It's almost time for Explorations!

Explorations officially opens today, and the opening gala is this Friday from 7-9pm!

Here's a little photographic review of what these past few weeks leading up to the show have been about.

Last you heard from me, I was wondering the best way to display my work. Well, I started an experiment with photo transfers on canvas....

My photo-transfer process.

Lining up the transfers, trying to figure out a configuration.

Underpainting.

First coat.

Second coat.

Rethinking configurations.

Thinking about configurations of multiple sets on the wall.

Putting wire on the back of each canvas...

Then, my classmate Eben and I volunteered to make a poster for the show. 

"What should be on the poster?"

"I dunno, random colourful brushstrokes or drips?"

"Sounds good to me!"

Creating a drip painting to photograph for a promotional poster.

See the final product at the top of the page!

Monday, we set about hanging the show. With 15 artists, and WAY different styles and methods, this proved to be quite the challenge! We carted paintings back and forth to see how pieces interacted... but we finally found a visually cohesive layout. Yay!

Come to the opening to see all the amazing works in person, and to talk to the artists, grab some munchies, drink some wine, and see what we've all been working on since January!

Check out the Facebook event here. If you can't make it to the opening, the show will be up until Sunday, April 8th.

The Navigator: Student Profile

A couple weeks ago, I met up with Tamu Miles, the Arts Editor for VIU's student newspaper, the Navigator. Every issue, she does a profile on a student of interest within the arts. Since I've had Creative Writing courses with Tamu over the past couple years, she asked me if I would be interested in being interviewed. My answer? Of course!

Here's an except from the article:

As an artist, Godel paints, draws, takes photographs, and works with clay. Currently, she is finishing up her last course for Visual Arts and, along with her classmates, is working towards creating a final graduating project that will be revealed at the end of Mar. in a show called "Explorations." For Godel, this project involves combining and exploring the different mediums she works with. "My focus has been a continuation of what I started last semester in a directed study where I went to life drawing classes but brought clay, so I was actually sculpting the figure very quickly and spontaneously." Later, she went home and photographed, drew, and painted the sculptures, saying that "[she's] kind of continuing that exploration and the interaction between the different media." 

Godel says that she has found that some of her best work comes out of being spontaneous and working quickly. "And then [transferring] into . . . other media as well, like painting quickly [and] not too meticulously. We had our first critique for this graduating class and I had some paintings, and what I thought were the best results was when I worked quickly and wasn't too worried about details." To add drama to the clay sculptures, Godel photographs them and then draws or paints from these photographs. "I'm just finding that whereas you just have a little figure of a sculpture, how it's presented, how somebody sees it doesn't always have the same impact. The medium of clay can sometimes be viewed as something less, or kind of be looked over."

You can read the rest of the article here.

The opening night of Explorations is coming up on March 30th, from 7-9pm, so remember to book that night off and come support the graduating students!

Please also check out updates about the upcoming Portal issue and launch. You can check out the blog, and make sure to come to the launch on March 27th!