The Art Collective

Our next meeting is Friday March 3, 1030 to 130, in VA 315. We are expecting a new artist to join us, Angeliki Gketsou, who recently graduated in design and is interested in what we are doing. Welcome Angeliki.

Global TV show: If you’re up early Friday, you can tune in to Global TV, between 6 and 9, as collective members Stephanie Reynolds, Monica Eckert and Robert Winters do a large scale collaborative piece with Art Matters co-producers Corina Kennedy and Emily Shanahan, and Rebecca St. John, who is working on special events for Art Matters, including the collective’s events. The producers of the show only wanted a very small number of artists to be on the small set and Art Matters will have three or four people there as the event is designed to promote the festival. Monica and Stephanie courageously volunteered to be at the studio at 5 a.m. to help with setup and to start the piece.

We also have some major Art Matters special events coming in the next few days and they are not-to-be missed occasions that should produce some interesting art. If you would like to play a co-ordination role at one or more of these activities, please let me know.

Tuesday March 7 at the VAV Gallery, 6 to 11 p.m.

There will be painting and drawing, and a separate collage piece as well as colouring of drawings by Montreal artist François Morelli that will be made into a video and put on our website and used for installations. UQAM students are also going to be coming as it’s the second week of the French Kiss show with art from the two schools. Setup will start at 5 p.m.

Wednesday March 8 at the Reading Room, 2nd floor of the EV building, from noon until 4. This is a smaller-scale event. We put up pieces done that day in the reading room, which stay up during Art Matters.

Tuesday March 14: ground floor of EV building, noon until 5 p.m., by entrance to future Faculty of Fine Arts Gallery. (This will be a major event, as with VAV event, and anybody that can make it will be needed, as it will be hard to keep things organized even though we will have Art Matters volunteers helping us out at this event and the VAV event.) We can put up our show on one wall of the space; this is the show that came out of the curating session that Montreal artist Holly King did on Feb. 10. We will put up our show starting at 11. There will also be an interactive wall area, where people can work on small pieces and put them up, and/or curate the wall.

We will have video cameras at the VAV and EV events, anyone who has experience with shooting video should contact me if they would like to help out in documenting the events. Also if you would like to play a co-ordination role at any or all of the events, please let me know as well.

(Also at each event, participants can colour drawings by Montreal artist François Morelli, which will be made into a video that will be put on our website.)

Thursday March 16: UQAM’s Café des arts, 11 to 3 p.m. A repeat of last year’s excellent event. We have co-sponsorship again from Capteur de rêves, UQAM’s arts promotion group.

Friday March 17, 1 to 4 p.m., VAV Gallery: Alumni/Art Matters careers panel and portfolio feedback workshop. High profile photographer Nicolas Baier, Ellen Gallery director/curator Michele Thériault, art as a business teacher Maria Torres are featured, along with the moderator, painter Tom Hopkins. The collective helped with the event last year and will help again this year; including moving chairs around at the halfway point. Students and alumni welcome, good refreshments.

Our next show is going to be April 9 to 15 in the VA building lobby, including individual work. The show goes up on April 9 and the vernissage will be Tuesday April 11.

Several of The Art Collective’s members and friends are presenting work during Art Matters, including Bea Parsons, Trevor Kiernander, Kyla Chevrier, Shawn Kuruneru, Khadija C. Baker and Susan Westbrook.

Bea Parsons is showing a ceramics piece called Giant at Darling Foundry, 745 Ottawa, from March 3 to March 10. Vernissage is Saturday March 4, 5 to 9 p.m.

Also at Darling Foundry is work by Trevor Kiernander, who is showing Abattoir, a four-paneled painting “exploring the abattoir in rotation, or quite simply, the slaughtered beef carcass.” The work examines “the subject removed from its original context while making reference to abstract and representational painting.”

Kyla Chevrier is presenting work at Bain Mathieu, 2915 Ontario East, metro Frontenac, from March 3 to 8, vernissage is Friday March 3 at 8 p.m. Kyla is showing work titled Own Yourself. “Hint Hint … it’s more than tits and ass. Own Yourself is a commentary on the objectification of women and the stereotypical perspective that pervasively invades contemporary culture.”

Shawn Kuruneru presents work at Casa Del Popolo, 4873 St. Laurent, in a show curated by Chantal Musgrove, who attended several of the first sessions of The Art Collective in the fall of 2004. Continues until March 30. Vernissage is Monday March 6, 8 p.m. Shawn is presenting drawing work titled Black Out. “You never miss the water till the well is dry/you never miss your baby till she says goodbye.”

Khadija C. Baker presents work at Nota Bene, 3416 Ave. du Parc. “I use a metaphor of a female for being Kurdish. As women have not found their proper place in the world, the Kurdish people do not own a country on a map,” is how she describes her painting. The show runs until March 17, with the vernissage on March 19, 6 to 8 p.m.

Also at Nota Bene is work by Vanessa McKernan, titled Mother May I. “I love her fiercely. Lean on her, look like her. All the while desperately separating my beliefs, aggressively, passively, affectionately.”

Susan Westbrook is presenting work at Art Mur, 5826 St. Henri St., metro Rosemont, from March 11 to March 18. The vernissage is March 11, 1 to 4 p.m. Susan is presenting work from a series of paintings that “explores how images can stand in for an absent person or context, and the way in which they can assume and even supercede the importance of authentic memories.”

Alexa Helbig-Berghoff-Auel presents work at Divan Orange, 4234 St. Laurent Blvd. Runs until March 30, vernissage is March 8, 5 to 7 p.m.

Beyond Art Matters, the rest of the art world is ticking along too.

Don’t miss Laura St. Pierre’s opening: Vernissage is Friday March 3 for Laura St. Pierre’s show, This End Up, at Galerie Articule, 4001 Berri St., #105. The show continues until April 9 and includes an artist’s talk on Saturday March 11 at 3 p.m. Laura is an MFA student and an instructor at Concordia whose Drawing class did a collaborative art making workshop conducted by Robert Winters on Feb. 16, 2006. A photo of Laura and collective member Judith Brisson at the collaborative session can be viewed in the Photos section of our gallery.

The Art Collective’s sessions are open to all Fine Arts students, alumni and professional artists.

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