The Art Collective

We also will be working on large pieces for our show, which runs April 9 to 13 in the Visual Arts building’s lobby. The opening is set for Tuesday April 11. We will be putting up individual work as well as collaborative work from the curating session done by Montreal artist Holly King.
Finally, collective founding member David King made the good suggestion last week that we work on several large pieces for the show, so we plan to start these on Friday. I will be bringing in a fresh roll of stonehenge paper, provided for by the Fine Arts Student Alliance in its generous funding of The Art Collective.
Besides bagels and coffee, we will have a fresh bottle of a new juice we’ll try, made from peach, apple and passion fruit.
Individual work will be included in the show on the basis of participation in this semester’s sessions and activities, as space is limited.
Art Matters: Congratulations to everybody who participated in our events during Art Matters, they were very successful and helped raised awareness for what we’re doing. The major event we did on the ground floor of the new EV building was unique as no other art making has taken place in public spaces at the building. The symbolic first mark was made by Lynn Beavis, co-ordinator of the new Faculty of Fine Arts Gallery. Our event was in the Halle des Vernissages for the gallery, which is to open this summer.
Another Art Matters special event in the EV building was the interactive session we did in the lounge outside the reading room, with the help of festival special events co-ordinator Rebecca St. John, who put gesso on the collage/mixed media piece from the VAV Gallery session on March 7, and brought it to the reading room event the next day.
Rebecca also worked hard to organize our materials after the VAV Gallery event and to make sure the gallery was in great shape after we finished, a key consideration as the VAV had a major show going on at the time. Rebecca also helped guide the aesthetics of the mixed-media piece as it was completed at the reading room event. The VAV Gallery and its directors, Michelle Lacombe and Evita Karasek, also played a key role by letting us do the interactive event in the midst of their excellent French Kiss show with work from Concordia and UQAM students.
Judith helped set up for the VAV event and helped bring materials to the EV event and the UQAM event, as well as helping set up at both events. Stephanie Reynolds played a key co-ordinating role for the Interactive Wall No. 7 at the VAV Gallery, did collaborative work at UQAM’s Café des arts and worked on large-scale pieces at the EV event. Jessica Alfonso brought over two of the large scale pieces to the EV building that had been started by herself and Sonomi Tanaka. Stephanie started the third piece.
These pieces, done on a roll of stonehenge paper cut into pieces almost two metres long, were sketched out as a way of providing a starting point for a cohesive piece, rather than having to resolve numerous disparate elements placed on the large sheet of paper, as was done at previous interactive events. When this was evaluated at last Friday’s session, it was felt that this had been successful, especially when the original work wasn’t taken too far, allowing considerable latitude for the spontaneous art-making the day of the event.
David King played a key role in co-ordinating the large-scale painting and drawing piece at the VAV Gallery and in working on the piece begun by Sonomi at the EV building, along with Jarmila Kavena and Stephanie. François Morelli said after the event that he liked this piece, which has an element of fantasy in it. He was also pleased with the elaborate colouring that was done on many of his drawings that were coloured during the EV and VAV Gallery sessions. They will be included in a video with other drawings coloured at the Musée du Québec.
At the March 10 session, Jarmila worked on the piece done at Global television, touching it up before it was placed on display in the atrium of the EV building. It comes down on Friday.
Jessica also helped tidy up after the EV event and helped bring back the materials to the VA building after. She also worked on the large-scale piece she had begun, which has a political edge to it, including an image of a black woman as the statue of liberty.
Collective member Kyla Chevrier worked on large-scale pieces at the VAV and EV events, and also helped document the events by taking photos, as did Robert Winters. Judith and Robert also shot video at the VAV Gallery event, including of the performance piece done by Cassandra Wittome at the VAV.
The piece, which explored issues of advertising and self-esteem, related to the beauty industry, included Cassandra ingesting beauty products, in the form of food prepared to resemble these products. A photo of Cassandra’s performance can be viewed in the Photos gallery. Cassandra also helped with the counter drawing and colouring activity at the EV building, as did members Marisa Hoicka and Joanna Nawracaj. Marisa also worked on the large-scale painting and drawing piece at the VAV Gallery as did Sonomi Tanaka and Art Matters co-producers Emily Shanahan and Corina Kennedy, whose work can be seen in the current Concordia undergraduate show at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Gallery.
Carina Phillips worked on the large-scale painting and drawing piece at the VAV Gallery, as did Jessica. Collective member Shawn Kuruneru also stopped by at the VAV event.
Monica Eckert, who played a key role at the Global Television event, worked on several pieces at last Friday’s session.
Our show at UQAM’s CEDx gallery has been rescheduled for May 13 to 20.
Finally, there’s a Fine Arts Alumni/Art Matters short film festival this Sunday afternoon at the DeSeve cinema, on ground floor of library building at 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W.
http://news.concordia.ca/entertainment/006549.shtml

Robert Winters
Co-ordinator, The Art Collective
robertwinters@videotron.ca