The Comox Valley Art Gallery’s visiting artists present exhibitions, facilitate Make Art Projects, and undertake creative residencies, enabling diverse community interaction. As part of this initiative, the gallery works with local partners. North Island College and Emily Carr University will be presenting our exhibiting artists as part of their Artist Talk Series (Winter 2017). The talks are an engaging opportunity to learn more about the individual practices of these artists.
Time: Tuesdays 12 pm – 12:50 pm
Location: Stan Hagen Theatre, Komoux Hall, NIC Comox Valley campus
Admission is FREE and lectures are open to the public.
Neil McClelland and Jeroen Witvliet – Feb 28
exhibition January 21 – February 25
make art project January 21
Jeroen Witvliet is an artist born in the Netherlands. He has received his BFA from the Willem de Kooning Academie, Rotterdam, and studied at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Jeroen received his MFA from the University of Victoria, BC in 2014. He has had numerous solo and group exhibitions at artist run, commercial and public galleries in Europe and North America.
Neil McClelland is a Canadian artist originally from Quebec and currently located in Victoria, British Columbia. He received his MFA from the University of Victoria in 2014 and is a 2016 Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation grantee. Neil was the 2010 artist-in-residence at Harcourt House and an active member of the Edmonton art community during the many years he lived in Alberta. He has exhibited in artist-run, public, and commercial galleries across Canada and teaches at Vancouver Island School of Art and at the University of Victoria.
Sonny Assu was raised in North Delta, BC, over 250 km away from his home ancestral home on Vancouver Island. Having been raised as your “everyday average suburban white-kid” it was not until he was eight years old that he discovered his Kwakwaka’wakw heritage. Later in life, this discovery would be the conceptual focal point of his contemporary art practice.
Vida Simon & Jack Stanley – Mar 14
exhibition March 1 – April 13
make art project March 4
ongoing performances March 11, 15, 17, 18, 23
Kitchen Party community potluck March 23
Vida Simon’s work incorporates various media combined to form site-responsive installations and performances. Her work has been presented internationally, in a wide range of contexts-galleries, hotel rooms, storefronts, theatres, rooftops, a former synagogue, an old horse stable, and a century-old house on Fogo Island, Newfoundland. Jack Stanley is a writer, curator and arts administrator based in Montreal. His interest in institutional critique started in the ‘90s while studying at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Since then he has been preoccupied with the issue of place and the often-overlooked significance of context in the production and reception of artworks.
Rita Mckeough – Mar 21
creative residency March 20 – 25; Summer 2017
Rita McKeough is a Calgary-based audio, media installation and performance artist who has exhibited throughout Canada since the late 1970s. Her work has been featured in Radio Rethink: Essays on Art, Sound and Transmission (Banff Centre for the Arts, 1993) and Caught in the Act: Canadian Women in Performance (YYZ Books, 2004). Born in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. McKeough studied printmaking and sculpture at the University of Calgary where she received her BFA. She went on to study at the NSCAD University where she was awarded her MFA. In 2009 she was awarded the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts.