Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Fiona Bailey






















































































October
(2008)


Original photographs with hand and machine stitched wool and polyester on silk.

Fiona Bailey studied Textiles at Sheridan College, where she graduated with honours in 2007. Fiona's work uses original photography, a life long hobby, as a fabric. She tea stains and distresses each photo, to look worn and aged. She further develops the photos with needle felted wool, and hand and machine stitch, making them into functional art objects. Fiona's photographs are never reprinted, making each piece truly unique.

Fiona loves old things that have a lot of character; houses and architecture, furniture, dishes, textiles and quilts, little trinkets and of course vintage fashions. She finds treasures beyond material ones at second hand stores and rummage sales, where she gets many ideas and inspiration. She is a collector of discarded things; she used to collect people's grocery lists found on the floor or in carts at the grocery store, and now her preference is for hand embroidered wall hangings found at second hand shops.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Amber Landgraff


















































































Communicating Essentials

(2008)

"I set myself the task of distilling my collection of philosophical texts into their essentials. An obsessive reading of texts that could be found in my apartment took place over the course of a week and a half. A close reading with an eye for essentials changed the way that I related to the words - each time an essential was found became an event."

Amber Landgraff is an emerging artist living in the Toronto area. Her work often takes the form of performative gestures and public interventions. Recent exhibitions include the Infinite Exchange Gallery 2008 (Sub Zero, ICA, San Jose) and Eyelevel Re-shelving Initiative 3 2008 (Eyelevel Gallery, Halifax). She has also exhibited performances and installations in Toronto, Edmonton, and Guelph.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Stephanie Cormier


















































































The Showoff Collection
(2008)

Stephanie Cormier lives in Toronto, Ontario. Her practice is conceptually based and includes photography, video and sculpture installation. Stephanie studied at the Ontario College of Art and Design where she completed her BFA. Her work has been exhibited across Canada as well as internationally and has earned several national awards and grants. Most recently Stephanie’s work was featured in Carte Blanche: Photography 1, a publication of Canadian photographers and also Mix Magazine.

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Daphne Gerou














































































(Less Than) Beautiful

(2008)

Daphne Gerou is a Toronto based visual artist whose overall art practice points to drawing as a primary medium. She studies fine arts at the Toronto School of Art, and is currently pursuing an Art History undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto. Gerou's work has been included in group and curated exhibitions in Toronto, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina and Berlin. Her work has also appeared in literary publications such as Vallum and Fireweed. Gerou has received grants from the Ontario Arts Council, and drawing awards from both the John B. Aird Gallery and the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition.

The materials that I used to create the books in my library were either on hand, or came to be (like the matchbook) throughout the course of the project. The theme that emerged in the books is one that points to interpersonal dynamics and the human experience in general. The theme that emerged in my creative process is a tension between pretty packaging and not-so-pretty content. I called the library "(Less than) Beautiful."

Monday, November 17, 2008

Debbie Danelley










































































ReBound

(2008)

Winnipeg
artist Deborah Danelley graduated from the School of Art- University of Manitoba in 1997, gold medalist in the Diploma Program with Major in Printmaking. Since then she has been working actively as a visual artist. To produce art every day is not a stretch – listening to the subtle clues, voices and signs that lead artists to do what they do is another thing that takes practice and focus. The materials used are recycled from three or four books and the text was found within them, sometimes added by their previous owners as if to leave a message for someone to find for themselves one day.

I have simply taken the messages I “found” each day for a week and “rebound” them for others to find yet again.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Aimee Lee





































































I wear yoga pants

(2008)

Aimee Lee
is an interdisciplinary artist who works in performance, book & paper, installation, and text arts. Born in New York, she received her BA in Visual Arts from Oberlin College and her MFA in Interdisciplinary Book and Paper Arts from Columbia College Chicago. She trained as a classical violinist, with later studies in jazz and improvisation. Her movement studies include contact improv, modern dance, trapeze, acrobatics, hula, and breakdancing. She has appeared in performances for the Chicago Cultural Centre, Museum of Contemporary Art, Glass Curtain Gallery, PAC/edge Performance Festival, and Tic Toc Performance Festival.

Under the Bionic Hearing Press imprint, Aimee's artists' books reside in numerous collections, including the Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection, Museum of Modern Art Library, Oberlin College Clarence Ward Art Library Special Collections, and King St. Stephen Museum in Hungary. She has been granted residencies by Art Farm, Jentel, Ox-Bow, Ragdale, Vermont Studio Centre, Weir Farm Trust Art Centre, and the Interdisciplinary Residency of Art and Ecology in Mexico. Funders include the U.S. Fulbright Program, Puffin Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts Special Opportunity Stipend Program, and Manhattan Graphics Studio.

Aimee currently resides in Seoul, Korea, as she researches the Korean hand papermaking tradition as a Fulbright Researcher.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Sylvia Ziemann














































































Fragments
(2008)

Sylvia Ziemann graduated from the Alberta College of Art and Design in 1983 with a diploma in painting, and in 1986 received her B.F.A. in painting from the Nova Scotia College of Design. While she is primarily a painter she has engaged in performance, installation art and is currently working with sculptural mediums. She is one of the initiators of the artist trading card chapter in Regina, Saskatchewan.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Laura Calvi














































































I,
Cuba

(2008)
7 cards with text, ribbon, 1 clear pouch containing ash remnants of original, 1 found feather


Born in Rome, Italy and educated in Canada, England and France, Laura Calvi received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (now NSCAD University) in 1995 and a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Arts from Toronto's York University in 2004. A writer and interdisciplinary artist with areas of interest encompassing site-responsive installation and public art, performance, sound and language based work, her works have been presented in group and solo exhibitions in Halifax, Istanbul, Barcelona, Toronto and the US. She has also participated in residencies in Istanbul and at Alberta's Banff Centre for the Arts.

Winding its way through spaces between articulation and silence, the work has tended toward creating environments or situations for the viewer in which various attempts at negotiating a communication or proximity to an expression of verity might collapse an expected response.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Call for Submissions


















This is the original call for submissions that was put out for the Portable Library Project. Please note that submissions are now
closed.

***

The Portable Library Project is a project involving the creation of small works exploring ideas surrounding archiving, journaling, libraries, ephemera, and incorporating an art practice into everyday life.

Invited artists will be sent/delivered an empty cigar box, roughly the size of a hardcover book. Over the course of a week, individuals will be asked to create a 'book' (loose interpretations of 'book' welcome) a day reflective of each person's day-to-day activities and artistic process. Books are ideally made (mostly) while on the go; boxes are intended to be carried with the participant, where books will be added and collected each day for seven days.

This project will culminate in a web-based archive, an exhibition, as well as the inclusion of each Portable Library into a local alternative library for viewing and circulation.

Send all expressions of interest (with a bit about yourself and 1-2 jpgs of recent work) and questions to Tara at cleanteen@hotmail.com