Opening reception: Thursday June 2, 5:00–8:00 pm
The Department of Fine Arts and UWAG present the third 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.
*Please join us in celebrating the thesis work of our MFA candidates in-person! Visitors are required to comply with campus safety guidelines
Amber
Lee
Williams
Heavy
as
a
Cloud
Heavy as a Cloud is a collection of phenomena that alludes to the fragility and transience of life: clouds drifting away, waves rolling in, flowers fading in the sun, a lingering fragrance, and crumbling sandcastles. Using photographic and sculptural mediums, the exhibition considers human experiences such as grief and memory mediated through everyday objects and elements of nature, to represent states of impermanence. It explores how grief can be contained within objects and photographs, but also felt in the world around us. Through ephemeral themes and materials, it asks: How is loss contained? How are we remembered after we die? This work resides in a place of desire—a longing to hold things that cannot be held, to fix a moment that is gone, to make physical things out of the intangible.
Amber Lee Williams is an interdisciplinary artist from the Niagara region. Family is at the center of her practice. Her research resides in and around the home: observing and photographing the daily lives of her children, as well as drawing inspiration from the possessions and photographs left behind by deceased loved ones. Bringing the past into the present, navigating the inevitable shifting of relationships, and thinking about how everyday objects can serve as prompts to remembering are important methodologies in her work. Amber not only explores the way in which we are remembered, but also all that is lost.
Amber Lee Williams, Crepuscular Rays (detail), 2022, Polaroid emulsion lift. Image courtesy of the artist.