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Despite a a few last-minute changes in scheduling, we are grateful to have had the chance to exhibit our work at the @annaleonowensgallery for this winter's MFA group show, and/and/and.

Rena and Susan have made a detailed video walkthrough for those of you who couldn't make it out to the gallery.

If you missed the artist talks (or were blown away and would like to watch them again!), they are now online for you to view from the comfort of your home.

Both the walkthrough and the talks can be found here:

https://kaltura.nscad.ca/channel/2022%2BMFA%2BGroup%2BExhibition/244327972

Special thanks to the amazing curaturial committee for all of their hard work & to the team at the Anna who patiently answered all of our questions and helped make this happen!

Photo credit: Britt Moore Shirley & Suzie Cochrane

#nscadmfa #halifax #contemporaryart #exhibitions

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Three weeks ago we had the chance to hear more from Luke and Zen about their work and thesis exhibitions!!! Thank you both for sharing your experience with us! @nscadmfa @fair_luke @zenzehuasun @annaleonowensgallery @nscaduniversity #artisttalk #thesisexhibition https://www.instagram.com/p/CVSW9DBLDRk/?utm_medium=tumblr

#artisttalk #thesisexhibition

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nocturne is seeking volunteers! Check out this opportunity to be part of this year nocturne edition @nocturnehalifax Did you know that Nocturne is run primarily by volunteers? The festival would not be possible without you! Sign up on our website for shifts between Oct 13-16th! 🔈💛 #nochfx21 #volunteerns #halifax #halifaxnoise #artfestival #volunteerhalifax #contemporaryart #nscadmfa https://www.instagram.com/p/CU76Wt9JE4z/?utm_medium=tumblr

#nochfx21 #volunteerns #halifax #halifaxnoise #artfestival #volunteerhalifax #contemporaryart #nscadmfa

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Don’t miss this wonderful MFA Thesis Show of Luke Fair @annaleonowensgallery September 28 – October 9, 2021⠀ Opening reception: Monday 27 September, 5:30 – 7PM⠀ *Gallery is closed Thursday September 30th for Truth and Reconciliation Day⠀ ⠀ Gallery 2⠀ Between an Opening in the Trees⠀ Luke Fair, MFA Thesis exhibition⠀ ⠀ Captivated by incongruous relationships to land, Fair walks the liminal boundaries of curated landscapes to reflect on the concepts of nature and place. His work is an excavation into the manipulation, manufacturing, and manicuring of landscape, underlining the ways in which the land reveals and conceals itself. The thesis exhibition is a series of paintings on canvas, paper, and mylar that question land ownership, landscaping, wilderness, and development in a time of environmental crisis.⠀ ⠀ @fair_luke @nscaduniversity @studentunionofnscad @nscadmfa #nscad #theAnna #mfathesis https://www.instagram.com/p/CUXRfQMLAAI/?utm_medium=tumblr

#nscad #theanna #mfathesis

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Be active and join @centreforarttapes for their Archive Townhall on Tuesday, October 5th from 6-7pm.. We will discuss our archive, the results of our survey, our plans moving forward, and give you a chance to voice any questions or concerns you may have! The event will take place via zoom. Please email [email protected] to rsvp, or if you have any questions. #nscadmfa #centreforarttapes #cfattownhall https://www.instagram.com/p/CUAPCxugD41/?utm_medium=tumblr

#nscadmfa #centreforarttapes #cfattownhall

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Don’t miss this thesis exhibition of @annaleonowensgallery Felix Bernier presents their MFA Thesis exhibition: The surface of data, on display until September 25th. The surface of data is the result of a year-long exploration around the Nova-Scotian gold rush hysteria and its parallels with today’s extraction of personal data. The exhibition is set to physically and virtually recreate aspects of a gold mine and provide an immersive and interactive experience where data becomes the new gold. In a play between old and new photographic technologies, the installation invites us to walk into this physical environment of data in order to reflect on the environmental and social impacts of both types of extraction. The Anna is open to the public so you can mask up and come see the shows in person while social distancing but we will also be posting photos from each exhibition on our instagram as well. @_felixbernier @nscaduniversity @studentunionofnscad @nscadmfa #nscad #theAnna #canadianArt https://www.instagram.com/p/CUAO5KCr98I/?utm_medium=tumblr

#nscad #theanna #canadianart

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Come and see the thesis exhibition of MFA graduate Jordan Beaulieu!!!! @annaleonowensgallery September 14 – 25, 2021 Opening reception: Monday 13 September, 5:30 – 7PM Gallery 1 Modern Beaches Jordan Beaulieu, MFA Thesis exhibition Modern Beaches is a thesis exhibition and publication considering how locals relate to the highly mediated landscapes of PEI tourism by gathering traces in form of river trash, inconspicuous video uploads and abandoned blogs, obscured art histories, and menacing fibre crafts. For our complete Fall 2021 exhibition schedule, log on to theanna.nscad.ca @jordan.beaulieu @nscaduniversity @nscadmfa #nscad #theAnna #canadianArt #modernbeaches #nscadThesisShow https://www.instagram.com/p/CTrfZD5rpcK/?utm_medium=tumblr

#nscad #theanna #canadianart #modernbeaches #nscadthesisshow

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Featured MFA: Zehua Sun

Our next featured 2nd year MFA of this week is working with Scenic design and Expended media: Zehua Sun!!!!!

Zehua Sun (he/him) is a scenic designer and expended media artist from Zibo, China. He graduated from Shandong University of Arts with a bachelor’s degree in scenic design and film scenery in 2018. His works are based on personal experiences and theatrical forms of expression including experimental film and installation that represent China’s society. He is currently a MFA student at NSCAD University and exploring more possibilities of artistic expression in time and space.

Find out more about Sun and his practice on his Instagram @zenzehuasun

Due to Covid Zehua is currently living and working in China. Here is what he was telling us about his studio practice:

My current studio practice is about the transformation between physical and digital. In the passage of time and modernization, I feel the things around me gradually depleting. The house I lived in with my grandparents will be demolished, and the furniture we used will be abandoned. These places, spaces and things hold many memories of individuals and generations. I am trying to extract them from the passage of time using the media of image, sound, photogrammetry, 3D scanning, image array modeling and 360 degree video. I let them exist in digital form in virtual space.

Do you keep a special object in your studio:

Yes, in one area of my studio I put down a carpet with a tea table and I also set up a simple Buddhist niche. I usually do a meditation to empty my mind before I start the studio work.

#nscad university #nscad #nscad mfa #studio visit #featured mfa #scenic design #expended media #experimental film #time and space #transformation #modernization #abandoned #virtual world #virtural space #@zenzehuasun

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Featured MFA: Takashi Hilferink

We are excited to present our next 2nd year MFA with an art practice in painting: Takashi Hilferink!!!!

As the son of a master carpenter and two dancers with the National Ballet of Canada, I am a beneficiary of creative traditions of exactitude. These demanding artistic inheritances were confounded by an adversarial childhood in Cincinnati, Ohio. Watching friends and neighbors uphold the violence and bigotry so central to the economic and political paralysis of Lower Price Hill interested me in ideology, and representation – both in the sense of depicting the observable, and of sincerely accounting for lived realities.

In 2003 I began a BFA with Honours at York University. There I met Catherine Toth, who became my life partner and with whom I collaborated until her death in 2010. In years following I reckoned with this loss, my work tending towards nostalgia and archive. I thereafter centered my work in the aspirational elements of these themes, mindful of their convalescent potential.

At the end of the summer last year, my partner and I moved into a haunted house, and a month later our son Wylee was born! These two events have led me to notice a few things: that every house (or body) is haunted – or, we house ghosts, if not zombies; another way of saying this might be that we each inherit decisions, beliefs and habits that are not necessarily our own. Another thing I’ve been noticing is that becoming a (better) parent makes me a better painter, and visa versa!

If you want to know more about Takashi and his work, check out this blog or his website http://www.takashi-hilferink.com/ and his Instagram @tacklbox

We visited Takashi in his studio at Fountain Campus and ask him to tell us about his art practice.

As a painter I'm curious about realism. In one way, realism is perceptive as it denotes verisimilitude in the portrayal of the appearances of things. However, it is apperceptive in that it hinges on shared and coherent understandings. Contemporary reality is one of appearances and digital integration, seemingly filtered through smartphones and cloud-based computing. Yet these are extensions of earlier media like videotape and film, themselves heirs to the representational traditions of painting and drawing.

What form of realism does technological documentation uphold? I feel this is poignant for an era in which the Internet reconfigures our experiences of images, memory and history. What ‘past’ exists in the continual present tense of the Internet? As shared histories become more contestable, outdated formats present a kind of consensus in hindsight. In other words, generational memory has become codified in visual media. In order to intensify our present subjectivities with the past, I develop paintings from outmoded visual technologies, studying the materiality of film and videotape. Such differences as those between the rich contrast of Kodachrome, the garish fluorescence of VHS or the decay of phosphors in a cathode ray tube have led me to develop unique rendering approaches and colour palettes.

Recalling tangible, hardcopy media and the unhurried, early days online, I seek ways to join the evanescence of the Internet with the haptic sensibilities of painting. The epochal relationship painting has with duration and history is evident in its material presence. Do paintings harness representational concerns in a flat, pictorial space similar to the television or cellphone screen? Can paintings exist as a middle ground to register and collate realisms?

Do you keep a special object in your studio? As a sentimental person who has often lived in the past, the task for me in my second year has been in fact to set aside special objects, of which I have perhaps too many already. I'd like to think that the most special things in my studio are the works I'm creating.

#nscad #nscad mfa #studio visit #nscad university #featured mfa #painting #realism #technological documentation #memory #visual media #generational memory #appearances

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Featured MFA: Félix Bernier

Our next featured 2nd year MFA is interdisciplinary artist: Félix Bernier!!!!

Félix Bernier is an interdisciplinary artist from Montreal now based in Halifax, with a background in software engineering. His work explores the impact of digital technologies to our physical environment and to human interactions. Using photography, installation, sculptural elements and digital technologies, Félix presents the complex inter-relations of the physical and the digital as sources of interrogation. Félix began a career change in 2018 by completing a Visual Arts Certificate at NSCAD and is currently an MFA candidate for 2021. 


If you want to know more about Félix‘s work check out this blog or his website https://www.felixbernier.com/

We visited Felix in his studio at Port Campus in Halifax and asked him about his studio practice.

For most of my work, I am working and interacting with specific sites of interest. Last summer, I discovered an abandoned gold mine in Mooseland, where I am returning often. In these explorations, I gather objects from the place, data from the area, documentation photos and films. Back in my studio I transform what I gathered, from analog to digital and from digital to analog, layering everything together in interactive installations. 


Do you keep a special object in your studio? Plants and coffee. Plants are reminders of the types of environments I like to be in. I used to feed them with my leftover coffee until they got addicted to it. Now I keep those separated.  


#nscad #nscad university #nscad mfa #featured mfa #interdisciplinary #interdisciplinary art #photography #installation #expended media #sitespecificart #sculpture #evironment #data #analog #digital #digital technology

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Featured MFA: Luke Fair

We are excited to present our next second year MFA with a diverse art practice including walking, drawing, painting and photography: LUKE FAIR!!!!!

Luke (he/him) was raised in Calgary, AB where his interest in landscape was first inspired by the dynamic human interventions that are encroaching on the foothills, mountains, and prairies of Southern Alberta. He completed his undergraduate degree in visual arts at the University of Victoria in 2016. Luke has shown in Victoria, Halifax, Montreal, Denmark, and Finland. His practice is currently developing walking, drawing, painting, and photography as methods to expand his understanding of the more-than-human and the impacts of exploitative human activities.

You can see more of Luke's work here on this Blog, on his website www.lukefair.ca or follow his Instagram @fair_luke.

Tell us about your studio practice….

Right now I’m working towards developing my thesis show in August, 2021. I’ve been looking at the construction pits in Halifax and thinking about the violence of landscaping and the memory of land. We currently live in a societal system dependant upon extractive industries that obliterate the land both physically and conceptually. The pits unveil the land in a raw and surreal formation that is reminiscent of open pit mining and extractive industries. They create ruptures in the memory of a place and carve a liminal hole in the manicured landscapes of Halifax. Landscape painting has a long tradition of revealing how a contemporary culture may think of the land. I am trying to build upon that tradition and capture the anxieties, confusions, and frustrations I feel from the intense changes to this land. My practice often involves wandering and reflecting on the built environment in relation to deep time. I find myself drawn towards sites of industry and consumption. Although I am mostly painting these days, I like to think performance, sculpture, installation, and photography are part of my practice as well. I find the mixing and applying of this goopy, pigment loaded, and reactive substance infinitely entrancing. Painting is a medium for contemplation and play. My methods often excavate past layers of paint with different tools and expose the history of process.

Is there an object in your studio with significance/a story? Maybe it's just weird?

I keep a rock in my studio that I gathered from a pit in Halifax. The rock at first glance is a piece of shale common to most of the Halifax peninsula, however on one side of the rock you can see a bubble form made up of a subtle shift in the minerals. The bubble looks as if the shale was liquid at some point in time and folded over this other mineral formation. To me, it is a reminder that even though the rock was formed around 300 million years ago, it is still in motion.

#nscad #nscad university #nscadmfa #studio visit #featured mfa #painting #drawing #landscape #pits #built environment #deep time #contempation #Walking

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Featured MFA: Hossein Khodabakhsh

Check out our next featured 2nd year MFA photographer and digital artist: Hossein Khodabakhsh!!!!

Hossein is an Iranian photographer and artist who works mostly using digital tools. He is mainly interested in documentary style and counter-monuments to show hidden subjects and feelings including similarities and differences of communities and cultures. His works are regularly about humans without showing them directly. Embodying human vices and looking at humans as animals is a part of his works. Photography with the definition of creating a moment or a period is now fascinating for him. Recently he has been working on 3D creation to bring his photos and ideas to life, for the most part in the virtual world. He has a background in computer science and is trying to create his works in a place between these two worlds.

Find out more about Hossein and his work on our Blog or his website http://hosseinkhodabakhsh.com/ or his Instagram @hosein.khoda

Hossein is currently working in Tehran, Iran. We asked him to tell us about his studio work.

Since last year I’ve worked on creating AR art pieces as counter-monuments. Working on MITACS with NSCAD faculties as RA helped me through this way. I use satellite images and photogrammetry software to create 3D objects from the history of specific locations, mostly crime scenes. I then mix these objects with photos I took from the land.

Do you keep a special object in your studio?

On top of cameras, computers, and equipment related to my medium, I actually hate to have a studio bigger than a backpack, to be able to make anywhere my studio temporarily. I think I can say that in Tehran my motorcycle is my portable studio.

#nscad university #nscad #nscadMFA #featured MFA #studio visit #photography #digital art #countermemory #counter-monuments #3d photogrammetry #crime scene

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Featured MFA: Bonita Hatcher

Our next featured 2nd year MFA is expended media artist: Bonita Hatcher!!!

Bonita is an expanded media artist based in Nova Scotia. Her multi-disciplinary practice utilizes audio/video, performance, and other forms of new media. Raised in Newfoundland, and a descendent of a British Home-Child, she has lived across the continent, from St. John’s to Santa Cruz. Her installation-based work is sociopolitical; investigating themes of marginalization, self vs other and the manner in which societies venerate or vilify. Already holding a BSc from Memorial University, Bonita graduated with a BFA from NSCAD in 2008. She received the Gordon Parson's Film and Video award and is a current recipient of the Canadian Institute of Health research scholarship for her work in exploring the relationship between modes of dwelling, systems of control and access to rights and services as a citizen without a fixed address. 

If you want to find out more about Bonita and her work check out this post and her website bonitahatcher.wordpress.com or on her social Media Imon DaRoade on Twitch and @badassbeaglebus on Instagram.

Bonita, tell Us About your studio Practice:

My current work explores the modern nomad or “van-life” movement and the concepts of marginalization, modes of dwelling and how navigate the absurdity of social or public policy and perception. For many months, this has meant my practice has not been a typical or traditional one. I am not carving, painting, drawing or even editing video. My life right now is my practice. 

My campus studio space is currently housing my possessions on live stream as they have a “better” home than I do. But my day-to-day practice, for now, is working on my bus, Babbs, and doing the experiential work of problem solving a mode of living that does not come with presets - if you want electricity you have to learn about how electricity works, determine your output needs and then install options to meet those needs, as opposed to taking for granted the unlimited, even if fee-based, access to electricity by turning on a switch. I also have to find the funds to generate each solution as it appears. I am really interested in this space in between the oppressive problems and the idealized solutions out there, a space where a sort of personal liberty exists. 

Every aspect of life is no longer automatic, I have to engage with my physical reality in ways I never had before. So, my practice is often riddled with seemingly impossible obstacles and worry, with an anxiety over either not knowing or not affording solutions to necessities - but that is the work/research itself in the end. The beautiful thing about it is that despite how ominous a lot of the experience sounds, there is this sense of liberty in it that can only be felt by doing. My challenge will be how to translate that for those who view the resulting work.

Do you keep a special object in your studio: 

A few... like a copy of the infamous photo of Linda Benglis. Her audacity, humour and stark challenge to viewers always reminded me that the right path for me isn’t always acceptable to others.

#NSCAD #nscad university #nscad mfa #featured mfa #studio visit #expendedmedia #dwellings #nomadic #van-live movement #live-stream #problem-solving #@badassbeaglebus #iamontheroad

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Featured MFA: Suzie Cochrane

We are excited to present our next featured MFA working with expended media art: Suzie Cochrane!!!!

Suzie was awarded a BFA degree with Distinction from the University of Lethbridge in 2000 and in 2008, she moved to Nova Scotia where she is now a resident in Greenwich. Her practice focuses mainly on using analog technology to create mostly small, playful, interactive objects to engage people in conversation and stimulate interest in the beauties of science, mathematics and technology.

If you want to know more about Suzies practice and her work check out this Blog or her Instagram @Iaslothmagicallyappears

Due to the pandemic Suzie is working in her studio in Greenwich, Nova Scotia. We asked her to tell us more about her studio practice!

As an autistic person with dyscalculia, I have engaged in a lifelong love/hate relationship with mathematics. An obsession with patterns, either natural or manmade, drives her to explore (sometimes painfully) mathematical systems, despite a profound innumeracy. Ongoing mathematics upgrading is her solution to this issue, and it is going slowly but steadily so far.

One is never too old to conquer or at least attack educational barriers, and this need I have to learn and create throughout life is something I want to help others explore for themselves as well. By using interactive art as a catalyst, I hope to inspire others to seek out their own creativity in an ongoing cycle of (self) discovery and connection.

Do you keep a special object in your studio?

My whole house is my studio at the moment, and there are lots of special objects within it! If pressed, I would say a trio of battery-operated candles provides me with a soft, flicking light that warms my space and offers a forgiving semi-darkness for when I have to attend Teams or Zoom meetings.

#nscad university #NSCAD #featured mfa #studio visit #expendedmedia #science #dyscalculia #media art #pattern #mathmethics

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Featured MFA: Emily Davidson

Our next featured 2nd year MFA works with printmaking, design and textiles: Emily Davidson!!!

Emily Davidson is a settler artist, activist and graphic designer based in Kjipuktuk (Halifax, Nova Scotia). Her artistic practice uses printmaking to investigate the history of leftist political movements, imagine utopian futures, and agitate for social justice causes. Her current research focuses on the entangled relationship of print media in historic and ongoing colonization across Turtle Island, and the formation of settler-colonial states on Indigenous lands. Emily graduated from NSCAD University in 2009 (BFA, Interdisciplinary) and is a current MFA candidate at NSCAD. Emily is teaching Post-Digital Printmaking at NSCAD for the first time this semester, which is a course she designed based on her cross-disciplinary printmaking and graphic design practice. Emily is a recipient of the Canada Graduate Scholarships-Master’s Program in Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

Find out more about Emily and her practice on this blog or her website https://emilydavidsonart.com and her Instagram  instragam.com/madlyvisioned

We visited Emily in the Dawson Printshop and her studio at Fountain Campus N500. Here is what she told us about her studio work:

My process employs visual articulation of extensive research and analysis. I’m not afraid to be didactic to clearly communicate the intent of my work. This means that my studio practice involves digging through archives (primarily digital archives right now due to COVID-19 restrictions); finding and reading articles to develop analysis; and making lists (so many lists!), spreadsheets and digital maps. Lately, I've been focused on researching the wood type collection in the Dawson Printshop. I've been sorting the collection and working on identification of previously unidentified specimens. One of the most exciting revelations is that one specimen was produced by Page & Co. in Greenville, Connecticut–which dates this type's production to between 1857-1869! In my work on the intertwined history of print and colonization knowing specific dates when wood type was produced is crucial. What messages and ideas has this type disseminated in the last 150 years?

Do you keep a special object in your studio:

I keep a special piece of wood type in my studio. It's a 12-line capital letter R from the Columbian typeface. For a long time, it was the only piece of wood type I owned because I bought it as an (overpriced) orphan from a local antique store.

#NSCAD #nscad university #nscad mfa #featured mfa #studio #studio visit #dawson printshop #printmaking #letterpress #decolonization #design #textiles #acitivism #social justice

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Featured MFA: Marie-Soleil Provençal

Our next featured second year MFA is  working in sculpture: Marie-Soleil Provençal!!!

Marie-Soleil Provençal is a sculptor from Québec, Canada. She is interested in the involvement of materials as co-participants in contemporary art practice. Her work addresses the relationships that we have with our surroundings, an eco-system composed of humans and non-humans. She does so by integrating mundane materials such as concrete, matchsticks, hay, and broken furniture, into her sculptures. She completed a BFA at Bishop's University. She is currently a MFA candidate for 2021 at NSCAD University, an assistant professor in sculpture, and a research assistant on alternative materials.

If you want to find more about Marie-Soleil (Sunny) check out this blog and her website mariesoleilprovencal.com or her Instagram @mariesoleilprovencal

We visited Sunny in her studio at Port Campus and asked her to tell us about her studio practice.

Most of my practice involves collecting objects and raw materials. At the moment, I am collecting undesirable things such as a broken sewing machine, empty propane cylinders, and wood ashes. Sometimes, I know right away what I want to express with them but most of the time, those things and I will share the same space for awhile before I figure it out. For example, I collected eggshells for a year without any project in mind for them and I just picked a box of discarded piano parts with no plan. This, and the fact that I need to display things a certain way to understand them, is why my studio looks like an unexpected exhibition of contemporary waste.

Do you keep a special object in your studio?

I keep a small replica of The Thinker from Augustus Rodin. It is a reminder of my traditional background as a sculptor. At the moment, it may appear as a strange contrast to the rest of my studio but if you look carefully at my current work, you may see remains of it in the structure, material or monochromatic colour scheme.

#NSCAD #nscad university #nscad mfa #featured mfa #studio visit #sculpture #collecting #undesired #objects #structure #material culture #alternativematerials

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Featured MFA: Sonia Chow

Read more about our next featured 2nd year MFA interdisciplinary designer and artist: Sonia Chow!!!!

Sonia Chow is an interdisciplinary designer and artist from Ontario. She was based in Tokyo and Hong Kong for 16 years where she ultimately worked as creative director and event curator/organizer before returning to Canada in 2018. The design/build of an art suite at Icehotel Sweden nudged her to pursue her MFA Studio in 2019.

Find out more about her work on this blog or her website Website: chowpourian.com and Instagram: @this.is.skatt

We visited Sonia in her studio at Port Campus and ask her to tell Us more about her studio practice.

My practise orbits: communication and codes; word-based art; identity; tactile objects; the exploration of process and materials, both digital and analogue. While I tend to be happiest making things with my hands, I'm also keen to learn how to make use of tools which offer speed and precision.

My studio is at Port Campus and I’m really happy to have a proper space there. It has tons of natural light and a beautiful view of Georges Island. When I can’t get into Port, I work from home or – when possible – outdoors on nice days.

Currently juggling different ideas which take turns at the forefront, depending on what I have access to. Whether investigating materials, processes, function or form, I let the work inform me, both as mentor and muse.

Do you keep a special object in your studio?

St Brigid’s Cross – a souvenir from Ireland from a friend I met in Intro Weaving class as an undergrad. St Brigid is the patron saint of weaving, and the cross is a talisman against harm.

#nscad #nscaduniversity #featured mfa #nscadmfa #inderdisciplinary #design #form #word-based-art #@this.is.skatt #studio visit #portcampus #workingwithhands