folio
Folio Staff Editor-in-Chief Claire Bourgeois Assistant Editor Paula Alaszkiewicz Production Editor Erin Spangler Finance Coordinator Aimée Bell-Pasht Event Coordinators Carolyn Bailey Clara Puton Jesse Conterato Natalie Della Valle Jordan Deutsch Gabriela Gilmour Kira Li Vincent Marquis Giuliana Mazzetta Pooja Sen Uma Vespaziani Contact foliomag@gmail.com foliomagazine.ca
About Folio is a student-run visual art and design magazine that acts as an ongoing archive of McGill’s artistic community by providing a venue for student artists to showcase their work. It is published biannually. Cover: Gabriela Dowling Facing page: Anna Foran All contents © the respective artists. Opinions expressed in Folio are not necessarily those of McGill University.
folio magazine : Issue 9 — Winter 2013 Contents From Observatory Hill #1 Anna Foran Fate Shahir Omar Shrine of Consumption Gabriela Dowling Owner of a Saab Unfortunate Soul Tyler Berry Follow 7000 Days on Earth Molly Teitelbaum floral (no. 3) Kosisochukwu Nnebe Untitled Jehane Yazami Iconophile Pooja Sen Blue No. 3 Paula Alaszkiewicz
ANNA FORAN From Observatory Hill #1
SHAHIR OMAR Fate
MAYA INGLIS Untitled (Ode to The Blue Hands)
GABRIELA DOWLING Shrine of Consumption
TYLER BERRY Owner of a Saab
HANNAH TOLKIN Falling Up
Unfortunate Soul
MOLLY TEITELBAUM Follow and 7000 Days on Earth
KOSISOCHUKWU NNEBE floral (no. 3)
JOSEPH HENRY GRACE BROOKS Let X=X
JEHANE YAZAMI Untitled
POOJA SEN Iconophile
PAULA ALASZKIEWICZ Blue No. 3
folio contributors GABRIELA DOWLING is inspired by people and places. She works under spatial and temporal constraints and enjoys watching her work transfer across mediums and evolve in new contexts. The meshing of her collage technique with digital manipulation has afforded her more control and new possibilities in her creative production. ANNA FORAN makes collages when she wants to get her hands dirty. After hours at the computer, she relishes in the opportunity to spread her materials across the floor and make a mess. Her work explores our fascination with the miniature and the gigantic. By altering scale, her transformations distort time and space. Like Gulliver on his travels, they force us to test and confront the limits of our own perception. Anna finds inspiration in outsider art, strange photographs, cabinets of curiosities, stereoscopes, and antique barns. SHAHIR OMAR weaves together moments of psychosis with delicate, layered imagery to create lucid connections between culture and territory. Fate lingers in the dry heat of the American Midwest. Working with 35mm colour film and double-exposure, he captured a painted Navajo ceiling and a sculpture by Retha Walden Gambaro. Describing his relationship to art as “ambiguous,” he draws inspiration from the deep waters of emotional torment, romantic hallucinations, and mythical creatures. TYLER BERRY thinks that we are all just sophisticated animals looking for a nice structure to live in with pleasant-faced people. Through the medium of pencil, acrylic, oil paint, and sheep’s blood, Tyler is able to capture an asymmetry that he views as opposite to familiar notions of beauty. He sees art as a way to paralyze, just for an instant, the unfortunate ego to which we all succumb. “I don’t care what you do, as long as you are creatively doing it. Please don’t be tacky. Enjoy.” MOLLY TEITELBAUM gravitates towards urban detritus, using old newspapers, plastic bags, string, and bubble wrap to enable an emotional purging onto the canvas. Inspired by imprecision and imperfection, her art practice is neither planned nor preconceived. Through photographic transfer, Follow references the artist’s time spent travelling on horseback through the Rocky Mountains. 7000 Days on Earth reflects Molly’s awareness of passing time, producing a sense of fragility and inspiration. Molly says of her art making process, “I’m volatile and I wouldn’t recommend hanging around for too long.”
KOSISOCHUKWU NNEBE sees art as an inspiring force that gives her access to an intrinsic part of herself; a force where deadlines, schedules, and plans are forgotten. floral (no. 3), from a larger series, is her first foray into fashion illustration – a play on different styles and a juxtaposition of varied patterns. It is an exploration of the modern idea of masculinity and “a 19 year old’s excuse to draw hot men”. JEHANE YAZAMI’s analog photography keeps her away from what she should be doing, she creates only when she has other obligations. Her work references her mood swings, from meticulous to careless. She draws inspiration from people, hands, and her background in film studies. POOJA SEN sometimes feels overwhelmed by how image- saturated the world is. She is interested in the medieval sense of horror vacui. When creating Iconophile, Pooja turned to how-to videos on applying gold leaf which proved to be unhelpful. Hibiscus tea, rocking chairs, children’s books, and Cameron from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off preoccupy her when she breaks from sitting in her bedroom getting glue and bits of paper everywhere. PAULA ALASZKIEWICZ is the 2008-2013 resident pseudo-Swedish Mile Ender. Inspired equally by Scandinavian design and monochromes, she has broken her personal sartorial mold by using photography to delve into a vivid vista of colour. With this technique, she explores her embodied phenomenological relationship to the world around her: she impresses on film and film impresses on her. Blue No. 3 – from a series of unedited photographs – is representative of her aesthetic dreamland; a soft haze of blurred colours and shapes where she escapes the reality of crowded buses and grocery stores.
Thanks to the AUS Fine Arts Council, the Students’ Society of McGill University, and the Dean of Arts Development Fund for their generous support.