Opening reception: Thursday April 13, 5:00–8:00 pm
The Department of Fine Arts and UWAG present the first of two thesis exhibitions by Master of Fine Arts (MFA) candidates from the graduate program in Fine Arts at the University of Waterloo. MFA Thesis gives the campus and community-at-large an opportunity to see the end result of two years of intensive research and studio production by emerging visual artists.
Gallery
One
Jess
Lincoln
An
Interior
"What if I painted wallpaper?" This proposition relates to my interest in the psychological and social function of décor and decorative labour. An Interior is an investigation through the lens of my body and experience, and the installation serves to emphasize this line of inquiry. The paintings that cover the walls alternate between large and narrow panels. The imagery is domestic. The large panels are structured by a repeated geometric quilt pattern and each contains one large central ‘figure’, which might be my body or a substitute—a mass of flowers, a heap of clothing. The narrow panels consist of smaller paintings where the images are more varied: a pair of boxed pantyhose, the guts of a miniature pumpkin, an empty photo frame. A figure wearing a bedsheet, like a child’s Halloween ghost costume, appears as a gesturing guide. Floral patterns repeat throughout. Desaturated purples, peaches, blues and beiges are punctuated by patterns of metallic gold and black. The overall effect is of being engulfed in a complex and claustrophobic domestic space.
Gallery
Two
Alexis
Grey
Hildreth
9
Sum
Sorcery
9 Sum Sorcery is a free-form game system; a single-player occultural study; a ritualized re-negotiation of post-consumer packaging and retail detritus—cardboard backing, foam packing, clamshell casing, box inserts, rubber bands, and tagging barbs. 'The Player' pursues alchemical goals, across, beneath, and within the deconstructed space of vintage board games Chaos and Merlin. These archaic modes of entertainment are seized upon by the imagination of The Player in an exasperated attempt at the regeneration and renewal of self and world through intuitive play. The Player's desire to simultaneously project narrative onto, and remove narrative from the components in play further complicates the game. Combining multidisciplinary sculptural elements and video, 9 Sum Sorcery encourages engagement in a spiritual ordeal, where the potential for transformation through obsessive gameplay can readily become an eerily paralyzing psychosis.