“When does a work of art begin its existence? How can one evaluate its importance? ...
When is “creative action” to be considered a performance, a happening, or simple life
occurrence? When does simply “doing nothing” spawn creativity? When do the terms “art,”
“research,” and “leisure” become equivalents?” Robert Filliou
These above questions that French Fluxus artist Robert Filliou raised in his work are not
only extremely influential questions and important to my practice but also are questions
that are very prevalent in my practice. My practice uses common everyday materials and
mundane repetitive acts to question meaning and value within art and everyday life.
A lot of my work and curiosity about meaning and art can be better understood by
looking at and questioning the definition of the word
something.

Something
: - some unspecified or unknown thing
-a known understood but unexpressed quantity, quality or extent.
Something is really just some thing. In order for something to be something there must
be a something not, a nothing. What makes us decide that something is something and
nothing is nothing? Could we not say something is nothing and nothing is something?
Why does something mean something? Why do we value something more than nothing?
These questions are at the root of my artistic practice. I do not want to find
meaning but rather come to an understanding of why and how things mean. I want to
understand the processes of cognition and perception. I would like to take what might
seem like a step backwards and asks how meaning is made. How do things mean? Why
do things mean? How and why do we make value judgments
? How does something’s
value affect what it means?
I feel my practice is one that is full of overlapping and ever circling questions that
are often overlooked and may never be answered but I feel are important to ponder

Portraiture is a method by which artists can communicate their complex identities. Art is a language that sets the artist apart from the communicative rules of behavior and allows a representation of themselves without the interference of verbal language. The process of drawing is intrinsically tied to the person and personhood of the artist-- exploring their own concept of body, Self and the relationships between themselves and others. After the drawing is complete, the artist is telling the viewer to respond to their self-created identity. “This Portraiture Show” is the result of this exploration and resolution by artists with developmental disabilities.

Artists :
Juliet R
Dung T
Bryan H
Darrel F
Dan M
Jodi C
Stuart B
Colin S
Phil A
Stacey C
Matt W
Vaughn L
Karen A
Maryann W
Cheryl W

Can you imagine how frightening it would be to try and fight something you can't see? It always seems to take a tragic event before something becomes visible to society. Much like illness and disease, you are invisible to society until the illness overtakes your body and then you become visible to society. I don't look sick, but sometimes it’s the non-visual that's the scariest thing. 

My inspiration, my spirit guide the Black wolf, is almost always present in my work. I have Lupus an auto Immune disease, for which there is no cure. I rely heavily on my art helping getting through the hardships of everyday life. It’s extremely scary to have a disease that grabs you by the throat and gives you a shake every so often. I find comfort in getting lost in my own inner images and voices and quite enjoy the spiritual journey I am facing. 

The images I use help with the path of life and illness I was dealt. I find that the images lean towards a spiritual journey meant for me to rediscover myself. I am very aware of my work and tone my craft with aesthetics and semiotics. I learn from the process and interrogate these fresh ideas into my work. Most often the process is of self-discovery and the ideas are from that process. 

I use many layers in my work, it’s not until you stop to look at it do you see the many different layers and images begin to appear. I cut out a lot of the images to represent what Lupus can take from you. This also represents illness and disease. My illness I feel is a path rather than an obstacle in my path to creativity and self-discovery.


Artist Bio:
Cindy Santa was born in Canmore Alberta, She grew up in Snow Lake, Manitoba, and moved back to Alberta in 1995 and now resides in Okotoks AB. Cindy is a wife and a mother to 3 boys. Cindy will be receiving her Bachelor of Fine Art from Alberta College of Art and Design in 2013, where she majored in Sculpture. Some of her accomplishments have been, in 2007 she received the Recognition Award while attending Bow Valley College. While being at ACAD she has won, the Delwyn Darling Memorial Scholarship, in 2010 she won the Janet Mitchell Bursary and also the James Lillian Budd Family Bursary. She also has 3 murals on board the Edmonton Queen Riverboat,(2003). She has done a backdrop for a HGTV show called “One Garden Two Looks.”(2006) Cindy was diagnosed Lupus in 2008 and since then she has worked with notions of disease and illness in the spiritual sense. Her work focuses on the unimportant, unseen, and the invisible, and brings light to these issues through her unique process involving multiple layers and incredible details.

Stack Mimetics enacts it’s presence through applied surfaces and expressed materiality. Exploring the cultural logic of mimesis within the sphere of sub-cultural identification, the work is manifested as selected woodland camouflage patterns, applied with specific technical processes onto composite materials and aggregated into stacks. Alluding to the notion of “fitting in”, whether it be into the terrific/terrifying natural Alberta wilderness or into the subsequent aesthetics of one’s own branded identity, Stack Mimetics presents the opportunity for reflection into how we chose to mimic the objects and entities that surround us, and the cultural logic of mimesis and camouflage as it is derived from the basis of an archaic survival process.


Artist Bio:
Stephen Nachtigall is a Calgary based artist whose work focuses on the contemporary paradox of the actual and the virtual from his point of view as a “Net Native” and also a native to the foothills of the Alberta Rockies. After studying sculpture and completing his BFA at the Alberta College of Art & Design in 2011, Stephen has been establishing his practice within the Calgary arts community, participating in group exhibitions such as BYOB Calgary, Return to The Dollhouse for the Truck Gallery, and The Works at Untitled Arts Society. His work has also seen online exposure on blogs and websites such as vvork.com. Some of his most recognized achievements include an installation entitled Electric Lettuce at Sled Island in June 2011 as well as receiving the Board of Governors award during his time at ACAD.

I beg you to touch me, is a sculptural diptych representing moments of critical self reflection and emotional repair. Cultivating my identity as a woman and the affects a partnership has on that identity act as departure points for my creative process. I find comfort in distilling anxieties into sculptures that do not depict my personal conflicts, but evoke the feelings involved through distortion and decay. The tension created in the work, the residue of performative processes and personal contact with the materials archives these intimate moments in time.  The fragmentation and distortion of materials is essential in conveying a sense of inner conflict and turmoil in addition to quiet contemplation. I refer to my processes as being performative because the assemblage of the sculptures is dependent on a very direct interaction between my body and materials.  Collecting my hair and manipulating it into forms are two ways in which I imbed my presence in the work as well as the viewers’ experience. 


Artist Bio:
Kirstin Giles is a Calgary based emerging artist and recent under-graduate of the Alberta College of Art and Design. In recognition of her artistic and academic achievements Kirstin is also a recent recipient of the honourary ACAD Board of Governors Award. Currently, her art practice investigates personal narrative through the re-contextualization of grotesque materials and ritualistic processes in the form of sculptural assemblages. I beg you to touch me, marks Kirstin's first solo exhibition in addition to her inclusion in many group exhibitions, including the The Third Space at the UAS in and I am What I am Sam at the Root Cellar Gallery, both in 2011. 

Exhibition: April 8 to May 31, 2012
Closing Reception: May 17, 7 - 8pm
At the UAS +15 Gallery

Vanitas is a sculptural landscape. A decaying horizon. The individual woven prisms are constructed by wrapping hay wire around a cardboard form. The paper is then burnt away leaving only the skeletal wire frame. A process of emptying. The prisms are then left in the elements to rust and weather over weeks. Viewed from a distance, the sculpture is a single object, a body in space. Approaching the piece reveals a lesson in the complexities of closer acquaintance and a demonstration of the power of a gathering. As in the masters’ still-life paintings of centuries past, Vanitas is a consideration of the passing of time in our landscape and of our individual role in that passing time.

Artist Bio:
I am an artist born and raised in Calgary. A devotee of the city, my sculptures have always been inspired by materials and by my environment. I am interested in finding beauty in unlikely sources. My work is heavily influenced by textile and craft traditions as well as minimalist sculpture. A graduate of the Alberta College of Art + Design Sculpture class of 2011, I now continue to live and work as an artist from my home studio in Calgary.

Meet the Morphoids is an overview of the Institute of Morphoid Research, and the creatures it studies.  The Morphoids are unusual creatures, identified by the distinct peeling quality of their skin.

The Institute of Morphoid Research is dedicated to the study and preservation of the creatures falling within a new phylum, Morphopodia. The Institute aims to document all aspects of the Morphoids, through many avenues of study and research, including observation, photography, video, drawing, anatomical study, and eventually, dissection.

This exhibit follows the stories of a few of the Morphoids through a museum style, didactic panel presentation.  Through this exhibition, the Institute aims to further educate the public, expand its reach and attract a new audience.

For more information, please visit www.InstituteOfMorphoidResearch.com.


Artist Bio:
Jennifer Akkermans is the Founder and Chief Researcher of the Institute of Morphoid Research.  She holds a BFA (with distinction) from the Alberta College of Art + Design, and a PhD in Cryptozoology from Thunderwood College. She has recently participated in Trap/Door Artist Run Centre’s Gushul Studio Residency, completed a short film through EMMEDIA’s Production Access program, and collaborated with a dancer in the Fluid Festival’s Spark program. Along with exhibiting her work, Jennifer is active online, keeping up the IMR’s website, at InstituteOfMorphoidResearch.com, as well as her own, at JenniferAkkermans.com.

The body recreates itself constantly, generating new forms from old pieces of living matter. The paintings in regenesis are portraits that dissolve the perceived body into archetypal patterns. Following traditions of visionary art, the series of paintings are intuitive reconstructions of inner experience of the other.

The paintings in regenesis reframe literal interpretations of our origin, questioning the belief that humans are above or isolated from nature. Themes of survival, motherhood, sexuality and heredity are revealed in repetitions and visual metaphors that reflect human language. 

Animals, planets, and plants are woven together with the human body and elements of the landscape. Each portrait of a human or animal is reduced to graphic, geometric simplicity and a basic colour palette. The circle is always present, a reminder of the cycles that continue beyond our individual stories.

Exhibition: June 8th to July 31st, 2011
Reception: July 21st, 7 - 8pm
In the +15 Window Gallery

Subject-Abject is an exploration of the space between beautiful and the un-placed, and between ourselves and the objects we see – and then start to relate to.  The work is inspired by thing theory (cf Bill Brown), particularly the “magic” when an object stops being a part of one's surroundings and becomes a sort of entity, and explores the visual space where the beautiful can become unknown and  lose the innocence of its beauty. It's an opportunity to sit with questions about what this “other” is, and what is beautiful what is strange. Hopefully, we can get a bit closer to reconciling the beauty and the disturbance of ourselves, looking – someday, to the point where the two qualities resist like magnets with the same polarity.

Curated by:  by Nate McLeod and Matthew Mark
Artists: Nate McLeod, Matthew Mark, Cassandra Paul, Tyler Los-Jones, and Larissa Tiggelers.

Main Space Exhibition Runs: April 29 - May 20, 2011.
Opening Reception: April 29, 2011, 7 - 10 PM

+15 Exhibition Runs: April 8 - May 31, 2011.
Opening Reception April 8, 2011, 7 - 8 PM.
- In conjunction with The New Gallery.

PHASE SIX is the sixth installment in a ten-part series of multidisciplinary events curated by Nate McLeod and Matthew Mark. The series is characterized by a lack of continuity between each event, and at times within the same event. Similar to "happenings", occurring most significantly in New York City in the late 1950s and early 1960s, these events are curated specifically with the intention of drawing an audience concerned with seeing the unexpected, rather than coming with a preconceived notion of what to expect.