This audio is from our virtual studio visit with artist Veronika Marks in conversation with Brandi Strauss, and was originally recorded on February 27, 2023 over Zoom.
About Veronika
Veronika Marks is a multidisciplinary artist from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada with a Bachelors in Fine Art. Her work explores the outer fringes of human consciousness through an intersection of mysticism, sensuality, and emotional well-being. She uses a combination of performance, digital manipulation, sculpture and painting. Each medium informs one another as she moves intuitively through them.
Through meditation and trance induction, Veronika uses her body with others as a conduit in film to physically manifest visions. The imagery captured on video is then used as research and inspiration for her paintings and sculptures. Currently, she is working with volunteers who have agreed to embody a stream of consciousness, while revisiting lived experiences with psychosis.
About Brandi
Brandi Strauss is a multidisciplinary self-taught artist and musician currently residing in amiskwaciy Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Using the moniker Static Control she explores varying forms of self expression using an amalgamation of techniques. She examines the ominous elements of humanity, and how we maintain to co-exist with the natural world - despite its chaos. By meticulously dismantling found images piece by piece, a new world and perspective is revealed. A world made of controlled yet surreal chaos, throughout vivid displays of recollection, science and the unknown.
This audio is from our virtual studio visit with artist Brittany Cherweniuk in conversation with Mary Pinkoski, and was originally recorded on January 18, 2023 over Zoom.
About Brittany
Brittany Cherweniuk is a Métis fine craft artist and instructor, working in textile and fiber arts, endeavoring to create cultural connections and to tell multigenerational stories. She has built her career as an Arts Administrator working in museums, galleries, and non-profit organizations - focusing on curation, program development, youth leadership, traditional Indigenous arts, and sharing Indigenous authentic histories. She currently resides in amiskwaciy-wâskahikan (Beaver Hills House), commonly known as Edmonton, in Treaty No. 6 Territory.
About Mary
Mary Pinkoski, 5th Poet Laureate of the City of Edmonton (2013-2015), is an internationally-recognized poet, arts and museum educator, and doctoral student at the University of Alberta. In 2019, she was Edmonton Public Library Regional Writer in Residence. Mary's poetry has appeared in multiple anthologies. She was the 2011 Canadian National Spoken Word Champion and the national winner of the 2008 CBC National Poetry Face-off. In 2015, Mary was recognized as an Edmonton Top 40 Under 40 and was awarded a University of Alberta Alumni Horizon Award for her poetry work in the Edmonton community.
This audio is from our virtual studio visit with artist Elsa Robinson in conversation with Dawn Carter, and was originally recorded on November 29, 2022 over Zoom.
About Elsa
Elsa Robinson is a Jamaican-Canadian multi-media artist and art educator. Elsa’s artistic expression uses painting, collage, textile art, installation art, poetry, dance, and acting to ‘speak’ to audiences from her cultural inheritance. Her decades-long devotion to artistic practice has imbued her work with vibrancy, versatility and an intuitive spiritual poignancy through which she transmits her deep love and care for humanity.
At the start of her art career, Elsa worked as a self-taught artist. Recognizing the value of extending her art making skills, her understanding of he own art and her place in art history, Elsa invested in her art education and now holds the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Art and Design from the University of Alberta and the degree of Master of Fine Arts from the Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Elsa is a passionate arts educator who facilitates workshops for artists of all ages and experience levels.
About Dawn
Dawn Carter is a writer, educator, performance poet, public speaker, entrepreneur, and community advocate of Barbadian British Canadian heritage. She is also the first Black woman to run a major 2SLGBTQ+ organization in Western Canada.
She emigrated with her family from England, where anti-Black racism was on the rise. Dawn and her family lived in rural Alberta before settling in Edmonton. After a few years in Toronto, she returned to Dirt City, where she considers herself a Northsider for life.
Through Dawn’s life experiences she has been able to create art that not only tells amazing stories but creates awareness and constantly contributes to the community around her.
This audio is from our virtual studio visit with artist Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet in conversation with Michelle Campos Castillo, and was originally recorded on October 25, 2022 over Zoom.
Reading List
Kiona and Michelle shared some of their favourite graphic novels during this episode. Below is a list of the books we discussed. Purchase from your fave indie bookstore or directly from the publisher if you can!
About Kiona
Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist practicing in amiskwaciwâskahikan on Treaty 6 Territory. She grew up West of the city near the hamlet of Calahoo where she lived with her relatives on scrip land. Her family lines are Cree and Métis descending from Michel First Nation, as well as Dutch and mixed European.
Kiona works in painting, printmaking, and drawing, recollecting personal stories of grief and tenderness. Her practice uses a non-linear telling of her memories through narrative work as a form of diaristic archiving. It draws from feelings of loss and enfranchisement, but also from deep belly laughter, and a gentle fondness for where the histories between herself and her family overlap and disperse.
She’s recently exhibited work at Ociciwan Contemporary Art Centre (2021), Latitude 53 (2021, 2022), Khyber Centre for the Arts (2021), Harcourt House (2022), and Neutral Ground (2022). She co-curated the soil between plants with Making Space (2022), and What’s Held through TREX NW and the Art Gallery of Grande Prairie (2022). Additionally, Kiona was a recipient of the Lieutenant Governor Emerging Artist Award (2022), and just finished her debut graphic novel with Conundrum Press, titled We Were Younger Once (2022).
Working alongside other artists in initiatives of community care, Kiona co-organizes Making Space in partnership with Sanaa Humayun. She likes visiting her moshom on the farm, and gossiping with her mom, relatives, and friends on the prairies.
About Michelle
Michelle Campos Castillo is a Salvadoran visual artist living in Edmonton. She has been the recipient of several public art commissions from the City of Edmonton, including Platanos, a set of three sculptures on permanent display at Belvedere Transit Centre, and is finalizing artwork for the LRT Valley Line in the west end of the city. Her most recent exhibits are a solo show, Terremoto, presented in the summer of 2022 at grunt gallery in Vancouver, BC and as part of Imborrable at the National Gallery in San Salvador, El Salvador. She is currently working on a graphic memoir titled Colonia, based on her life in El Salvador during the country’s civil war.
This audio is from our virtual studio visit with artist Shawnee Danielle in conversation with Kyra Heneghan-Smith, and was originally recorded on September 10, 2022 over Zoom.
Shawnee Danielle is an Indigenous Cree artist who was raised on the Maskwacis Reserve and is currently based in Amiskwaciwâskahikan or so-called Edmonton. In 2018, she graduated from MacEwan University with a Diploma in Fine Arts and moved forward in her academic studies to complete her Bachelor’s in Fine Arts in Art and Design at the University of Alberta in 2020. In 2019, she received the Indigenous Careers Award and was awarded numerously by Nipisihkopahk Iyinisiwin Trust Fund for the completion of her education throughout her academic career. She considers her practice to be a continuous exploration of her own Cree identity, both learning and exercising traditional practices, as she navigates her relationship with cultural identity through themes related around femininity, indigeneity, trauma, and body. While she works primarily as a painter, she also works with various mediums such as installation, video, digital media and photography.
Kyra Heneghan-Smith is a multidisciplinary artist living in Amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta) whose primary mediums include soft sculpture, photography, illustration, and painting. Drawing inspiration from nature and ecology, Kyra explores themes of gender, intimacy, and environmental decline. She is interested in poetics and pattern, and much of her work employs tools like metaphor and repetition. Kyra Graduated from MacEwan University in 2018 with a diploma in fine arts, and she received her BFA from the University of Alberta in 2021. Since graduating, Kyra has developed a commercial design practice, and spends much of her time learning and exploring new ways of making. Outside of work or the studio, Kyra can be found tending to her vegetable garden - an extension of her creative practice.
This audio is from our virtual studio visit with artist Ryland Fortie in conversation with Max Keene, and was originally recorded on July 28, 2022 over Zoom.
Ryland Fortie received his BFA in 2016 from Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, BC, and has been based in Edmonton for the past several years. He has exhibited in group shows nationally with Prometheus Projects in Montreal, at The Plumb in Toronto, and with Lowlands Projects here in Edmonton. Fortie has been accepted as an upcoming MFA candidate at the University of Victoria.
Max Keene is a Canadian artist and current MFA candidate at the University of Victoria. He uses an amalgamation of techniques simultaneously in his work ranging from airbrush painting, analog and digital photographic processes, 3D rendering, and drawing. He has exhibited in a group and solo capacity across Canada, most recently in collaboration with artist Trevor Bourke at 8146 Drolet, Montreal and Afternoon Projects in Vancouver. He enjoys walking around and eating sunflower seeds.
This audio is from our virtual studio visit with artist Kerri-Lynn Reeves in conversation with Jenny Western, and was originally recorded on June 23, 2022 over Zoom.
Kerri-Lynn Reeves (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and mother originally from rural Manitoba, where she grew up as a European-Canadian settler on Treaty 2 land. At the heart of it, her work explores the relationship of the social and the material through the use of spatial, relational, and craft practices. With a commitment to blurring the lines between life and art, Reeves earned her Master of Fine Arts - Studio Arts in Fibres and Material Practices from Concordia University in 2016 with her first child strapped to her chest. Reeves, now a mother / step-mother of four, continues to explore the confluences of her art making, teaching, and parenting practices. Reeves is a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Studio Arts at MacEwan University in Edmonton, AB, ᐊᒥᐢᑿᒌᐚᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ (Amiskwacîwâskahikan), Treaty 6 Territory.
Jenny Western is an artist, writer, and curator based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She holds an undergraduate degree in History from the University of Winnipeg and a Masters in Art History and Curatorial Practice from York University in Toronto. While completing her graduate studies, she accepted a position at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba in Brandon where she held the position of Curator and later became the AGSM’s Adjunct Curator. Western has curated exhibitions and programs across Canada and she makes up one-third of the Sobey Award nominated art collective The Ephemerals. Western is of European, Oneida, and Stockbridge-Musee descent and a member of the Brothertown Indian Nation of Wisconsin.
This audio is from our virtual studio visit with artists and collaborators Fatme Elkadry and Fern Facette, and was originally recorded on May 4, 2022 over Zoom.
About Fatme
Fatme Elkadry (she/her) is a first-generation settler on Amiskwaciwâskahikan from Safad, Palestine. She is a multi-disciplinary artist and has studied visual art, fine craft, graphic design, prose, and performance art through a variety of experiential opportunities, including formal education and personal mentorship. Fatme utilizes her art practice to explore and express her identities. She passionately advocates for barrier-free and equitable involvement of all folks in the arts. Fatme’s favourite things in life are her mom, magpies, and purple figs.
About Fern
Jessica Fern Facette (Fern, she/her) is an Edmonton based fibre artist who has been weaving for nearly two decades. She is a passionately engaged artist who shares knowledge and encourages others to discover textiles. She founded Fern’s School of Textile Craft in 2017, a place where fibre artists from across Canada meet to carry on the long tradition of sharing skills and knowledge. Fern is a stalwart advocate for the accessibility of textile arts and has created many opportunities for folks to explore textiles through years of volunteering, mentoring and most recently an in-studio textile residency. Fern’s own weaving is an exploration of colour, pattern and texture.
This audio is from our virtual studio visit with artists Taryn Walker and Nicholas Hertz, and was originally recorded on March 29, 2022 over Zoom.
About Taryn
Taryn Walker is a queer, interdisciplinary Indigenous artist of Nlka'pamux, Syilx, and mixed European ancestry whose work explores concepts of identity, tenderness, healing, cycles of life and death, and the supernatural through drawing, printmaking, installation, and video.
In 2018 Walker graduated from the University of Victoria’s BFA program. Taryn is currently an Emerging Artist in Residence at SNAP in Edmonton, AB, and will be exhibiting work at the SNAP Gallery in May 2022. Walker was awarded the Diane Mary Hallam Achievement Award by UVic for academic excellence and commitment to the arts in 2018 and in 2017 they were also longlisted for the Philip B. Lind Emerging Artist Prize, presented by the Presentation House Gallery for demonstrating excellence as an emerging video artist and photographer. Taryn’s artistic practice and research has been presented and supported by spaces, events, and granting streams across Western Canada and beyond.
About Nicholas
Nicholas Hertz (he/they) is a queer white-settler artist based Amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton). Their work and research takes an interdisciplinary approach to exploring the liminal space between shame and desire, where he connects to the objectification of the queer body and the anthropomorphizing of environments.
In 2019, they received their Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Alberta, where they were awarded the Livia Stoyke Foundation BFA Best of Show Award. Since then, their work has been featured in many exhibitions both locally and internationally. Currently they are an Emerging Artist in Residence at SNAP, with a solo exhibition slated for May 2022. They are also a participant in the Love Lab residency at the Art Gallery of Mississauga, sponsored by Panasonic. They have previously served on the Board of Directors at SNAP, invigilated with the Art Gallery of Alberta, and taught programs with the Art Gallery of St. Albert.
About AFH
This audio is from our virtual studio visit with artist Allison Tunis in conversation with Zoë Schneider, and was originally recorded on December 14, 2021 over Zoom.
About the artist
Allison Tunis (she/they) is a visual artist living and working as a settler on Treaty 6 territory, in Amiswaciwâskahikan (Edmonton). She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Alberta (2008) and a graduate diploma in Art Therapy from the Vancouver Art Therapy Institute (2013). Through their work, Allison seeks to explore themes of personal and community healing through the art process and look to challenge norms and expectations around marginalized bodies – with a specific focus on queer, fat, neurodiverse, and disabled experiences. As well, they aim to reimagine art materials, techniques and collaborative processes in ways that reduce barriers and harm, while contributing to critical conversations within and beyond traditional art spaces about accessibility, intersectionality, social justice, and strengths-based theory. Allison is a recipient of the Edmonton Artist Trust Fund award (2018) and Alberta Craft Council Early Achievement award (2018), and was the artist-in-residence for Harcourt House Artist-Run Centre in 2019.
About the work
This project seeks to develop a more equitable and anti-oppressive approach to portraiture and art-making, specifically focusing on breaking down hierarchies often present in art practices – by listening to and centering lived experience, recognizing and addressing the power differentials between “artist” and “model, and reflecting on questions about elitism and exclusion within art communities, the value of creation vs. concept, insider vs. outsider art, craft vs. fine art, and art ownership and consent practices. The overall project aims to benefit individuals living with chronic illness(es) by building community, providing meaningful compensation for sharing their experiences, challenging and breaking down artistic hierarchies and barriers, and widening the scope of the conversation about the identities and experiences of those who live with chronic illness – led by those with lived experience.
About the co-host
Zoë Schneider (she/her) is based in Regina, Treaty 4 Territory, Saskatchewan, Canada. Schneider works in sculpture, video, and installation to critically examine the complexity of fat identity. Schneider holds an MFA from the University of Saskatchewan (2018), and a BFA from the Alberta University of the Arts (2009). In Canada Schneider has exhibited in Regina, Saskatoon, Estevan, Guelph, Mississauga, Lethbridge, and internationally in Denmark, Germany, and the United States.
About AFH
This audio is from our virtual studio visit with artist Wei Li in conversation with Steven Harris, and was originally recorded on October 26, 2021 over Zoom. Video episodes are available on the AFH website.
About the artist
Wei Li is an emerging artist whose experience of being an immigrant to Canada provides her with crucial inspiration in her practice. Having grown up in China and trained as a contemporary artist in the West, her dual cultural background challenges her to integrate different cultural perspectives and creates tensions through the contradictions inherent in forming a new hybrid identity.
Li completed her BFA (with Distinction) from the University of Alberta in 2017 and since has participated in shows/residency across Canada and the US. She had solo shows at the Art Gallery of St Albert and Harcourt House Artist Run Centre. In 2017, Li was a finalist in the RBC Canadian Painting Competition, and her work was shown at the National Gallery of Canada. Li will attend the Sam and Adele Golden Foundation Residency in New York this year. She recently starts a new series to utilize modern technology to render digital surrealistic objects and creates a new vision of hybridity.
About the work
In my practice, I’m searching for a visual form to address the complexity of hybrid identity, as well as the subjective and the emotional experience of living in a socially and ethnically diverse modern culture. The experience of being an immigrant to Canada provides me with crucial inspiration in my practice. This dual cultural background not only provides me with a broader ability to see diverse energies in society but also challenges me to integrate different cultural perspectives. The contradictions inherent in forming a new hybrid identity have entered my work and continue to create tension within it. In my new digital series, I retexture the surface of the digital sculpted models that I create on the computer with photo scanned high-res human skin texture to grant those objects a sense of humanness, exploring the possibility of creating a new vision of hybridity.
About the co-host
Steven Harris recently retired from teaching at the University of Alberta, after twenty years of working there. He published his book Surrealist Art and Thought in the 1930s: Art, Politics, and the Psyche with Cambridge University Press in 2004; co-edited a special issue of Art History with Natalie Adamson in 2016; and is one of five editors of the International Encyclopedia of Surrealism, which was published in three volumes from Bloomsbury in 2019. He also published a study of the 1959 International Exhibition of Surrealism in Art History in 2020, contributed an essay to the catalogue for the centennial exhibition of the Danish artist Asger Jorn for the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen in 2014, and an essay to a special issue on Jorn for the journal October in 2012. He has written essays about Sherri Chaba, Lyndal Osborne, and Lisa Turner for exhibitions in the Edmonton area, and is currently working on another one about local artist Richard Boulet. His major work in progress concerns a singular group of artists, poets, dancers, and musicians who collaborated in Alabama from the 1970s to the 1990s, provisionally entitled Pataphysics and Surrealism in Alabama.
About AFH
This audio is from our virtual studio visit with artist Dwayne Martineau in conversation with aAron Munson, and was originally recorded on August 26, 2021 over Zoom. Video episodes are available on the AFH website.
About the artist
Dwayne Martineau is a visual artist, musician and composer. Two preoccupations dominate his work— the physicality of light, and experimental landscape photography. His work starts from an intimate interaction with nature and a reverence for the complex and sometimes frightening natural world around us that few stop to marvel at. Using optics, mirrors and multiple exposures, Martineau introduces distortions, symmetries, and animism into exhaustive studies of forests and trees. His goal, as he describes it, is to "give us a chance to see nature through a different lens, and understand that it’s got its own thing going on." Dwayne is a member of the Frog Lake First Nation, descended from early French and Scottish settlers, Plains Cree, and Métis.
About the work
I’m a bit hung up on the physicality of light. In my work, I use it as a tool to crack open perspective to explore my identity and connection to the natural world. My process involves probing, poking and prodding, until an a-ha! hits me. Recently, I’ve become very interested in that moment of creation— that singular inspiration, surprise, or insight that pushes someone to create something out of nothing. In visual art, where a piece might take years to complete, how do you bring a viewer closer to that moment of creation? That’s driven me to go big and immersive. I’m trying to move still images into three dimensional space; using structure, scale, motion, and sound to create little worlds that bring a viewer closer to that initial feeling of discovery.
STRANGE JURY is a jury trial by nature in the woods. It is an attempt to recreate a specific moment— it’s dusk in the forest, you enter a clearing... and flinch at the feeling of being watched... 60-foot sentinels living intense and meaningful lives surround you and challenge you... Why are you in our home? What is your relationship to this place? We are not your bathroom.
About the co-host
aAron Munson is a Canadian filmmaker, cinematographer and multimedia artist. His work has taken him from his personal studio to war zones, high-Arctic weather stations, reindeer nomad camps in Siberia, and the Arabian Desert. aAron's projects tackle extreme human experiences, both far from and close to home, utilizing film, video, photography and sound to create visual explorations relating to mental illness, memory, and the nature of consciousness.
About AFH
This audio is from our virtual studio visit with artists Alma Louise Visscher & Taryn Kneteman in conversation with Taiessa, and was originally recorded on June 26, 2021 over Zoom. Video episodes are available on the AFH website.
About the artists
Alma Louise Visscher (b. 1986 in the unceded traditional territory of the Semiahmoo, Katzie, Kwikwetlem, Kwantlen, Qayqayt and Tsawwassen First Nations/Surrey BC) creates fabric-based installations, soft sculptures, and drawings that examine material culture, soft architecture, and the language of abstraction through a feminist lens. Her work has been shown throughout North America, as well in Iceland and Germany: Sweet Lorraine Gallery (Brooklyn), Kimura Gallery (Alaska), and included in the 2020 Canadian Biennial of Fibre Art (Idea Exchange, Cambridge ON) as well as in Future Station, the 2015 Biennial of Alberta Art (Art Gallery of Alberta). She is thankful for support from Alberta Foundation for the Arts, The Edmonton Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts. As both artist, teacher and cultural worker, Alma has focused on supporting more accessible art programs, and with those using art as part of their mental health and wellness journey: She has worked with a wide variety of government agencies and non-profit organizations: teaching classes and leading workshops at day programs, continuing care centres, and with employment and youth support services.
Taryn Kneteman (b. 1989 in amiskwacîwâskahikan/Edmonton) is a visual artist preoccupied with material transformation. She documents moving bodies and changes of state with sculpture, video, and printmaking, to consider the meaning of “wellness” as an embodied utopia where the curation of self and products promises control or escape. Kneteman holds a BFA from the University of Alberta and has exhibited work at the Art Gallery of Alberta (Edmonton AB), Antimatter [media art] festival (Victoria BC), Walter Phillips Gallery (Banff AB), and SNAP Gallery (Edmonton AB), as well as internationally. She was an artist in residence at Common Opulence 2 (Demmitt AB), Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (Banff AB), and Druckvereinigung Bentlage (Rheine, Germany). Most recently she was an artist in residence at Yorath House Artist Studio and Mitchell Art Gallery (Edmonton AB) in collaboration with Alma Louise Visscher. She lives and works in Edmonton, in Treaty 6 territory.
About the co-host
Taiessa (she/her) is a multi-discipline artist living in Amiskwaciwâskahikan, so-called Edmonton. Taking an auto-ethnographic approach to her work, she explores themes of intimacy and nurturance. Taiessa’s primary mediums include printmaking, soft sculpture, and long conversations with friends. She obtained a Fine Art diploma with distinction from Grant MacEwan University before completing her BFA at the University of Alberta. Taiessa recently participated in the Mitchell Art Gallery’s Artist Exchange program, and when not in the studio spends her time as Production Supervisor at The Works.
About AFH
This audio is from our virtual studio visit with artist Matthew Cardinal in conversation with Lauren Crazybull, and was originally recorded on April 24, 2021 over Zoom. Video episodes are available on the AFH website.
About the artist
Matthew Cardinal is an amiskwaciy (Edmonton, Alberta) based musician, composer, and sound designer, known for his work with Polaris Short List nominee group nêhiyawak. Cardinal’s solo full-length album “Asterisms” was released in October 2020 on Arts & Crafts. Cardinal’s music moves from delicate, minimalist pieces to vast drones and sparkling, modular synthesizer beats. He has been performing music across the country for the last few years in various groups, as well as doing soundtrack work in film and sound for art installations. Matthew also works in photography, primarily using film, capturing dreamy moments in time and space, evoking a similar feel to his music.
About the work
This is an accumulative project I have been working on for a few years now but due to the social nature of it, it has been halted by COVID-19. I am collecting photographs, using an instant camera, of the right arms of various people from all across the country. I am currently at around 50 photos of a planned 200. These are photos of friends, artists, recording engineers, musicians, photographers, writers, business owners. People I respect and admire.
Arms because: I am unsure at this point. To me, it's nice to see arms highlighted. The arms we work with and hold with and love and create with.
The right arm because: it started with a photo of a right arm
200 photos because: 200 sounds like a good number
About the co-host
Lauren Crazybull is an artist living in Edmonton, Alberta. Lauren is Niitsitapi and Dene with connections to Fort McKay First Nation, and a member of Kainai Nation. Lauren’s practice focuses on painted portraiture, experimental mapmaking and immersive installation. Their background includes working with youth, radio programming and illustration. The purpose of the work they have done thus far has been to examine the function of colonialism in portraiture and other histories that aren’t always truthful representations of Indigenous existence. As such, Lauren’s portraits describe Indigenous people as they appear to them. Through their work they celebrate nuanced experiences, and seek a sincere understanding of the many facets of Indigenous life.
About AFH
This audio is from our virtual studio visit with artist Braxton Garneau in conversation with Aukje Kapteyn, and was originally recorded on February 25, 2021 over Zoom. Video episodes are available on the AFH website.
About the artist
Braxton Garneau is an emerging artist from Amiskwaciwâskahikan ‘Edmonton’ on Treaty 6 territory. In 2020, He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts, specializing in intermedia at the University of Alberta. His practice is rooted in an exploration of familial and collective histories.
Garneau primarily works in painting, installation, and printmaking, often distilling his own research through a combination of these methods. He has participated in several group exhibitions including Nice to Meet You in FAB Gallery at the University of Alberta, 5 Artists 1 Love exhibition at the Art Gallery of Alberta, and most recently It's About Time: Dancing Black in Canada 1900 - 1970 and Now at the Mitchell Gallery.
About the work
This is not a body of work. This is a collection of creative exercises; a response to a series of moments than have given me peace over the past several months. I needed to do something that was disconnected from the responsibilities of my regular practice. I needed to do anything other than obsess over the ever-growing list of racial injustices or confront my anxieties around the COVID-19 pandemic.
Making this series of facetime portraits was a creative way for me to self soothe. I began using video calls as references for these tiny family portraits, which reflected the dimensions (13.5cm x 6.5cm) I was becoming accustomed to viewing my family members at. The noticeable distortions from a phone camera lens became a motif throughout my portraits and emphasized this abstracted nature of “face to face” communication. These mini paintings became a way for me to create and connect without having to actively engage with the circumstances of 2020.
About the co-host
Aukje Kapteyn is a 72-year-old woman whose chosen career has been working with First Nations communities as a counselling therapist for the past 32 years. She is mother of three children and grandmother of seven. She is the oldest of a family of eight children and immigrated to Canada from the Netherlands with her family at age 12. She was raised surrounded by an extended family of talented musicians, photographers, artists and writers. While appreciating music and art, her own preferable medium is writing. She has published poetry, feature articles, and stories. Her work in First Nations Communities has given her deeper insight into the long-term effects of colonialism, racism and threat of cultural demise. She has written poetry and articles to reflect this. Strong family ties have superseded the far-flung distance of siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles. Family gatherings have nourished the creativity, playfulness, humour, and tenacity of family members to pursue their own dreams.