https://www.comoxvalleyartgallery.com

NETS / Creative Residency + Make Art Kiosk

October 31 2021 / 10:00am - November 7 2021 / 5:00pm

Winnipeg artist, Kristin Nelson, will visit the Comox Valley Art Gallery to undertake a creative residency. The community is invited to visit + try net making.

Kristin will be onsite at the gallery from 1 – 5 pm, Wednesday, November 3 to Saturday, November 6.
Visitors are invited to drop in on Kristin in CVAG’s lower level project room studio (check in at the gallery reception hub first) while she is working on her new project nets. A self-serve community make art kiosk in the CVAG studio will give people (all ages, children accompanied by an adult) an opportunity to learn about making nets (supplies provided), alongside Aidan Smith’s “Net Making: An Online Workshop”.

Covid Care – small group (pod) or 3 individuals at a time / masks, hand sanitization, contact tracing.


My aim during my stay at the Comox Valley Art Gallery is to create new work in the continuation of my most recent project nets. Some of this work was on view at CVAG in the spring of 2021, as part of the Visible Labour group exhibition. I will continue in my own journey and ongoing investigation of nets, and net making, and would appreciate any input you may have, given your experience as residents in the area. Nets are objects which are rich in use and meaning. I have been accessing various sources to learn more about this tool and its history from books, and by participating in online workshops, such as the one taught by instructor Aidan Smith. 

Nets are objects which activate spaces by both letting in and letting out other objects, which can be either natural or human-made. Nets are simultaneously barriers and open passage. A nets ability to catch and release any object varies, and depends on each nets mesh size. Other elements such as air, fire and water pass easily through a net. Nets for me as objects, serve as strong metaphors. I am also very interested in the power a net has in our fragile ecosystem. I investigate and ennoble different forms of labour through the re-presentation of mass manufactured objects. Repetition, reproduction and the re-appropriation of technologies are strategies I use to make my work’s various relationships to my body evident. Nets are mass-manufactured objects, which can be made by hand through a repetition of actions. Throughout the process of making this particular large net, one that could be purchased as a readily manufactured object, I am able to contemplate, and to stay connected to the body and to what a body can produce.
. . .
Born in Ajax Ontario, Kristin Nelson received her BFA in Visual Arts at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design (2003) and MFA at Concordia University (2014). Through a process of examination and re-contextualisation, she transforms mundane subjects into larger social concerns. Kristin is a settler Canadian of Irish descent, and identifies as a queer person with a disability. She completed a Riding Mountain Artist Residency (2017), a Canada Council International Residency in Sydney Australia (2015) and a residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts (2008). Kristin has exhibited work across Canada at Musée Régional de Rimouski, Parisian Laundry and Skol (Québec); Art Toronto, Art + Design IDEA/EXCHANGE and Edition Toronto 2 (Ontario); Neutral Ground (Saskatchewan); and at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, La maison des artistes visuels francophone, Plug In ICA, Actual and RAW Gallery (Manitoba). Her work has shown internationally at Museo Textil de Oaxaca in Oaxaca, México and in Austin, Texas. Kristin has been a mentor for women identified artists at MAWA. She previously served on the board of directors for Arts AccessAbility Network Manitoba, the Manitoba Craft Council, Plug In ICA, the Winnipeg Arts Council and Martha Street Studio. Her work is in private and public collections including those of Boralex, BMO, the Province of Manitoba and the Winnipeg Art Gallery.

https://www.kristinnelson.ca/


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