dog the guardian of dead souls in the underworld charged with preventing escape to the world above where salvation is still possible. The cut out photograph of a partial body of a black dog, in the left bottom corner fixed upside down as if kicking to be free, adds credence to Hades idea. Duchesne will not let us get away so easily though, as she presents us an image of the dog heads finger- like, reminiscent of the hand sign for God’s blessing. The inclusion of human like portrait of a dog rendered ambiguously could be read as ominous ghost or spirit. In Rembrandt’s “The Adoration of the Shepherds” there is a very similar dog. Rembrandt’s dog symbolizes a guard to the saviour quite different to the duty of Cerberus to keep souls in hell. Other artists have used dogs as symbols for wealth, companionship, and fellow hunter. Duchesne’s dogs are symbols with a history, but we are left to our own devices to interpret their meaning. The freedom of a secular society not permitted in the time of Rembrandt. Myths however don’t die so quickly. In Duchesne’s works there is then, some kind of cross purpose of images which makes for ambiguity as a possible resolution. A marriage of opposites is not the answer. We are given two ways to go either heaven or hell, each with its own agony.

These eight collages with their juxtapositions of images and materials prepare us for the art in the far end of the gallery. These large works read more like complete stories, however, ambiguity allows us to interpret them in our own way, and the sheer energy of the compositions and application of paint sweep us into the art in a different way than the sketches. The first series of Sketches requires us to be involved in an intimate reading whereas these make us stand back to get the full impact.

“Hell” (mixed media) is held onto the gallery wall by two thick plastic strips and eight metal bolts. The image of a dark thick stubby tree sends out knobbly limbs one of which is morphing into an ominous female. Her black hands, one of which is gloved, are grasped together reaching out and touching the beak of a stretching ravine. Blood flows from her fingers. Such a depiction of touch is reminiscent of the “Creation of Adam” by Michelangelo, but there you have God and the passing of a soul to the physically complete Adam whereas here we have forming woman extricating herself from a tree reaching for a bird that pecks her bloody fingers.

In the “Creation of Adam”, some analysts say the strange dark shape God is cradled in is the outline of a brain or there are others who think of it as a womb. So let us play with this symbology. Duchesne places a disc like shape in the vicinity of the female head. Thus the head or mind of the female is empty or about to be created, whatever it is to be she is caught between the forces of nature of which she is a part. The probable out come is more hell. A symbolically empty black and white nest or vessel hangs in a white sky with pink curves which seem to be holding in space, while the earth below is depicted as a mass of earth coloured ground comprised of stream of consciousness text. The words “I have no idea what I am doing” show through. The literal meaning is not important it is the agitation of the nature of the words and the visual component of its manifestation as depicted earth that is its pictorial power. The question could then be asked, is this emerging woman about to confront a hell or earth world where nature was her friend but now is her enemy? An earth, that is becoming a contemporary hell.

In “Eden” the tree of knowledge is upside down and painted in grey space its growth somehow neutralized and separated from the rest of the composition. Its power silenced and confined to approximately one third of the surface. It contrasts with the forceful ferocious three headed dog images, one of which has become a hand with a finger pointing to the brightly coloured apple that has rivulets of dried red paint that drip like blood. The Cerberus swirls from bowl or nest as thought pushed by a violent vortex. Maybe the guardian of Hades points to temptation already taken, and the garden is no longer on an even keel, so to speak. The moment of the painting is the moment of self awareness and therefore the vulnerability to evil. This is my interpretation, but for you to really appreciate Duchesne’s art, you must interpret for yourself. However your interpretation this artwork, it will reflect the pain of losing innocence. The artist gives you images and ideas for you to ponder, giving expression to her ideology and feelings and in this case poses questions not answers.

“Cradle” does not have the religious connotations that permeate the other works, but nevertheless is part of western culture. The nursery rhyme:

Rock a bye baby on the tree top
When the wind blows the cradle will rock
When the bough brings the baby will fall
Down will come baby, cradle and all.

There’s no motif of a baby but of a calico cat falling. A calico cat is considered lucky. This one is not because he will not land on his feet. However, a cat is said to have nine lives so he might be lucky. It’s up to you to decide. Planes of colour across the surface are bright and sensuous inter dispersed with blocks of white, grey and patches of unpainted mylar, which emphasize the falling aspect. The horizontal tree images and the three bowls on the left hand side add a sense of vertigo. The experience of the picture is one of colour and the impression of movement. Duchesne is an expert at this.

Duchesne has produced a collection of artwork that catches the imagination and pushes you to go further than the material surface and the symbols, to engage in her story and your own.

Eileen C. Lampard

coming soon!

2006-05-18T10:01:00.000-07:00

coming soon!