Anne Steves was in residence in CVAG’s GATHER:PLACE through April and May 2021 for an incubator project and research + production residency as part of the gallery’s OFFSITE_ONSITE convergent program leading to the exhibition Under One Sky 16 June – 4 September.
Anne’s research + production residency at CVAG expanded her ongoing community incubator project, ‘a sense of abandon / but not a lack of discipline’, that fosters connections between artists working in different places and continues her “exploration of distance and belonging through making and craft.” During the residency period, Anne continued the labour of expanding this social engagement project onsite at the gallery. Situated in GATHER:PLACE, this incubator project engaged community locally and across Canada. As part of her ongoing research, Anne hosted virtual make art gatherings for the wider community to collage along side her while she was onsite. Documentation of the virtual make art events, slow mail exchanges with artists locally and in faraway places were presented on the CVAG website and through social media. An onsite installation project made her work visible day and night on a large screen that could be seen from the gallery’s outdoor plaza.
Offsite_Onsite Installation Project / Spread – is installed in Cumberland, British Columbia – on a fence on Dunsmuir Avenue near the Waverley Hotel
“The collages I have been making for my project ‘a sense of abandon / but not a lack of discipline‘ act as a portal into the artist’s studio. I have asked artists and writers from across the country to share an image of behind the scenes in their studios or workspaces. Into these images I have been collaging with found imagery from magazines and newspapers to create imagined futures, emotional landscapes, distant connections, and impossible creatures. The final project consists of 75 works made over a one-year period while we have been kept apart by the pandemic.”
Anne is collaborating with artist Tangiene Martin O’Hara in Corner Brook, Newfoundland on an off-site presentation of 75 poster works taking place coast to coast. These posters will change weekly throughout the period of the exhibition running from June 16 to September 4.
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Anne Steves is a first-generation Welsh/Canadian interdisciplinary artist working in the Village of Cumberland on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. She received a BFA in Visual Arts from Emily Carr University of Art and Design and an MFA in Studio Practices from the University of Victoria. Her work has been exhibited across Canada and the UK. Steves has recently participated in the Canadian Craft Biennial residency, the NOVA Young Welsh Artist exhibition and the MAWA Winnipeg artist residency. She has received numerous grants to support her work from both the BC Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts
Tangiene Martin O’Hara grew up in Edmonton, Alberta and obsessively drew and painted folksy people and animals from her imagination. Discovering in University that it is too difficult to focus on painting just anything from the imagination, she began only working from photographs. She graduated from Emily Carr University in Vancouver, in 2007 with a BFA. Post graduation work includes abstract and portrait drawing, social media experimentation, curating, photo documentation and soft crafts. Currently, Tangiene uses ink and coloured pencil to draw portraits from photographs typically posted by friends on social media. Documenting the moment, she memorializes everyday occasions and celebrates inclusivity.
This past year she participated in a residency with Eastern Edge Gallery, received a new/emerging grant from ArtsNL and was a winner in The Rooms “Arts and Letters” competition. Her next ambition is to make collages and paintings of wild and unusual monsters in sublime Newfoundland landscapes reflective of the Romantic era in painting.
Acknowledgements:
- For Funding – BC Arts Council, Yosef Wosk Foundation
- For Collaboration – Tangiene Martin O’Hara / Galliott Studios, Newfoundland