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 Noah Becker, Victoria
Brenda Draney, Vancouver
Dave & Jenn, Calgary
Ryan Peter, Vancouver
Joseph Tisiga, Whitehorse
Sarah Cale, Toronto
Janice Colbert, Toronto
Scott Everingham, Toronto
Martin Golland, Toronto
Sasha Pierce, Toronto
Julie Beugin, Montreal
Anthony Burnham, Montreal
Pierre Durette, Montreal
Daniel Hutchinson, Halifax
Nathalie Thibault, Quebec
Western Region
Noah Becker, Victoria
WINTER (REALMS SERIES)
Oil on canvas
48” x 48”
January 2009
Noah Becker’s enigmatic floating worlds present both thematic and non-linear narratives which vary in complexity, but always leave the viewer feeling that there is something more to learn. The strange cast of characters in Winter (Realms Series) appear to hesitate on the edge of the abyss, a stream of detritus and an old ship’s sail behind them. Historical references to Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel are apparent, as are strategies found in conceptual work. Becker is also interested in social critique and power structures relating to the environmental endgame. Of his work he writes: “Society views or authors a surplus of digital material every day. In this climate of visual overload a painter must significantly raise his game.” Becker publishes the contemporary art journal Whitehot Magazine and is an accomplished Jazz saxophonist. Noah Becker graduated with honors from Victoria College of Art. He currently lives and works in Victoria.
Brenda Draney, Vancouver
AIM IS IMPORTANT
Oil on canvas
48” x 52”
February 2009
Brenda Draney is interested in how memory, which is by its nature personal, operates in families, communities and cultures. While her paintings source her own memories, she is less concerned with documenting a memory as she is with the process of remembering and getting her hand to remember. She sees her work as a gesture toward a remembered thing, person or event and hopes that the viewer will be willing to do the work of connecting images to create the story around the moments, elements and omissions. The space in the canvas is important, she says, whether it is about what is forgotten, kept secret or filled in by a viewer. “Narrative is based on what is missing, and that absence is important and present in my work.” Brenda Draney holds a BA in English Literature and a BFA from the University of Alberta, and a Master of Applied Arts degree from Emily Carr University of Art and Design.
Dave & Jenn, Calgary
AND JENNINGS SAW DIANA
Acrylic and mixed media
21” x 27”
August 2008
Dave & Jenn work collaboratively to pursue the idea of painting as installation. Rather than seeing themselves as sculptors though, they aim to bring a third dimension to the medium of painting. The landscapes they paint are always linked to their own inner landscapes, made up of “the land, our day-to-day lives, the Internet, video games, history and hearsay.” With this series of work, they say, they try to infect public space with their imagined worlds. And Jennings saw Diana changes as light shifts through it and as the viewer moves in relation to the work, from back to front. “We like to think of our paintings as being double-sided membranes, windows that let you permeate into the private space shared and created by our over-saturated minds.” Dave and Jenn both studied Fine Art at Grant MacEwan College in Edmonton and received BFAs from the Alberta College of Art and Design. They live and work in Calgary.
Ryan Peter, Vancouver
PURE SPORT
Acrylic, ink, and spray deodorant on canvas
72” x 60”
March 2009
Ryan Peter produces paintings that question the photographic image in the age of digital manipulation, abandoning brushstrokes and opting instead for controlled pours of watered-down paints and mechanical techniques, such as aerosol sprays, on non-absorbent substrates. This combination, he has found, produces curious drying effects, and the works resemble photographic prints – quoting everything from the earliest daguerreotypes to more recent scientific photography. He is interested in “how these drips and splatters, the workings of gravity on diluted paints, evoke multiple references – from Surrealist automatist practices, to Abstract Expressionism, to Georges Bataille’s concept of the ‘informe.” Peter’s works speak to the mimeticism of photography and to painting’s failing in that regard. “The splatters and drips become an acknowledgment of painting’s performative character and anachronistic position, as image making abandons the mechanical for the digital.” Ryan Peter holds a BFA and an MFA from the University of British Columbia. He lives and works in Vancouver.
Joseph Tisiga, Whitehorse
ANTHROPOMORPHIC ANTLER
Oil on canvas
48” x 36”
March 2009
Joseph Tisiga explores contemporary narratives between pop culture, Indigenous references and environmental symbolism. He is interested in exploring the effects of scale and abrupt transition to create ethereal environments that are not limited by direct representation. His works, he says, are derived from his experience as a young first nations artist exploring avenues of visual and conceptual symbolism to merge the traditional and modern worlds. “They are a visual dialogue between conflicting cultures in search of a common ground. My work involves the stories and characters of my childhood, from both pop culture and first nations history. I have invited these characters as archetypes and in a sense friends whose past I am as familiar with as my real life.” Tisiga has exhibited his work in Canada and in France, and has presented performance work, created public art works and studied filmmaking and Tlingit and West Coast first nations style carving and design. He is based in Whitehorse.
Central Region
Sarah Cale, Toronto
UNTITLED1
Oil and acrylic on canvas
60” x 48”
April 2009
Sarah Cale’s work reflects an ongoing interest in the intersection of painting and collage. She is also interested in “the aesthetic of an imaginary landscape where the character of the landscape takes priority over a real or photographic representation.” Her idiosyncratic way of applying paint is influenced by earlier work with collage and works in which she stretched monochrome paint skins over objects, exploring the physical qualities of paint. In this new series, small cuttings of dried paint, applied like pieces of vinyl, are combined with looser, more traditional marks that make up the overall scenes. Of her painting she writes: “I want to promote a collision of styles in the painting that will keep the viewer moving from part to part and asking questions about what is made and how it is made and how different approaches might co-exist.” Sarah Cale holds a BFA from NSCAD and an MFA from the University of Guelph.
Janice Colbert, Toronto
JETHRO TULL COREOPSIS
Acrylic on birch
24” x 24”
March 2009
Janice Colbert began her career as a fashion designer and her painting continues to reflect her interest in textiles and clothing. Jethro Tull Coreopsis is from a series of works informed by her research into antique quilts. The paintings represent the process of struggle required for utility quilts. “The struggle is to assemble old clothing, to improvise and problem-solve when there is not enough fabric to sew a cohesive quilt pattern.” She is interested in how these limitations have produced visually engaging work. The titles of this current series are the names of flowers photographed in her garden. Through distortion and an iterative process of colour selection, the soft lines of flowers become hard-edged paintings; evocative of quilts, the ‘scraps’ of colour rarely repeat yet remain visually balanced. Janice Colbert received her BFA from the Ontario College of Art and Design. She works from her studio in Toronto.
Scott Everingham, Toronto
SUPPLE MECHANISM
Oil on canvas
64” x 58”
April 2009
Motivated by paint, Scott Everingham seeks to create environments that are at once tangible and indeterminate, acting as modes of escape to fictional or alternative realities. While he draws inspiration from literary and theatrical fiction, his approach to the development of a painting is impulsive and instinctual, with each mark informing the next. His brushwork, he says, “is intended to involve an audience into the completion of a work. Rather than concealing the process, the aim is to expose the limits and autonomy of paint, producing work that is both deliberate and spontaneous.” Everingham’s ambiguous, unfamiliar settings – with broken structures and windows illogically opened to sunsets or oceans – may suggest an insecure state of being, but may also bear moments of utopian renewal. Scott Everingham holds a BFA from NSCAD University in Halifax, and an MFA from the University of Waterloo.
Martin Golland, Toronto
RESIDENTIAL NIGHT VULTURE
Oil on canvas
60” x 50”
April 2009
Martin Golland’s paintings evoke sensation, discovery and disorientation through the use of architectural spaces that appear improvised, overlooked or cobbled together. Emptied of all figures, his scenes nonetheless leave traces of hidden, ritual activity in what appear to be transitory or transitional spaces. His intent, he explains, is to mark out a range of slippage between the imagined and the real. “By using a collection of painting strategies that compete and undermine each other, the existing transitory zones act as a metaphor for the fractured phenomenon of perception,” he writes. “Disjunctive shifts of space encourage the mind’s sway between reverie and dread.” Martin Golland received his BFA from Concordia University in Montreal, and his MFA from the University of Guelph. He has exhibited his work across Canada and in Europe and currently teaches painting at the University of Ottawa.
Sasha Pierce, Toronto
BROWN
Oil on canvas
24” x 20”
October 2008
Sasha Pierce’s meticulously constructed canvases bear an uncanny resemblance to the textures of fabrics. Experimenting with colour, composition and texture, she uses oil paint to evoke the tactility of textiles in works that recall hand-made knits. The inherent physicality of her medium, and its fluidity, allow for the close juxtaposition of thin channels of paint that read like threads or strands of wool, so that her abstract works hint at representation with an almost trompe-l’oeil effect. And while her labour-intensive compositions place her work in the tradition of 20th century abstraction, her paintings may also be seen as a clever nod to the proliferation of sewing, stitching, and knitting in contemporary art in recent years. Sasha Pierce received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Guelph, and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Waterloo and currently lives and works in Toronto.
Eastern Region
Julie Beugin, Montreal
MANY DELICATE CHECKS AND BALANCES
Oil and acrylic on canvas
42” x 48”
April 2009
Julie Beugin describes her work as representational painting that is on the verge of disintegration. “Walls and furniture dissolve into liquid pools and transparent washes, evocative of the mutability of memory and the instability of visualization.” Her titles are derived from literary sources, and visual ideas stem from passages in novels, although both her forms and her narratives retain a certain ambiguity. “In my paintings,” she says, “fiction merges with and coats reality, suggesting the permeability of everyday experience.” Beugin seeks to offer viewers structures they can inhabit and combines landscapes and interiors in a single painting, depicting reality as a shifting state. She takes inspiration from photographs, old postcards, retro interior décor books and National Geographic landscapes. Julie Beugin completed a BFA at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver and an MFA in Painting and Drawing from Concordia University in Montreal.
Anthony Burnham, Montreal
FRAGMENT
Oil on linen
72” x 60”
March 2009
Anthony Burnham completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Concordia University in Montreal and focused primarily on collaborative projects hovering between installation and relational aesthetics before concentrating on a studio practice as a painter. He makes sculptures that mimic or copy simple elements surrounding him, which are then translated into paintings. For him, the sculptures are models acting out ideas that reshuffle concepts of ‘lineage’ and ‘influence.’ “I look for forms or situations at the moment of their construction, before they are finished, when the elements seem as open as possible, when several directions could be taken,“ he writes, “trying to find a common ground between process and product.” Fragment positions the viewer behind the reproduction of a protest sign the artist appropriated on the streets of Mexico City. Burnham’s work was recently included in the 2008 Quebec Triennial at the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art. He lives and works in Montreal.
Pierre Durette, Montreal
DÉVOTION 25
Acrylic on board
24” x 26”
March 2009
Pierre Durette’s paintings are the result of ongoing research, both historical and art historical, and are based on his own drawings. With an interest in Bruegel the Elder, Byzantine art and stories of conquest and war, his works, he says, have a catastrophic element to them: the canvas or blank paper take on the role of an unknown place under siege. White backgrounds create an empty pictorial space allowing the artist to focus on the narrative of his characters. “Between the grotesque detail and the poetry of the ages, and where these two meet, I present a revision of linear time in a rigorous mix of centuries, cultures and traditions.” Durette’s canvases incorporate faraway, aerial views and a conscious staging of characters, with meticulous attention to detail. As we scan them, we find new elements with each viewing. Pierre Durette lives and works in Montreal, where he completed a BFA at the University of Quebec at Montreal.
Daniel Hutchinson, Halifax
ACT III
Oil and alkyd on panel
30” x 30”
April 2009
Daniel Hutchinson’s paintings begin with the existential themes central to the work of Samuel Beckett: minimalism, circularity, isolation, repetition and difference. His paintings, he says, are stages upon which to look at the conventions of theatre and painting, examining their shared stake in chance and anomaly. Repetition begets difference, mutation and modification, and “the work emerges…in the productive failure to perfectly replicate one moment in the next.” The surface of Act III reflects light unevenly – an effect created through the use of directional brushstrokes in dark oil paint – revealing, and also concealing, the architecture of a stage. Thick, linear marks applied using a syringe create imperfect geometric forms that seem to hover within Hutchinson’s stage. In this hybrid territory of an expanded field of painting, he writes, illusion meets objecthood and painting meets sculpture and performance. Hutchinson received his BFA from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design and his MFA from NSCAD University.
Nathalie Thibault, Quebec
FEUTRÉ 5
Acrylic and water-dispersion on canvas
36” x 36”
April 2009
Nathalie Thibault is interested in the relationships between painting, drawing and graffiti, and the quality they have of being both spontaneous and factual. Her paintings, she says, are often at the limit between intentional gesture and accident or chance. “At issue in my works – the result of unforeseen, constantly changing systems – is the possibility of grasping and thus revealing the reality of a disconcerting exchange between the subjectivity of the gesture and the objectivity of material colour.” Subtle, unusual chromatic relationships play out in Thibault’s works, usually characterized by one dominant tonal value and, in the series entitled Feutré, muted colors. Her paintings present a shallow, almost tactile space in which she aims to create a palpable experience of the materiality of colour. Nathalie Thibault holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Masters of Fine Arts from Laval University. She lives and works in Quebec City.
Painting image in the web banner is courtesy of Ben Reeves. 2001 Winner
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