September 16, 2015
BURLINGTON, ON
Part 3 of a 3 part feature
All of the artists taking part in the Supernova this Friday are looking at the weather forecasts – this is an outdoor event.
throughout the area are gathering together the material and tools they will need to set up their art installations along Old Lakeshore Road for the third annual No Vacancy event – which this year is being called Supernova.
Dozens of art ventures will appear on the Old Lakeshore Road, immediately outside, adjacent to and across the road from Emma’s Back Porch the evening of Friday, September 18th beginning at 7 pm – the installations will be in place until just after midnight and then disappear just as quickly as they appeared.
The now annual event that began in 2013 at the Waterfront Hotel where new ground was broken in the Burlington arts world. The second year drew 3500 people to the Village Square made No Vacancy, which is given a different title each year, an event that was now a must for the city.
Selena Eckersal and her crew – the people making all this happen with a piddling $5000 in financial support have announced that The Poacher Ukulele Band will be performing at SUPERNOVA on September 18th on Old Lakeshore Rd in Downtown Burlington, Ontario. They are a fun, passionate group that will have you singing and dancing along with them! Stay tuned to find out exactly what time and where they will be playing.
The Gazette has given a bit of a background on each of the participants – there are about 20+ of them – all up for one enchanting evening.
We start this time with:
Emilio Portal
My practice is based on hunting and creating stories, scenarios and objects that explore the hidden, oppressed, unexpected, appalling, subtle and forgotten.
I am of mixed ancestry: my father is Peruvian; my mother, French Canadian. My origin is a constant personal reminder of the complex story of colonialism, expansion, growth, and its precarious and paradoxical terrain.
Through a multiplicity of means, (story-telling, photography, drawing, printmaking, poetry, video, sound, woodworking, installations and slow performances) I contemplate the questions:
How do we make meaning?
What is our ethos?
emilioportal.com
Liz Little is a multidisciplinary artist working mainly in drawing, printmaking, and installation. She is a recent MFA graduate from the University of Waterloo and received a BFA with Distinction from Concordia University in 2010. Her work has been exhibited in Canada, the United States, and Germany and is part of national and international private collections. She is the recipient of several scholarships and awards, including the Sylvia Knight Award in Fine Arts, the Keith and Win Shantz Fellowship, and the Bill Watson Memorial Award for Printmaking. She currently lives and works in Toronto, ON.
lizlittle.org
Caitlyn Jean McMillan
Caitlyn Jean McMillan earned her Bachelor’s Degree at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay ON in 2008, her Masters of Fine Arts at the University of Regina in Regina, SK in 2012, and completed two residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts in 2008 and 2010. Since graduating, Caitlyn has shown in Thunder Bay, Toronto, Sudbury, and Sarnia, where she currently juggles art-making while working as the Community Arts Educator at the Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery.
Caitlyn Jean works in a variety of media, from painting and drawing to new media and projection. Sometimes she enlists the help of Lisa Smith for her expertise with new media work.
caitlynjean.com
Miles Rufelds
Miles Rufelds is a video and media artist from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He received his Bachelor of Fine Art from the University of Ottawa in the spring of 2015. Coming from a background of abstract drawing and painting, he has come to work primarily in video and installation art, but branches at times into photography, sculpture, and audio. Rufelds’ art addresses the absurd and often-contradictory relationships that have existed between human beings and inanimate objects throughout history, abstractly questioning the role that nonhuman things can play in both the construction and diagnosis of the post-industrial human psyche. He has exhibited in various channels of the Ontario art community, such as the University of Ottawa’s Gallery 115 and Paradigm Gallery, as well as Cambridge, Ontario’s Idea Exchange gallery.
And All Was Bright
And All Was Bright (Ben Robertson) is a musician and multimedia installation artist from Burlington, Ontario, Canada. His sound arrangements are progressive, emotive and strongly driven by concept; they span the spectrum of melodic dronescapes, noise, and heavy distortion. His video arrangements are abstract yet convey the underlying concepts behind the work. The installations are fully immersive. He fills the performance space with heavily-processed sound, projected visuals and controlled lighting, occupying the viewers’ auditory, visual, and physical senses.
andallwasbright.com
VERSA
Versa is an audio/visual collaboration between process-based artist Monika Hauck and musician Alex Ricci. Influenced by contemporary soundscape, instrumental post-rock and 60’s psychedelic, the project combines heavily effected bass guitar compositions with projected visuals created live on stage. The composition of the music serves as a cause for the visuals, and vice versa; the need for movement in the visuals dictates choices made in the arrangement.
Tomy Bewick
Tomy Bewick is the founder, host and artistic director of the Burlington Slam Project (BSP), a monthly poetry platform in Burlington, On. He is a poet familiar with national and international finals stages, as well as a full-time professional with a specialty in environmentally sustainable construction (LEED AP, BD+C). Tomy has published two collections of poems, released three full length spoken word CD’s and featured across Canada, with multiple appearances in the US. He enjoys working with new poetic voices in his community, as well as continuing to provide a platform for local and international artists to share their words, at the BSP.
www.burlingtonslam.wordpress.com
Klaus Pinter
Klaus Pinter is an International Artist who Lives and works in Vienna. Quite how he wound up in Burlington is something you can ask him when yiou meet him Friday evening.
klaus-pinter.net
Frances Adair McKenzie
Picture
Frances Adair Mckenzie lives and works in Montréal. She combines genres and technologies to invoke fantastical internal and external worlds. Her work results in a din of concentrated effects, melding both high and low cultural references.
Frances attained a diploma in New Media from B.C.I.T. and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Concordia University. The National Film Board of Canada has com- missioned her animations and her work has been exhibited at the Musée de art Contemporain de Montréal, and the Société des Arts Technologiques. Frances also collaborates with Aleks Schurmer, to form the collective Party Like it’s 1699. The collective’s aim is to take classical music from the confines of the modern concert hall and reclaim it as a popular medium in the form of a digital Baroque opera.
Brody Robinmeyer is of European-Dominican descent, was born in Toronto moved to Iceland and then back to Ontario. Briefly studied in the U.K. as well as Germany. Graduated with a fine arts degree from Ryerson University. His artistic practice is strongly influenced by current scientific understanding and its intersection with eastern philosophies (i.e. hsin hsin ming). Currently working from his atelier in Hamilton.
Ms. Anonymous
Ms. Anonymous has been namelessly creating art for almost two decades. You may have already seen her work without knowing it was hers, been in her presence without noticing her, and been touched by her work in some way. Ms. Anonymous prefers to remain nameless, faceless and unknown without the need for any recognition. She wishes for her art to speak for itself, with a voice of its own and an energy and life force that lives beyond the need for a creative host. Ms. Anonymous believes that it is her anonymity that allows her to be bold, provocative and unafraid in art.