Opening Reception: Thursday, Sept. 9, 7–10 pm. External critique with Distinguished Visiting Artist Ken Lum Sunday, Sept.19, 12–5 pm. Runs through Sept 19th.
The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of work by the 2010 graduates of the two-year Master of Fine Arts program in the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory at the University of British Columbia – Keesic Douglas, Sydney Hermant, Fan-Ling Suen, Zoe Tissandier, and Clare Yow.
Keesic Douglas’ photography and installation work adopts the forms of fashion and pop culture imagery. He uses deadpan humour to question the objectification and commodification of First Nations’ traditions and history by embracing and portraying cultural stereotypes and artifacts.
Sydney Hermant’s aggregates of disposable materials and automatic processes result in sculptural installations of petrified paint. She uses ubiquitous materials such as coffee cups and plastic bottles to enact precariously balanced systems of materials that drip paint to make artwork over time. Her practice embraces a variety of forms that reflect on the notions of productive and unproductive uses of free time through rigorous hobbyism.
Fan-Ling Suen uses morbid humour to explore the forging and severing of human relations and family ties. Her sculpture works call for interaction and play to entice the viewer into a possibly dangerous situation. Influenced by games and stories, she makes set-like sculptures that rely on role-playing and invoke imagined scenarios.
Zoe Tissandier’s practice is research-oriented, and touches on aspects of archives, collections and storage systems to form propositions related to the classification and display of material and knowledge in her work. She uses video, personal collections, found text, sound and installation. Her practice has been influenced by her transition from the UK to Canada to investigate the position of the long-term tourist. Her recent work addresses the souvenir, in particular the snow-globe —a miniature landscape that can contain and immortalize memory.
Clare Yow’s installation and sculpture works show a concern for seemingly banal systems of indexing everyday activity. She performs and creates installations about collective and individual memory and references the physical marking of duration through labour. She is interested in the commonplace, mimicry and repetitive actions, the gender associations of formal artistic strategies, and has recently employed the use of the grid in order to investigate its rigid and chaotic qualities.
For more information contact Naomi Sawada at (604) 822-3640 or naomi.sawada@ubc.ca.
Images L-R: Clare Yow, Maxine and I (detail), 2009; Zoe Tissandier, Home Away From Home, Away From Home (detail), 2010; Fan-Ling Suen, study for The Teeter-Slaugher (detail), 2010; Sydney Hermant, After Second Nature (detail), 2010; Keesic Douglas, Blanket #3 (detail), 2010
The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery
http://www.belkinartgallery.com/_email/_main_belkin/MFA_2010/
