The Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Thesis exhibitions give 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. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting cancellation of the physical thesis exhibitions of the MFA candidates, the Department of Fine Arts and University of Waterloo Art Gallery (UWAG) invite you to explore their exhibitions online.
The first virtual exhibition features the work of Becca Wijshijer and Tyler Matheson and can be experienced online or with the downloadable catalogue (PDF).
Becca
Wijshijer
shrimpychip
YouTube
shrimpychip YouTube is a series of YouTube videos that explore the ways in which digital intimacy and capitalism intersect. The performances, designed for the platform, strategically exploit the intimacy of the body, home, and notions of privacy in order to highlight the counterintuitive relationships embodied in new digital capitalism. Editing and aesthetics of social platforms are employed to stress the strangeness of these new economic, cultural, social, and private relationships. In documenting myself using AI and search tools, the work functions as a digital archive of actions and perceptions, thereby providing a firsthand account of the body and thoughts as they are mediated by technology. By following trends tirelessly, to the point of the ridiculous, shrimpychip empathizes with Internet culture while amplifying aspects of concern.
Becca Wijshijer is a research-based artist working within digital media. Wijshijer is an MFA candidate at the University of Waterloo, and received a BFA from OCAD University. They have exhibited at La Centrale galerie Powerhouse in Montreal; Supermarket 2019 in Stockholm, Sweden; and are alumni of The Roundtable Residency in Toronto.
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Tyler
Matheson
Any
other
name
would
smell
as
sweet
Any other name would smell as sweet is an exploration of personal and shared experiences of feeling queer. This exhibition serves as an aesthetic and material investigation of the performativity of othered bodies, identities, and visibility. The process of becoming and adapting to surroundings is conceptually and experientially present in my work. When creating installations, I employ mirrors and queer-coded reflective materials. By choosing materials that have the visual capability to shift and transform their appearance depending on the viewer’s body and position in relation to the work, I create a spatial dynamism where each individual's experience is uniquely their own—where the viewer and the work are reliant on each other. In this codependent performance, the gallery becomes a site where viewers can be projected into queer liminal space—a bridge between worlds.
Tyler Matheson is an MFA candidate at the University of Waterloo and received a Bachelor of Fine Art from York University. He has exhibited in Montreal and Toronto. He was awarded a Shantz International Research Scholarship through the University of Waterloo, and worked with German artists Fabian Treiber and Dave Bopp in the summer of 2019. He was a recipient of the 2019 Superframe Framing Fund.
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Jurakic,
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ijurakic@uwaterloo.ca
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