Opening Reception & Performance Event - Katherine Boyer, Mary Stankevicius and Julia Wake: Built a Place

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L-R: Mary Stankevicius, Katherine Boyer, Julia Wake

Reception: May 18, 6:30 – 8:30 pm Performance: Katherine Boyer, 7:00 pm, near the Red River, Fort Garry campus

The School of Art and School of Art Gallery are pleased to present Built a Place, the thesis exhibitions and oral examinations by the three Master of Fine Art students: Katherine Boyer, Mary Stankevicius and Julia Wake. During the exhibition period, each student will have an oral thesis exam that will also be open to the public.  

Katherine Boyer: Labour is the Body; Time is the BridgeThe artist’s own, female, Métis body reclaims space, history, and family stories that focus on a direct matriarchal line of five women. By embodying a creative interpretation of their physical labour, through slow conscious work, or by considering the body as a form of measurement and an open channel of communication, their life stories become a point of expressing and repairing homelands. Through re-experiencing, process-heavy and repetitive techniques, the artist takes the experience of time, and translates it into a bodily experience of memory.

Katherine Boyer is a multidisciplinary artist whose work is focused on methods bound to textile arts and the handmade, including fabric manipulation, papermaking, woodworking and beadwork. Boyer’s art and research is entrenched in Métis history, material culture and personal family narratives. Born and raised in Regina, Saskatchewan, she has received a BFA from the University of Regina.

Recent and upcoming exhibitions include Li Salay, Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton (2018); Crafting the Future, OCADU Canadian Craft Biennial (2017); Out of Repetition, Difference, Zalucky Contemporary, Toronto (2017); LandMarks 2017/ Repères 2017, Place and Placelessness, Winnipeg (2017); BeadSpeak at Slate Fine Art Gallery Regina (2016); and Anishnaabensag Biimskowebshkigewag (Native Kids Ride Bikes) Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina (2016); Boyer’s work is currently touring nationally as part of the Dunlop Art Gallery’s Material Girls exhibition.

Mary Stankevicius: Stomach Flowers Hard and soft, wet and dry, contamination and growth: these are the themes that Mary Stankevicius is exploring in her current body of work. The initial spark was to investigate and celebrate the body’s internal flora. Working with the idea of reconstructing what was macroscopic, the works examine the notion of colossi through biomorphic abstraction. She uses alternate world-building as a tool for artistic inquiry and exploration. There are many euphemisms to describe our feelings of the unknown; for instance, “gut reaction” is often used to imply an intuitive response to enigmatic situations. She works to illustrate this unexplainable state of mind by constructing sculptural forms that combine human attributes with botanical elements, resulting in hybrids that together form an other-worldly installation.

Mary Stankevicius earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a major in ceramics in 2012 from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and spent a semester away at the Kansas City Art Institute in Kansas City, Missouri. After graduation, she received the Walter Ostrom Scholarship to attend a selective, international work intensive at the University of Long Beach in Long Beach, California. In 2013 Mary was accepted as a one-year resident at Medalta Clay studios in Medicine Hat. She and Nolan Drew are co-founders of Throwing Neon Studios, established 2014. Mary is currently a 2018 Master of Fine Arts candidate at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Julia Wake: A Pylon is a Party Hat is a Cake A Pylon is a Party Hat is a Cake consists of sculptural pieces that are informed both by participatory workshops and theories of deconstruction and play. The work is intended to provoke viewer engagement with the gallery visitor’s experience in mind. The work intends to contest the position of studio practice, exploring the tension between play and practice; and conflating boundaries between studio vs. gallery, participant vs. viewer, and artist vs. facilitator. Instructional animations prompt viewers to actively engage with the work in a participatory manner within the exhibition space.

Julia Wake is a Winnipeg-based visual artist and community arts educator who works in multiple mediums. She holds a BFA from Concordia University. Her work explores the intersection between solo studio practice and the participatory.