Exhibition Runs: April 5 - 26, 2013
On the UAS Barewalls (screening room)

“Nature is a dictionary; one draws words from it.”
-Eugene Delacroix

What I am exploring as an artist is our relationship to the natural world. My work is an exploration of the lines and colours, the cadence of western Canadian landscape. Nature depicts a condensed life cycle. By observing the elements of the natural world we can observe all phases of life: birth, growth, demise, and regeneration. I am fascinated by the way natural world illustrates the interconnection of all things.

Building on these themes Frozen Bow includes a series of paintings on created on top of photographic image. The mixed media pieces created with oil and charcoal, although firmly rooted in nature lean towards the abstract. The pieces presented speak to a personal philosophy of natural world and peace. 

Thank you to Calgary 2012 for their support of this project.

Artist Bio:
Peace. Creativity. Real Beauty.

Lisa Tornack has been working professionally as a painter since 2002. She completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts, with distinction from ACAD, in Calgary, AB, Canada. Since then, the artist has taught a variety of community art classes and has been privileged to coordinate numerous art exhibitions, fundraisers, and festivals. In 2008, Lisa was accepted to an artist residency at the Centre D’Art I Natura located in Farerra, Spain.

The completion of this intensive residency allowed for experimentation with a variety of mediums, resulting in tremendous professional strides for the artist. Currently, Lisa continues her studio practice, exhibits, and works facilitating art classes for adults with developmental disabilities, in Calgary, Alberta. Lisa hopes to further elevate the value of peace, creativity, and beauty through both her life and art.

Exhibition Runs: March 22nd to 26th, 2013
Reception: March 23, 8PM to 11PM

On The Barewalls
The basis of my work involves evoking the hybrid nature of my cultural experiences.  Being immersed in two distinct cultures – broadly speaking South-Asian and Western – there is a splitting of perception.  The result is not a binary view, but of a composite form with an emphasis on ambivalence.  A dialogue bounces back and forth in a resultant third space, wary of becoming confined and harnessed to one idea or the other; instead conventions break down, and a mash of images emerge.

Falling in line with contemporary theory in hybridity, contents of the third space float in a non-hierarchical system where instead of one culture taking precedence over another, I imagine them to break up, re-aggregate and re-synthesize.

There is a story that runs through each painting yet the narrative is conveyed all at once in a non-linearity. Within this third space, the story does not necessarily have a conclusion, moral, or political position; but its significance is only in relating multiple viewpoints in the same space.

A personal archive of symbolism has developed over the years solidifying my style.  I am influenced by a number of artistic periods including Persian miniature painting, surrealism, and magic realism.  The imagery of the Eastern past and contemporary West, as well as the fantastic magical, and rational real, fuse and interact within each painting.  The vibrant colours offer an exotic dream-like opulence while the flat brushstroke style elicits a sense of controlled introversion and solemnity, thus keeping in theme with the work being ambivalent in nature.

Artist Bio:
Sadia Fakih is a painter living in Calgary, and currently studying at the Alberta College of Art & Design.

We’ve seen them on our travels -- their geometric facades and neon signs remaining as historic highway beacons of the nostalgic motel. Since the late 1940s, the roadside motel has been an integral part of North American landscapes and culture.

Intimately captured by award-winning photographer Heather Saitz, Rooms for Tourists is a photographic exploration of the architecture, landscape and changing social meaning of the Canadian mid-century motel. Shot over two years across five provinces, Rooms for Tourists visits the nostalgic motel in present day, revealing the rise, fall, and resurrection of a now-elusive cultural icon.

Artists: Pierre Quinn, Michelle Lazo, Stacey Watson, Chris Tait, Shanaz Pasha, Tara Hadi, Skylar Borgstrom, Megan Lundrigan, Chris Tait, Devin Connor, Hakan Temucin, Michelle Rainey, Tekoa Predika, Andrew Petti & Dawn Gabereau.

Untitled Art Society is please to present Safe Lights in the White Dwarf Gallery. This exhibition features the work of many Calgary-based photographers who incorporate analogue developing and printing as a crucial aspect of their artistic practice. 

The level of research and technological knowledge required to create these images becomes a critical part of their conceptual framework. The act of printing in a darkroom and the relationships that each artist builds with his or her process is highly physical, time consuming and intimate. 

The utilization of these highly traditional processes as a means of image making re-presents the art historical context of photography in a new and contemporary light. This exhibition can function as an artificial timeline. A wide range of technological eras is being presented, but contentiously marred and subverted with cues of the present day. 

There is a continual binary tension created by these works. Past and present, precious and infinite, tangible and intangible all play into how darkroom photography functions as a contrast to digital photography as a contemporary form of art.

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.

Contemporary dancer Audrey Horne and contemporary artist Farlee Mowat offer for one evening only, a night of artwork and dance performance. For the first time ever, Farlee will perform a live dance and Audrey will be presenting artwork in an exhibition space.

We All Cling To Dead Things is a show that explores the ritualistic and sacrificial elements of art making and the fragile balance of it all. It is a show that celebrates the ethereal nature of truth and beauty and love, which is only accessible to us when we decide to listen to ourselves and welcome vulnerability. 

A night bringing more mind blowing ART & MUSIC to the Calgary stage. The night consisted of a DJ Dance Party (featuring Girls on Decks and DJ TL1), a themed Photo-Booth (hosted by Aran Wilkinson-Blanc) and a rad showing of Art and a super-sized Raffle, plus OH so much more! 

The last time we got together for a Party like this Calgary, it was Sparkle Mania... This time the UAS turned EIGHTEEN!! And we want YOU to JOIN US and be apart of our sweet sweet eighteen. We would like to OFFICIALLY invite you to come down to the UAS and help us create local history and celebrate this momentous occasion.

The UAS is dedicated to creating a safe venue for you to party, art, and mingle in. This event was inspired by every eighteenth birthday party you wish you had, to come crush a cupcake or two, show your support for our organization and get that second chance at your most epic eighteen! ;) 

Dress code was in effect, to show up in your Party-Rock / Hipster / Gang-star Best!!! 

This event was (PWYC) Pay What You Can at the door, or pick up a rad-tastic VIP pass in advance. Balla! 

At UAS Satellite Gallery


In 1874, Joseph Glidden patented an invention that would forever change the face of the landscape—“devilʼs wire”. Legend states that his wife had encouraged him in her yearning to grow a garden—a paradise that would be preserved by walling in that which is desired and walling out “undesirables”. This wire has been used in every military engagement since. Yet in terms of tensile strength, steel is surpassed by silk.

Babcock's install/action The Garden engages a tactile juxtaposition to explore the borderlands between apparent opposites—between comfort and agitation, between attraction and abhorrence, between danger and sanctuary. Over the course of the install/action, at times together in collaboration with viewers and at times in solitude, Babcock engages in a continuous silent action of transitioning the wires from their original narly[NR1]  twig-like state, to a sea of silken white; graceful and enticing, but nevertheless potentially treacherous.


Artist Bio:
Mary Babcock is a visual and performance artist, and Associate Professor and Chair of the Fibers and Graduate Programs in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Her installation and mixed media work has been exhibited regionally, nationally and internationally (including Canada, France, Korea, Japan, Hungary and the Ukraine). She has performed across the United States in individual and collaborative contexts, as well as throughout Japan, in Italy, the United Kingdom, Poland and the Philippines. She has lectured at numerous conferences on her work linking fiber, performance and peace and justice studies.

“Hourglass” is a rice‐based performance that explores “deterritorialization” and “disessentialization” in the Taken‐for‐Granted world.

The action of constantly painting white rice to black is a metaphor of the hourglass. Sand in an hourglass cannot flow without rotation, just as power cannot shift without struggle. Too much power concentrated on one side is a main factor causing disharmony, confusion and dislocation, embodied on the social turbulence that we see and feel in our daily lives. In fact, power doesn’t bring growth unless we understand the essence of sharing power.  The process of social transformation does not have to involve violence, and the political gesture doesn’t have to be radical. In fact, it can be done through a more peaceful way, a meditative way or through actual meditation.

The gesture of painting white rice to black is a political gesture. This performance provides an opportunity for participants to meditate on our situation while working together on a mutual goal: reconfigure the established centralized power in order to create an equal, fair and balanced world.

Artist Bio:
Chun Hua Catherine Dong is a performance artist, born in China, living in Canada. She graduated from Emily Carr University Arts & Design and is currently pursuing her MFA at Concordia University with support of SSHRC, Concordia Faculty of Fine Arts Fellowship and BC Arts Council Scholarship. Dong is interested in blurring boundaries between personal and political, between private and public, between art and life, between performance and everyday practice. Her current research interests focus on how a practice of contemporary performance art addresses the everyday performance of identity, and how strategic, essentialized performance of identity redefines the interconnected concepts of public and private self, gender, and power.