Working in both collage and sculpture, Elizabeth Zvonar’s ('01) work utilizes strategies of aesthetic seduction and sex often found in advertising as a means of teasing out a possible metaphysical or supernatural undercurrent. THE CHALLENGE OF ABSTRACTION draws on advertising imagery found in luxury good magazines from an earlier era and fuses it with that found in contemporary fashion magazines. Zvonar’s positioning and iconization of the subject highlights their ability to act as the sacred.

In keeping with her commitment to material exploration, Zvonar’s current body of work explores expanded sensory mechanisms that trigger devotion by pairing visual and tactile objects with scent. Adopting the tools of ritual found in a variety of spiritual practices and merging them with the production of sculptural objects, Zvonar is interested in the interplay between the invisible and the physical world. During the installation process Zvonar will burn incense that has a specifically commissioned west coast scent. The partially burned sticks will remain as an element of the concrete cast sculptural objects. This quiet act, observed in the remains of the partially burned incense stick, reinforces the sacrosanct relationship of the meditative ritual of arrangement. Focusing on our culture’s enthusiasm for reverence, Zvonar makes work that both questions and opens up the possibility of the extraordinary.

Elizabeth Zvonar graduated from Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design in 2001. She has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Canada at Artspeak; Western Front; Contemporary Art Gallery; Mercer Union; Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery; Vancouver Art Gallery; Oakville Gallery; Presentation House; among others. Internationally in New York, Australia, Japan and Belgium. In 2008, Zvonar was the inaugural artist at the Malaspina Print Research Residency and was an artist in residence at the Banff Centre for the thematic Cosmic Ray Research. Zvonar received the 2009 City of Vancouver Mayor’s Award for Emerging Visual Artist; in 2011 she was presented with the Emily Award for outstanding achievement by an Emily Carr alumna. From 2012-15 Zvonar held the post of City of Vancouver Artist in Residence. Her work has been seen most recently in Canada in the group show On Stage, Recent Acquisitions at the Vancouver Art Gallery and in her the solo presentation, I really do believe the best thing a person can do with themselves is expand their mind at Gallery 295. Zvonar was the 2015 recipient of the Shadbolt Foundation’s VIVA award.

Daniel Faria Gallery
188 St Helens Ave
Toronto ON

Text via Daniel Faria Gallery.

Gabriella Solti’s (’11) artist’s book, The Book of Hours, was awarded the MCBA Prize 2015 Juror's Special Recognition of Merit Award. The book will be exhibited at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts from July 17 to August 3, 2015 alongside with the other honoured works.  

The Book of Hours is a unique, 120 page codex that expresses the artist’s personal values relating to labour. The pages of the books are hand sanded chromium oxide and silicon carbide microfinishing films - surfaces that are extremely hard to erase -, interwoven with hand coloured frosted mylar and meticulously bound into a codex.  

Created in 2002 by the Sobey Art Foundation, the Sobey Art Award is Canada’s preeminent award for contemporary Canadian art. The annual $50,000 prize is given to an artist under 40 who has exhibited in a public or commercial art gallery within 18 months of being nominated.

The 2015 Shortlist, announced June 3, 2015, includes alumnus Raymond Boisjoly ('06), representing the West Coast and the Yukon. Raymond is an Indigenous artist of Haida and Quebecois descent from Chilliwack, BC. He has previously taught at Emily Carr as sessional faculty and we're pleased to announce he will join us August 1 as Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Visual Art and Material Practice, Audain School of Visual Arts.

Raymond is the recipient of the Fleck Fellowship at the Banff Centre (2010), and has exhibited locally at SFU Gallery, Contemporary Art Gallery and Catriona Jeffries Gallery, where he is currently represented. 

The 2015 Sobey Art Award winner will be announced at a gala event on October 28, 2015. View the complete 2015 Sobey Art Award Shortlist.  

Gabrielle Strong ('15) is the 2015 CERAM-AiR Artist-in-Residence at the Ceatani Centre in Vernon, BC. The Caetani Centre and the Arts Council of North Okanagan partner to present this residency. The residency invites ceramic and interdisciplinary artists to explore, develop and express thier creative voices by providing time and space for artists to pursue their work. Artists are encouraged to expand their understanding of ceramics and other mediums throughout the residency.

Gabrielle Strong recently graduated from Emily Carr University with a BFA in 2015. After 5 years of travelling by sea, much of Strong's work has focued on themes of water and reflection. Her move to Vernon to participate in the CERAM-AiR residency will allow her to explore a new landscape. She aims to cultivate a new connection to landscape, with a focus on painting and ceramics, throughout her residency.

Artist Talk with Gabrielle Strong
June 20th | 3pm
Ceatani Cultural Centre
3401 Pleasant Valley Road
Vernon, BC

Equinox Gallery presents Day School, a new exhibition of work by Sonny Assu ('02). Sonny Assu is currently a Masters Candidate in Fine Arts at Concordia University in Montreal. This exhibition marks his return to Vancouver and is his fourth solo exhibition with Equinox Gallery.

Sonny Assu's work investigates Indigenous iconography and the representation of First Nation's culture. This exhibition, titled in reference to the residental school system, reflects a history of systemic discrimination and an eradication of Indigeonous culture and language within Canada. The work in this exhibition reflects the artists' personal history and also examines larger narratives of the colonial education system and the lack and loss of Indigineous language within this system.

Sonny Assu is Laich-kwil-tach (Kwakwaka'wakw' of the We Wai Kai First Nation (Cape Mudge). He graduated from Emily Carr University of Art + Design in 2002 and went on to exhibit in galleries across North America. His work has appeared in solo shows at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery, Oakville Art Galleries, Two Rivers Gallery, West Vancouver Museum, Belkin Satellite, and the Art Gallery of Southwestern Mantioba. He has also participated in group exhibitions at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa Art Gallery, Vancouver Art Gallery and Museum of Arts & Design, New York. Most recently, his work has appeared at l'Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris.

Sonny Assu | Day School
Equinox Gallery
June 13 to July 11, 2015 

Emily Carr alumna Seeun Kim ('10) won a Gold Lion at Cannes Lions 2015 for her recent project Look at Me for Samsung.

As an creative art director she worked on the campaign at Cheil Worldwide and developed an app which helps children with autism make eye contact. The campaign which already has won both Silver and Bronze in Mobile this week at Cannes Lions, as well as a Silver Lion in PR.

Seeun Kim also received awards at D&AD, One Show and New York Festivals for Look at Me campaign this year. Cannes Lions is the world's biggest annual awards show and festival for professionals in the creative communications industry. Often called the world's biggest ad festival the annual event commonly attracts thousands of delegates from around the world attend the festival to view shortlisted work, attend seminars, workshops and master classes.

Richard Heikkila-Sawan ('15) is the 2015 recipient of the BMO 1st Art! Invitational Student Art Competition. His work Freedom Flag consists of a large buffalo hide dyed in the six colours of the rainbow. The strips of hide have been placed on a wooden stretcher intended to be mounted on a gallery wall. Freedom Flag will be exhibited at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery in Toronto from October 22 to December 19, 2015.

Heikkila-Sawan works with painting and sculpture. His work explores First Nations culture and identity from a personal lense. As a biracial artist not brought up within his birth culture, Heikkila-Sawan offers a unique perspective within a larger narrative. Richard Heikkila-Sawan graduated from Emily Carr University in Fine Art in 2015.

Created in 2002 by the Sobey Art Foundation, the Sobey Art Award is Canada’s preeminent award for contemporary Canadian art. The annual $50,000 prize is given to an artist under 40 who has exhibited in a public or commercial art gallery within 18 months of being nominated.

The 2015 Longlist includes the following Emily Carr alumni:

West Coast
Fiona Ackerman ('02)
Sonny Assu ('02)
Raymond Boisjoly ('06)
Tiziana La Melia ('08)
Jeremy Shaw ('99)

Prairies and the North
Cedric Bomford ('03)
Kara Uzelman ('04)

The following artists on the 2015 Longlist have participated in past residencies at Emily Carr:

Prairies and the North
Sarah Anne Johnson (Artist in Residence, 2014)

Ontario
Maggie Groat (Audain Distinguished Artist in Residence, Fall 2014)

The 2015 Shortlist will be announced on June 3, 2015 with an exhibition to follow at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax from September 26, 2015 to January 3, 2016. The 2015 Sobey Art Award winner will be announced at a gala event on October 28, 2015.

The complete 2015 Sobey Art Award Longlist may be found on the Sobey Art Award website.

Alumna Janice Kerbel ('94) has been nominated for the 2015 Turner Prize for her nine part operatic performance work, DOUG, originally commissioned by the Common Guild.

The Turner Prize is awarded to a British artist under 50 for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work in the preceding year. The 2015 Turner Prize exhibition preview will take place September 30, 2015 at Tramway, Glasgow with a final Award Ceremony held on December 7, 2015.

Janice Kerbel is a London-based Canadian artist. Her work often explores imaginary situations through the examination of existing systems of organizing and presenting information. She borrows from and modifies the conventions of various disciplines within her work. Kerbel holds a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design and an MFA from Goldsmith's College, University of London. She has been featured in numerous international exhibitions, including solo shows at Tate Britain in 2010, Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery in Ontario in 2009, the Kunsthalle Cologne in 2008, the Moderna Museet Stockholm in 2006, and the Norwich Gallery of Art in 2003, as well as group exhibitions at The Banff Centre, KW Berlin, the ICA London, Kunsthalle Wien, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Montreal, De Appel Contemporary Arts Centre in Amsterdam, Artists Space, the Whitechapel Art Gallery, and Baltic in Newcastle.

Janice Kerbel's forthcoming exhibition will open at Catriona Jeffries in Vancouver, BC on September 17, 2015.

Burrard Arts Foundation is pleased to present recent works by artist-in-residence Sean Mills ('10). Vancouver based artist Sean Mills’ recent practice has seen him meticulously exploring the materiality of paint to test the boundaries of its objectmaking potential. Having graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Emily Carr University of Art & Design in 2010, Mills has been methodically experimenting with the laborious accumulation and layering of material to create sculptures, three-dimensional paintings and works on unconventional surfaces that examine light, space, and time. Occasionally paralleling the concerns of institutional critique, his laborious work addresses ideas of transparency in both a literal and figurative sense.

During his three month residency at Burrard Arts Foundation, Mills has been using architectural glass as a support to repeatedly layer transparent paint. Installed away from the walls, the resultant works are viewable from all angles, denying a privileged viewpoint while being able to be seen through. The works alter with their environment: activity around the paintings becomes framed as subject and they become sites for events, movement and actions while the accumulated paint acts as a lens to simultaneously allow and distort looking.

Transparent Architecture as Support
Sean Mills
Burrard Arts Foundation
108 E Broadway Exhibition
open until June 20, 2015
Hours: Tuesday- Saturday, 12-5pm 

(text by Elliat Albrecht)

Working in both collage and sculpture, Elizabeth Zvonar’s ('01) work utilizes strategies of aesthetic seduction and sex often found in advertising as a means of teasing out a possible metaphysical or supernatural undercurrent. THE CHALLENGE OF ABSTRACTION draws on advertising imagery found in luxury good magazines from an earlier era and fuses it with that found in contemporary fashion magazines. Zvonar’s positioning and iconization of the subject highlights their ability to act as the sacred.

In keeping with her commitment to material exploration, Zvonar’s current body of work explores expanded sensory mechanisms that trigger devotion by pairing visual and tactile objects with scent. Adopting the tools of ritual found in a variety of spiritual practices and merging them with the production of sculptural objects, Zvonar is interested in the interplay between the invisible and the physical world. During the installation process Zvonar will burn incense that has a specifically commissioned west coast scent. The partially burned sticks will remain as an element of the concrete cast sculptural objects. This quiet act, observed in the remains of the partially burned incense stick, reinforces the sacrosanct relationship of the meditative ritual of arrangement. Focusing on our culture’s enthusiasm for reverence, Zvonar makes work that both questions and opens up the possibility of the extraordinary.

Elizabeth Zvonar graduated from Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design in 2001. She has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Canada at Artspeak; Western Front; Contemporary Art Gallery; Mercer Union; Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery; Vancouver Art Gallery; Oakville Gallery; Presentation House; among others. Internationally in New York, Australia, Japan and Belgium. In 2008, Zvonar was the inaugural artist at the Malaspina Print Research Residency and was an artist in residence at the Banff Centre for the thematic Cosmic Ray Research. Zvonar received the 2009 City of Vancouver Mayor’s Award for Emerging Visual Artist; in 2011 she was presented with the Emily Award for outstanding achievement by an Emily Carr alumna. From 2012-15 Zvonar held the post of City of Vancouver Artist in Residence. Her work has been seen most recently in Canada in the group show On Stage, Recent Acquisitions at the Vancouver Art Gallery and in her the solo presentation, I really do believe the best thing a person can do with themselves is expand their mind at Gallery 295. Zvonar was the 2015 recipient of the Shadbolt Foundation’s VIVA award.

Daniel Faria Gallery
188 St Helens Ave
Toronto ON

Text via Daniel Faria Gallery.

Gabriella Solti’s (’11) artist’s book, The Book of Hours, was awarded the MCBA Prize 2015 Juror's Special Recognition of Merit Award. The book will be exhibited at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts from July 17 to August 3, 2015 alongside with the other honoured works.  

The Book of Hours is a unique, 120 page codex that expresses the artist’s personal values relating to labour. The pages of the books are hand sanded chromium oxide and silicon carbide microfinishing films - surfaces that are extremely hard to erase -, interwoven with hand coloured frosted mylar and meticulously bound into a codex.  

Created in 2002 by the Sobey Art Foundation, the Sobey Art Award is Canada’s preeminent award for contemporary Canadian art. The annual $50,000 prize is given to an artist under 40 who has exhibited in a public or commercial art gallery within 18 months of being nominated.

The 2015 Shortlist, announced June 3, 2015, includes alumnus Raymond Boisjoly ('06), representing the West Coast and the Yukon. Raymond is an Indigenous artist of Haida and Quebecois descent from Chilliwack, BC. He has previously taught at Emily Carr as sessional faculty and we're pleased to announce he will join us August 1 as Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Visual Art and Material Practice, Audain School of Visual Arts.

Raymond is the recipient of the Fleck Fellowship at the Banff Centre (2010), and has exhibited locally at SFU Gallery, Contemporary Art Gallery and Catriona Jeffries Gallery, where he is currently represented. 

The 2015 Sobey Art Award winner will be announced at a gala event on October 28, 2015. View the complete 2015 Sobey Art Award Shortlist.  

Gabrielle Strong ('15) is the 2015 CERAM-AiR Artist-in-Residence at the Ceatani Centre in Vernon, BC. The Caetani Centre and the Arts Council of North Okanagan partner to present this residency. The residency invites ceramic and interdisciplinary artists to explore, develop and express thier creative voices by providing time and space for artists to pursue their work. Artists are encouraged to expand their understanding of ceramics and other mediums throughout the residency.

Gabrielle Strong recently graduated from Emily Carr University with a BFA in 2015. After 5 years of travelling by sea, much of Strong's work has focued on themes of water and reflection. Her move to Vernon to participate in the CERAM-AiR residency will allow her to explore a new landscape. She aims to cultivate a new connection to landscape, with a focus on painting and ceramics, throughout her residency.

Artist Talk with Gabrielle Strong
June 20th | 3pm
Ceatani Cultural Centre
3401 Pleasant Valley Road
Vernon, BC

Equinox Gallery presents Day School, a new exhibition of work by Sonny Assu ('02). Sonny Assu is currently a Masters Candidate in Fine Arts at Concordia University in Montreal. This exhibition marks his return to Vancouver and is his fourth solo exhibition with Equinox Gallery.

Sonny Assu's work investigates Indigenous iconography and the representation of First Nation's culture. This exhibition, titled in reference to the residental school system, reflects a history of systemic discrimination and an eradication of Indigeonous culture and language within Canada. The work in this exhibition reflects the artists' personal history and also examines larger narratives of the colonial education system and the lack and loss of Indigineous language within this system.

Sonny Assu is Laich-kwil-tach (Kwakwaka'wakw' of the We Wai Kai First Nation (Cape Mudge). He graduated from Emily Carr University of Art + Design in 2002 and went on to exhibit in galleries across North America. His work has appeared in solo shows at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery, Oakville Art Galleries, Two Rivers Gallery, West Vancouver Museum, Belkin Satellite, and the Art Gallery of Southwestern Mantioba. He has also participated in group exhibitions at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa Art Gallery, Vancouver Art Gallery and Museum of Arts & Design, New York. Most recently, his work has appeared at l'Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris.

Sonny Assu | Day School
Equinox Gallery
June 13 to July 11, 2015 

Emily Carr alumna Seeun Kim ('10) won a Gold Lion at Cannes Lions 2015 for her recent project Look at Me for Samsung.

As a creative art director she worked on the campaign at Cheil Worldwide and developed an app which helps children with autism make eye contact. The campaign which already has won both Silver and Bronze in Mobile this week at Cannes Lions, as well as a Silver Lion in PR.

Seeun Kim also received awards at D&AD, One Show and New York Festivals for Look at Me campaign this year. Cannes Lions is the world's biggest annual awards show and festival for professionals in the creative communications industry. Often called the world's biggest ad festival the annual event commonly attracts thousands of delegates from around the world attend the festival to view shortlisted work, attend seminars, workshops and master classes.

Alumnus Richard Heikkilä-Sawan('15) is the British Columbia Regional Winner for the 2015 BMO 1st Art! Invitational Student Art Competition.  

Richard's piece, Freedom Flag, consists of a large buffalo hide dyed in the six colours of the rainbow. The strips of hide have been placed on a wooden stretcher intended to be mounted on a gallery wall. Freedom Flag will be exhibited at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery in Toronto from October 22 - December 19, 2015.

Heikkilä-Sawan works with painting and sculpture. His work explores First Nations culture and identity from a personal lense. As a biracial artist not brought up within his birth culture, Heikkila-Sawan offers a unique perspective within a larger narrative.

Alumnus and Print Media Studio Tech Shinsuke Minegishi participates in a group exhibition Process/Expression: Prints/Impressions. 

Join the Langley Centennial Museum as they showcase the talent and creativity of local and regional print artists. This exploration of printmaking techniques will inspire a new affection for pressure, paper, and ink. From woodblock prints, to linocuts, to monotypes, the exhibition examines the complex processes behind the creation of printed artworks. Process/Expression: Prints/Impressions challenges perceptions while inspiring a new appreciation for light and shadow by investigating the unique, creative and innovative use of print media to express individual artistic points of view.

Langley Centennial Museum
February 28, 2016

Alumnus + Print Media Studio Tech Shinsuke Minegishi ('98)  is the recipient of the ART ZONE KAGURAOKA PRIZE at the 7th Annual Kyoto International Woodprint Association Exhibition.

An exhibition of winning works will be held at Kyoto Municipal Museum March 22 - 27, 2016.

Congratulations Shin!

The Bakery and Dynamo Arts Association present Bend Toward the Sun, Bring the Sky Beneath Your Feet, a group exhibition presented across two spaces, curated by alumna Jasmine Reimer (Toronto). 

Bend Toward the Sun, Bring the Sky Beneath Your Feet renders the words ‘flexible’ and ‘material’ as indefinite. Material, the matter from which all things are made or can be made is dilated, including not only physical objects and images but also mind and spirit. Materials produce materials. Seeped in charm and grace, flexibility is slippery evading specificity and explanation. Unexpectedly, we are confronted with the danger in bending, stretching, in risking a break, in the pleasure of meandering. Splinters and sagging slits, universal footwear and monochrome flora, wayward glue and terry cloth comfort set up the circumstances in which flexibility is equally an advantage and handicap. Confronting the ostensible relationship between supple maker and elastic thing, this exhibition questions the purpose of limitations; revised and confronted, boundaries become fluid, distant and permeable.

February 19 - March 4, 2016
Opening Reception(s) - Friday, February 19th, 2016
The Bakery 6pm-8pm
Dynamo Arts Association 8pm-10pm

Featuring work by: Johnny Burgess (Vancouver), Jessica Groome (Berlin), Steve & Meghann Hubert (Vancouver),Jenine Marsh (Toronto), Ella Dawn McGeough (Toronto) and Les Ramsay (Vancouver).