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. 

I am interested in the relationship between people and objects. My work is an attempt to draw the relationships between people or between objects or the abstract. They are records of what happened when it happened, things I think are funny, things other people think are funny, stuff I hear or see, dumb thoughts, historical facts, poignant moments, inside jokes, snide thoughts, bad drawings, good drawings, life drawings, failed drawings, other people’s drawings and everything else.

When I draw, my main goal is to make work that is accessible as well as aesthetically pleasing. I use figurative imagery, text and the abstract to create compositions that take inspiration from everything I see or hear. My work is more based on creating a sense of playfulness and aesthetics than a particular meaning.

Because my work is created from such a large array inspiration, I think a part of the meaning of my work is derived from the viewer. They project their own feelings and histories and views onto an accessible piece.

From this standpoint, i’ve recently been interested in making interactive works- painting on objects that will be used, such as garbage cans or chairs. Objects that can be categorized as both art and functional pieces. By painting on 3d objects they require the viewer to walk around to see all sides. I wish to make pieces that engage the viewer and allows them to be active participants. I want to release the viewer from feeling like they have to tread carefully and cautiously around art. 

Artist Bio:
Tiffany Eng was born in the remote highlands of Indonesia sometime between the years 1746 & 1801. She was raised by a herd of Chinese water deer that owned a small but influential textiles company. Because of her upbringing she developed a strong interest in animals. Even today it remains a focus of her research, resulting in numerous expeditions to the cardboard undercities of modern North America. It is these expeditions that are the inspiration for her current body of work.

Interested in the functions of industrials development, Before Urbanscapes takes the viewer on a walk to explore the underbelly of an urbanized landscape and is the initial body of work on Shanaz Pasha’s chosen subject matter.

 The artist is not so much interested in taking pictures of beautiful architectural facades, or pretty city lights in the evening or winding roads, but rather in the subtle evidence of human traffic, of how architecture is used, byproducts of urbanization, how the surface of the landscape is altered and used for the purpose of structuralizing civilized culture.

Before Urbanscapes is a photographic study that presents the viewer with a way to look at industrial development and its facets that is atypical of photographic presentations in the professional field. It is the artists aim to prove that creative presentation in the field of research is important, if not vital, to fulfill a comprehensive view of social and cultural studies.

This work is created and presented as fine art, functioning as research and documentation, using Ansel Adam’s outlined Zone System of exposure, development and printing.