The Art Collective

Marisa Hoicka, who is studying Studio Arts, specialized in Visual Arts at Etobicoke School of the Arts. She is interested in painting, drawing, performance, video and other art media. She has a great interest in the female body and psychological relationships. She is further fascinated by health both physically, mentally and other forms. She shows her work in both Toronto and Montreal. In her spare time she enjoys ashtanga yoga, breakdancing, watching movies, reading and socializing.

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Judith Brisson, who specializes in Painting and Drawing, is "interested in pursuing political art that marries colourful painting with portraiture."

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Carina, who specializes in Studio Arts, focuses on "all aspects of art. Art for me is about being creative, having fun and creation."

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Kyla Chevrier, who is completing her Studio Arts studies, was featured in a show titled Own Yourself, between March 3-9, 2006, at the Bain Mathieu space in Montreal.

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Jessica Alfonso was born a fraternal twin, in 1977 in Montreal, her heritage is Cuban artist/musician father (born in Miami) and Irish mother, growing up in the Laurentians. Her website is called Studio Diaz; the name 'Diaz' is actually the true name of her Cuban grandfather (Boulivar Diaz) who, upon fleeing Castro's regime, purchased the papers of a man named Tony Alfonso. 'Studio Diaz' is a tribute to her true paternal heritage.

Jessica's adventures in artistic creations were cultivated by her father’s skilled guidance from age 3. She has garnered high-profile artistic awards, winning the Barbara Foreman Art Award in 1987-88, and the L.R.H.S. art award in 1994. She is a Concordia University Fine Arts graduate; learning under such notable artists as Leopold Plotek, François Morelli and Russel Gordon. She worked in new media and advertising for five years; returning in earnest to pursue her artistic career; along with being a Marketing Director at Virtus International, an event/conference planning company in downtown Montreal.

She is drawn to large and medium scale works on paper, mixed media, sculpture and installation. Themes that currently draw her interest are issues surrounding the struggles of Africa, violence (or violent objects) displaced and re-examined; a new series that re-conceptualizes carousels; and large' improvisational socio-cultural-political' paintings; and the issue of (in)visibilty/identity and fame of the visual arts in an entertainment, ad-saturated culture.

Her website is at:

Jessica's site

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Monica is a third-year Studio Arts student who works with drawing, painting, sculpture, ceramics and mixed media. She enjoys working spontaneously, watercolour painting and making large sculptures using paper mache. She is interested in art therapy.

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Shawn is a third-year student in the Studio Arts program at Concordia University.
Shawn's work can be viewed at:
Shawn's site

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Joanna, who is studying Studio Arts, says her recent work has been about bringing balance to life. "My head space is a hot little pocket where I keep my identity wrapped in pretty things and livid grotesques," Joanna says.

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Khadija is a final-year student in the Painting and Drawing program at Concordia University. In describing her work, Khadija says she focuses on women's issues, which she uses as a metaphor for her point of view. "The history of my nation and not having a voice or space in the world" are her central themes. Khadija wants her work to engage viewers "and tell them stories about myself as a woman and as a Kurdish person." The women's issue and the Kurdish one are linked by "the problem of not having enough space in the world," she says. Khadija has also illustrated children's books and done book covers.
You can view some of Khadija's earlier work at:
Khadija's work

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Cassandra Witteman's artistic preoccupations include magical systems and symbols of the movement of energy (chakras). Cassandra likes to make magical objects such as tarot cards, scrying mirrors, masks etc. Other artistic preoccupations include the dichotomy between freedom and bondage, and "the inside and outside existing simulataneously." Cassandra, who has just completed two years of theatre training in Toronto, said she is also interested in relationships between practical construction and artistic conception. In terms of materials, she is interested in weaving and textiles as a mode of artistic expression.

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David's interests include mathematics, chaos, art and noise. Technology and the interface between human and machine are also referenced in his work. David is a third-year Studio Arts student at Concordia University in Montreal, taking mostly painting and drawing. He also sometimes uses Photoshop and Illustrator in his work.

thebeerfish@hotmail.com

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Sonomi, a second-year Studio Arts student, describes her interests this way:

Lately I have been interested in graphic novels, both American and Japanese. I can't seem to make a whole comic but I like single frames in a comic that may not have to do with another. That's what I like to do but I don't know if it's my specialty. I find people never cease to interest me, and they tend to be the thing I do the most.

sontan@gmail.com

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Bea Parsons, who is interested in oil painting and meditation, is an Art Education student in the Faculty of Fine Arts at Concordia University in Montreal. Her contributions to The Collective have included suggesting strong themes for drawings and helping determine how our work would be shown on the Interactive Wall project at our first show. Bea also worked on our new logo's design, which can be seen at the top of our home page. When it was time for the next person to work on this key piece at our Nov. 19 session, held in the VAV Gallery in downtown Montreal, we knew Bea's careful work would enhance the design.

bea.parsons@shaw.ca

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email: art@cogev.com
web: www.cogev.com/turenne

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Stephanie Reynolds studied art history at Concordia University and studio arts at York University. She teaches art classes for children and teenagers at the Preville Fine Arts Centre.

Here is how she describes her work:

I get my ideas for pictures from childhood memories. This seems natural, since I feel that I was most open to creative process and interpretation as a young child. My family’s photo album has always been an object of fascination to me, and I appropriate its images to re-create and re-interpret my childhood. The central issue in my work is how I understood my place in the world as a girl.

reynolds_stephanie@hotmail.com

Continue reading "Stephanie Reynolds" »

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Jarmila Kavena is a member of The Collective who had a busy early fall as she prepared for her one-month show at the Maison de la culture Plateau Mont-Royal, which opened Oct. 28. The show, part of Jarmila's foundry series, is part of a key interest she is developing in using the foundry as a metaphor. Jarmila's artistic experience and strong interest in the aesthetics of The Collective's process helped us get off to a good start.

Continue reading "Jarmila Kavena" »

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Robert is a Montreal artist and writer whose preoccupations include the body as landscape, genetic manipulation and the pervasive influence of the media and technology within our nervous systems and perceptions. As co-ordinator of The Collective, Robert receives advice on the group's direction and processes from François Morelli, a Studio Arts professor at Concordia University, whose large-scale drawing Carousel was a highlight of the 2002 Montreal Biennale.

Robert is also pursuing an independent drawing project under Morelli's supervision, involving weaving of images and text into a non-linear visual narrative that explores conscious and subconscious experience. Robert is also co-ordinating work on a new journal, Collaboration, whose goal is to create a forum for discussion of collaborative art-making practices and theory.

Robert's work was shown in the May 2003 exhibition of the Trans-species Collective at the Belgo Building, one of the leading art centres in Montreal. The Trans-species Collective's show, curated by artist and teacher Juliana España Keller, was co-sponsored by Montreal daily newspaper The Gazette, which provided $3,400 in advertising support, and Concordia University's VAV Gallery.

Continue reading "Robert Winters" »

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Founding members of The Art Collective have provided invaluable assistance in the past and continue to give feedback and ideas that help shape what we do.

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Rodrigo Marti was a third-year painting and drawing student when he helped found The Art Collective. Rodrigo has been involved in shaping several key ideas that have guided the collective, including helping design the Interactive Wall concept used in the group's first show. He was involved in the discussion that led to the "I Curator" theme that allowed visitors to the gallery to curate a section of work on the wall. Rodrigo also participated in the Trans-species Collective show at the Belgo building in downtown Montreal in May 2003.

rodrigomarti1@hotmail.com

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The Collective's associate members provide support for the group in various ways, participating in special events or providing valuable input to help us grow. We thank these affiliated artists for their invaluable assistance.

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Juliana España Keller is a Visual Artist and Educator presently living and working in Montreal, Canada.
Her installations, performances and videos have been presented in Canada and internationally. She holds a BFA in Painting and Drawing and an MFA in Sculpture, both from Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec.

Juliana takes an interdisciplinary approach to her practice by combining new technologies with traditional practice. With this methodology, she develops work that is framed around a re-examination and reconsideration of ideas of traditional portraiture and masquerade by examining the roles between artist, audience and artifact.

More information about her practice can be found on her website if you click here:
Juliana's site

Her latest body of work was presented in a group exhibition with four international artists at the MUU gallery in Helsinki, Finland. More information on this exhibition can be found by clicking here:
Helsinki exhibition

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The Art Collective welcomes emerging artist Philomène Longpré as an affiliated member.
Philomène, a multimedia artist who specializes in interactive art, has followed the collective’s progress and sent a message for our first Interactive Wall in November 2004.
Philomène did her BFA at Concordia, including several exceptional electronic-arts pieces that won awards in Montreal, just completed her two-year MFA from the School of Art Institute of cChicago, in Art and Technology Studies, where she studied after winning the school’s top scholarship, worth about $100,000 U.S.

Philomène says the school’s Thesis show was huge, involving 150 MFA students exhibiting on three floors, with more than 10,000 visitors. After graduating, the Chicago school offered her a teaching position, where she is working now. She also has two shows planned in Montreal in early 2007.

Images of her work are posted on our website, under Photos. To check out her website, go to: www.philox.net

You can read a story about Philomene and her work on the Fine Arts Chapter section of the Concordia University Alumni Association’s website,

http://alumni.concordia.ca/calendar/2004/06/06/002034.shtml

Continue reading "Philomène Longpré" »

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Chan Tchen is a third-year Fine Arts student who is focusing on printmaking. Chan worked intensively on pieces during several sessions of the Interactive Wall project at the VAV Gallery in November 2004. In one of his pieces posted on the wall at the show, Chan said he had been attempting to create a new language. Another participant in the show quickly added a layer. You can see this piece in the "Our Work" section of the Photos gallery.

chan.tchen@sympatico.ca

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Simone Rochon was a member of the Trans-species Collective, a forerunner of The Art Collective. Simone participated in the interactive event at the Belgo Building in April 2003 that produced the large-scale pieces exhibited in November 2005 as part of The Art Collective's show at the VAV Gallery in downtown Montreal. She also participated in the first Interactive Wall project of The Art Collective at the VAV Gallery in November 2004. To read about an art project Simone worked on with Montreal artist Ulgen Semerci, click here:
Story about Simone

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