Elise Dawson: The Ideal Make Body
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Platform: Centre for Photographic & Digital Arts 121-100 Arthur St, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 1H3

Elise Dawson, "Self-portrait as nun," 2020
digital photograph, 10” x 8”
Elise Dawson: The Ideal Make Body
Opening Reception 11 March at 7PM
The Ideal Make Body features new image-based work by Elise Dawson who was a 2021 PLATFORM Photography Award Winner. To investigate the construction of art and identity, Dawson experiments with the visual and cultural conventions of art, celebrity, gender, and photography. Dawon takes ‘selfies’– fast self-portraits, made with their smartphone’s camera– and Photoshops them into selected works of art, photographs of celebrities and other found images readily available on the internet. Their conceptual practice examines the ontological implications of photography, painting, and collage. Dawson is an artist invested in understanding the being and becoming, even the echoes, of art and self.
Elise Dawson graduated from the School of Fine Art at the University of Manitoba in 2012. Dawson completed MAWA’s Foundation Mentorship program with Val Klassen as well as brief mentorships with Ming Hon (Performance) and Diana Thorneycroft (Bodies of Work). They presented a solo exhibition at Flux Gallery in 2016. In 2017, Elise Dawson completed a six-week artist residency in Puebla, Mexico which closed with a public performance on Día de Muertos, at Decentered Gallery. They were a 2017-2018 participant of ace.art.inc’s Cartae open school program when they published their first collection of poetry. In 2020, Dawson was a new media artist in residence at videopool.