Emergence by Vernon Public Art Gallery

emergence Sage Cannon Pip Mamo Dryden Lareina McElroy Coralee Miller Adrianna Singleton Stephanie Tennert Faith Wandler Tony Yu Jade Zitko

Vernon Public Art Gallery May 27 - July 21, 2021

Vernon Public Art Gallery 3228 - 31st Avenue, Vernon BC, V1T 2H3 www.vernonpublicartgallery.com 250.545.3173

This publication was produced in conjunction with the exhibition: Emergence Vernon Public Art Gallery, May 27 - July 21, 2021 Production: Vernon Public Art Gallery Editor: Lubos Culen Cover image: Sage Cannon: Conversion Therapy: Carry It With You performance, 2021, production still, photo: Venessa Carloni Printing: Get Colour Copies, Vernon BC, Canada ISBN 978-1-927407-61-5

copyright © 2018, Vernon Public Art Gallery All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the Vernon Public Art Gallery. Requests for permission to use these images should be addressed in writing to the Vernon Public Art Gallery, 3228 31st Avenue, Vernon BC, V1T 2H3, Canada. Telephone: 250.545.3173 - fax: 250.545.9096 - website: www.vernonpublicartgallery.com The Vernon Public Art Gallery is a registered not-for-profit society. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Greater Vernon Advisory Committee/RDNO, the Province of BC’s Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch, British Columbia Arts Council, the Government of Canada, corporate donors, sponsors, general donations and memberships. Charitable Organization # 108113358RR

Vernon Public Art Gallery 3228 - 31st Avenue, Vernon BC, V1T 2H3 250.545.3173 vernonpublicartgallery.com

table of CONTENTS

Executive Director’s Foreword · Dauna Kennedy

Curator’s Introduction · Lubos Culen

Message from the Co-Instructors · Katherine Pickering and Renay Egami

Artists and Their Works in the Exhibition

Sage Cannon

Pip Mamo Dryden

Lareina McElroy

Coralee Miller

Adriana Singleton

Stephanie Tennert

Faith Wandler

Tony Yu

Jade Zitko

executive director’s foreword

On behalf of the Vernon Public Art Gallery, I’m thrilled we have the opportunity to present this work from select students of the University of British Columbia Okanagan’s BFA graduating class for 2021. This exhibition was developed by selecting pieces from the students final projects prior to graduation and highlights some of the top work coming out of our neighboring University. The following students were chosen to participate for this group exhibition representing a variety of artistic practices: Sage Cannon (performance), Pip Mamo Dryden (installation), Lareina McElroy (painting), Coralee Miller (painting), Adriana Singleton (drawing), Stephanie Tennert (drawing), Faith Wandler (mixed media), Tony Yu (performance), and Jade Zitko (painting). I would like to thank Renay Egami and Katherine Pickering (Co-Instructors of the Advanced Art Practices courses, University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus, Creative Studies) for assisting with the communication between the VPAG curatorial staff and the featured artists in this exhibition. I’d also like to thank them for their written contributions to this catalogue. We appreciate this partnership between our two organizations. The Vernon Public Art Gallery acknowledges the financial support of the Province of British Columbia, the Regional District of the North Okanagan, and the BC Arts Council, whose funding enables us to produce exhibitions such as this for the North Okanagan region. We hope you enjoy the exhibition. Dauna Kennedy Executive Director Vernon Public Art Gallery

curator’s Introduction

The exhibition Emergence features the works of nine artists who have completed their studies at UBC Okanagan’s BFA program in 2021. This exhibition exemplifies various approaches to research and studio practice and asserts an active hands-on attitude while creating their work. This exhibition includes painting, drawing, sculptural installation and videos of outdoor performances. Emergence 2021 participating artists:

Sage Cannon Sage Cannon uses performance art as the means for social activism which advocates for a better understanding and inclusion of the LGBTQ+ people in Canadian communities. Cannon’s performance is poignant and moving as during her walk in downtown Kelowna she pauses to unpack and repack a number of sizable rocks into her transparent backpack. The visual gravity of the rocks’ weight in the backpack is a perfect visual metaphor for the burden that some LGBTQ+ people have to carry on a daily basis. Cannon’s performance titled Conversion Therapy: Carry It With You is a solemn manifesto of a young artist who wishes to open the dialogue about conversion therapy and its consequences.

Pip Mamo Dryden Pip Mamo Dryden’s work addresses the issues of the human condition on several levels. She chooses sculptural installation to address personal and intrapersonal aspects of her existence and identity. Dryden created an elaborate complex setting of a dining room table with only two chairs. The title of the installation - Between Me and Her – implies the divide between two people which is further articulated by the formal elements of the sculptural installation. All tableware is anchored by crisscrossed tread and thus denies the objects’ use. Perhaps the most poignant object of the installation is a moulding vanilla cake slowly decomposing under the glass cloche, representing an ongoing process of decay used as a metaphor for strained and perhaps ceasing human relationships.

Lareina McElroy Lareina McElroy’s paintings are filled with nostalgia and melancholia and situated in the vast Saskatchewan prairie landscapes. The paintings are inhabited by solitary figures, abandoned farm houses and barns, crops and a dominant horizon line. Far from realistic forms modeling, McElroy’s figures embody the whimsical qualities of children’s stories, yet the images exude a tension of a lonely existence in the vast spaces of the Saskatchewan prairies. The paintings serve as the metaphors for unifying the past and present, married in the eerie stillness and surreal reality of the human condition.

Coralee Miller

Coralee Miller’s paintings are inspired by her family and oral stories of the Syilx nation. Miller’s paintings draw on the traditional stories and narratives which outline the cultural values and attitudes towards the environment we are living in. The paintings mirror Miller’s acknowledgement of her identity as a member of the Syilx Nation and the culture she was born into. Her paintings are firmly situated in the realms of the natural and spiritual environments. Adrianna Singleton Adrianna Singleton’s work addresses the issues of the human condition through her direct experiences. For Singleton, the act of drawing is all encompassing in her desire to articulate thoughts that do not occupy the verbal level of emotional states. The initial stages of her drawing process are governed by the stream of consciousness and delivering the marks without a preconceived idea of the finished forms. Also the large size of the raw canvas functions as the arena for her action drawing to take place. Through the process, some figurative elements start to emerge and Singleton either reinforces these forms, leaves them partially unfinished, or lets them exist as autonomous entities in their unarticulated states.

Stephanie Tennert Stephanie Tennert’s artwork deals with her quest for identity and the connection to her matrilineal side of her family. In her body of pencil drawn portraits of her female family members, Tennert carefully captures the likeness of each person superimposed over the maps of various sites in Brazil, a signifier for her mother’s Brazilian origin. One exception is her self-portrait where the location is Naramata, perhaps a reference to her being a first generation Canadian. Tennert’s body of drawings are her internal tool to make connections with her relatives while considering her heritage based on memory and reinforced by the geography of her and her parents’.

Faith Wandler Faith Wandler’s work approaches the question of the human condition through conceptual means of communicating personal content. Her work follows the methodology described as Journal Therapy which is used to calm anxiety. Wandler uses the repetition as the main means of visually expressing the states of anxiety she sometimes experiences. Her book in the exhibition titled Racing consists of hand-typed text repeating the word ‘racing’ throughout the book, cover included. By engaging in this repetitive action Wandler’s mode of creating artwork becomes an act of endurance performance and the resulting objects exist as their own entities despite the fact that the original concept was self-referential.

Tony Yu Tony Yu’s performance also delves into the questions surrounding the human condition and the existential nature of our existence. His performance draws inspiration from his memories of serving in the Korean military. Yu uses the elements of Butoh dance for his performance which uses strenuous bodily positions which in turn trigger feelings of tension and disconnection.

Jade Zitko Jade Zitko’s abstract paintings are married to formalist esthetics where she uses the basic building blocks of this modernist paradigm: colour, line, and shape. Her paintings are often composed of areas of flat paints which model shallow pictorial space which can be at once ‘logical’ while in other instances may suggest the opposite. Zitko’s compositions often feature found shapes derived from our immediate surroundings and objects she perceives, but without leaving clues of what a particular shape may depict. Emergence 2021 For the most part, the works in the exhibition were hand-made and as such carry strong associative elements. The works communicate ideas based on our human experience and existence, our apprehension of physical and psychological spaces. Combined with the conceptual strategies used by these artists, their approaches highlight the materiality of an art object. The exhibitions Up Close From a Distance (2021 UBC Okanagan BFA Graduation Exhibition) and the exhibition Emergence mark the end and the beginning of the young artists’ journeys into the realm of individual creativity, critical thinking and an active studio practice. The Vernon Public Art Gallery has been hosting group exhibitions of selected graduates from the BFA program at UBC Okanagan since 2017. The exhibition Emergence continues this tradition and provides the artists with an opportunity to present their undergraduate thesis in the setting of a public gallery. Lubos Culen Curator Vernon Public Art Gallery

Message from co-Instructors of Advanced Art Practices

In September 2020, eighteen of our 4th year BFA students embarked upon a year-long endeavour of producing artwork for their show but under extraordinary circumstances without precedence in the history of the program at UBC Okanagan. This year’s BFA exhibition, titled Up Close From a Distance, aptly summarizes their experience of working in isolation while we attempted to provide a space for interpersonal connection mediated by the screen. A different kind of intimacy connected this cohort as they shared their varied and unusual studio situations through Zoom meetings that crossed borders and time zones, living rooms, sunrooms, bedrooms and basements where pets, partners and family members were sometimes part of the fabric of class. The restrictions caused by the pandemic unexpectedly offered an opportunity for greater self-reflection leading many students to focus on themes such as identity, place, cultural traditions and spirituality specific to individual world views. Some students saw this year as an opportunity to learn a new skill and all of them took difficult creative risks as they created a space for themselves to work in this new reality. Travel and many of the usual opportunities to connect were severely limited, and yet this class brought us into the world through their work. We got to know Amsterdam’s city parks through the lens of AJ’s camera, and viewed a performance in Tony’s laundry room that had us all rethinking the beauty of domestic chores. This year was more difficult than anticipated, but for this cohort making art has been cathartic and liberating as they acknowledge their own resilience and ability to overcome obstacles. To the class of 2021, it has been a joy and privilege to witness how each of you have evolved as individuals and as emerging artists over the past four years in the BFA program. We hope that we have provided you with some of the tools to harness and fulfil your purpose and potential as you move forward into the future. There are exciting adventures ahead of you! We wish you all the very best! Katherine Pickering & Renay Egami Co-Instructors of Advanced Art Practices Courses Faculty of Creative Studies University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus

artists and their works in the exhibition

Sage Cannon

‘Conversion therapy’ is a pseudo-scientific practice that is used to change a person’s gender expression or sexual orientation. Except for some provinces and cities, this harmful practice is legal across Canada. The Canadian government is currently discussing an amendment to the criminal code (Bill C-6) which would make conversion therapy illegal. Conversion Therapy: Carry It With You is a public performance in which I carry a backpack that is filled with rocks through downtown Kelowna. During the walk I pause to unpack and repack the rocks to give pedestrians space to observe me and to interrupt their routine. The act of unpacking and repacking serves as a reminder to me of how many people conversion therapy has affected. The performance is an hour long as I want to endure a portion of the burden that others have as a way of furthering my understanding. When strangers engage with the work by approaching or talking to me, I hand them a business card with a QR code linked to an audio-recording. The audio includes sections of Bill C-6 combined with an interview from the Human Rights Campaign that inspired my research. As a lesbian woman I am interested in exploring my community to further understand my identity. After researching the history of LGBTQ+ experiences, I discovered that conversion therapy continues to be practiced across North America, which was surprising as it is not wellknown. Although Canada is seen as an accepting country for LGBTQ+ people, the law is simultaneously harming the same community and trying to ‘fix’ them. This performance is a reminder that there is still work that needs to be done to protect LGBTQ+ people, especially youth. With this work I hope to start an open dialogue about conversion therapy.

Conversion Therapy: Carry It With You, performance, 2021, production still

Pip Mamo Dryden

The home is the site of many of the most intimate moments of our lives. As suggested by Gaston Bachelard in his book The Poetics of Space, each area of our home is charged with memories, each room contains a different time. In this piece, I am examining one of the most intimate spaces in my memory: the dining room. As someone who has suffered from anorexia nervosa from a young age, the dining room is the site of my fears, hatred, anger, and pain. These feelings are shared by many of those affected by eating disorders, insecurities about body image and anxieties brought about by diet culture. The dining room is also the place where families come together. Aside from just holding memories, homes are the sites of our relationships. My work examines the effects of anorexia and mental illness on the family. At either end of a long, fractured table, two chairs sit, each functioning as a representation of a person. One is made of felted raw wool, shaped from something soft into something hard by the repeated violence of the felting needle. The other is cage-like, made out of chicken wire and wrapped in thread. Between them stretch seven tables, each set with a tableau of tableware bound with thread and beads, rendering the objects unusable. In the center sits a large white cake under a glass dome. Making someone a cake is an act of love and celebration, but this cake is inedible, trapped under glass and growing mold. The slow decay of the cake is a marker of the time these two people have spent at this table, and functions as a symbol of their decaying relationship. The stark white colour scheme of this work emphasizes the objects and their materiality. To me, white is representative of the void, of silence, and of frozen things. In this piece, the two figures have been frozen at their dinner table, stuck in a silent, painful standoff.

Between Me and Her, 2021, mixed media installation (found tableware, vanilla cake with buttercream, glass cloche, thread, beads, wool roving, chicken wire, tablecloths, and wood) dimensions variable

Between Me and Her, 2021, mixed media installation (detail)

Lareina McElroy

The natural world is full of magic moments, even in the most common places. This series of paintings, set in rural Saskatchewan, reimagines my childhood memories and seeks to capture the emotional expression of the prairies and their melancholic skies. There is a hidden beauty in Saskatchewan that is often overlooked. There is also a sense of desolation in the vast fields of crops, thunderstorms, abandoned farm houses and barns. In this place a female figure, whose distant expression suggests contemplation, is accompanied by animals who offer comfort. These are narratives constructed on beauty and desolation in equal parts.

The Return, 2021, oil on canvas, 120 x 76 cm

While the Others Played, 2021, oil on canvas, 91 x 61 cm

The Return (detail), 2021, oil on canvas, 120 x 76 cm

Coralee Miller

I am a Syilx (Okanagan) artist who portrays cultural pride through my paintings. I gain inspiration from my family and the oral stories from my community. I explore oral stories as a way of looking deeper into Syilx cultural values and bridging their moral lessons into a modern day understanding. I focus on moments of humour and the importance of humility through the ever boastful and immortal trickster spirit, Senklip (Coyote). What I take from the Coyote stories is the importance of identity, being true to ourselves and remembering that we are all fallible. In Syilx belief, people are part of an interwoven relationship between the land, water, animal, and spirit. I do my best to portray this relationship in my paintings by depicting scenes of connectedness between the natural world and the spiritual.

Coyote Returns to Life, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 49 x 35.5 cm

Frog Womens’ Daughters, 2021, acrylic on panel, 51 cm diameter

Turtle’s Dream, 2021, acrylic on panel, 40.5 cm diameter

Adrianna Singleton

Drawing has become a therapeutic ritual to express what I cannot verbally explain. My drawings are raw like the wounds of my mind. They make me want to be as vulnerable as I can and dive into the root of my issues, stripped naked as I try to find the right clothing. I use canvas that has been torn from a larger cloth with the edges left raw. My process entails hours dedicated to covering my hands in charcoal, dripping paint onto the floor, and immersing myself into what seems like the room from the film, A Beautiful Mind, finding connections from every moment that brought me here. The black lines I paint represent the utter agony of having a mental disorder, and I am often lost in a distorted reality that fills my mind with delusions I cannot unsee. The figures I make feel heavy to move and helplessly stuck in an abyss that is thickened with the lingering of my past. I work large to let my entire body flow to the rhythm of the piece; my arms tired, covered in materials as if the drawing and I wrestled until both of us were spent. I burn through sketchbooks as they see me through a non-judgmental lens where I can lay down my circling thoughts and put them to rest. I place my figures in a liminal space of uncertainty, trapped inside myself, unsure of my last decision and unsure of my next. I want to change the way I used to turn a blind eye to fragile feelings. I want to be an activist to find peace in chaos.

Me-ings, 2021, charcoal and ink on canvas, 244 x 152 cm

Me-ings (detail), 2021, ink and charcoal on canvas, 152 x 122 cm

Stephanie Tennert

Mitochondrial DNA is a separate DNA sequence that exists solely in the mitochondrial organelles. This sequence is only passed down through the mother, creating a long ancestral line that can be traced back for not only generations, but thousands of years. This DNA sequence is what unifies my series of portraits which are all colour coded drawn representations of the matrilineal members of my family. In this series of illustrations, maps are displayed over each portrait signifying the memories of these spaces being stored away in their psyche. Each portrait is represented with strong colours that relate to the subjects’ personalities and the environment being depicted. I believe that geography can act as a vehicle for exploring memory and how a space can become part of one’s identity. I chose to centre my work around this as a way to connect to my mother’s Brazilian heritage while exploring my own cultural identity. As a first generation Canadian, I wanted to fit in with the culture that surrounds me, but also at home. This conflict of being caught between different cultures resulted in never learning my mother’s language which left me with feelings of disconnection and exclusion. Feminism is a cornerstone of my project. It emphasizes the importance of female figures, just as I want to emphasize the women in my family, their stories, and foster the connection with my maternal lineage.

Sonia at Parque Ibirapuera, 2021, coloured pencil on paper, 57 x 76.5 cm

Aline at Avenida Paulista, 2021, coloured pencil on paper, 57 x 76.5 cm

Stephanie in Naramata, 2021, coloured pencil on paper, 57 x 76.5 cm

Faith Wandler

My greatest enjoyment comes from creating pieces in a conceptual manner that also includes the use of craft. I like to focus on my own inner anxiety and repetitive thoughts that end up controlling my daily life in a negative way. The use of ‘journal therapy’ allows for someone to focus on their internal experiences, overbearing thoughts and feelings by putting them into a tangible physical form instead of holding them within and allowing them to have control over one’s wellbeing. I use the idea of journal therapy through the repetition of words or short phrases that are weighing me down and creating significant anxiety in my life. The only way I feel that I can rid these toxic thoughts from my mind is by bringing them out visually. This allows the meddlesome words to be released from my mind and into the work, therefore becoming a tangible piece that viewers can connect with and hopefully relate to their own inner anxieties. The use of repetition is also very prevalent in my practice, whether it be how I physically make the piece or the visual aesthetics that are being shown. This method of working shows the effects of my generalized anxiety disorder and how repeated thoughts are often weighing me down. However, repetition in my daily routine also gives me great comfort. My artistic process relates to my daily process of dealing with mental illness, and constantly working on my wellbeing is a never ending journey.

Left: Except, 2021, mixed-media scroll and typewritten text, 122 x 20 cm; middle: Racing, 2021, typewritten text on hand-bound book, 18 x 11 cm; right: Accept, 2021, mixed media scroll and typewritten text, 120 x 20 cm

Racing (detail), 2021, typewritten text on hand-bound book, 18 x 11 cm

Left: Except, 2021, mixed-media scroll and typewritten text, 122 x 20 cm; right: Accept, 2021, mixed-media scroll and typewritten text, 120 x 20 cm

tony yu

Butoh is a contemporary Japanese dance referred to as the antithesis of western dance traditions. It is a style where you learn how to use your feet instead of harmoniously working with the body and mind resulting in an awkward conversation. When the performance starts, I am no longer who I am but a metamorphosis of a humanoid being. My performance encapsulates my personal experiences and memories from serving in the Korean military. These images serve as choreography for my movements and are directly transmuted into Butoh dance. Through my performance, I aim to take my audience on a journey of self-reflection by immersing ourselves in nature. The performance takes place in the vast outdoors. I travel from location to location to help further connect me to my memories and with the space. This enables me to relate with my specific environment that also adheres to the Butoh ideology of being in nature. I work not only with the space and movement, but also with food. This adds a new layer of expression that can only be achieved through relatability. This is a raw and primitive feeling that changes with its variables. I explore the dark and light themes of my military service that fuse together seamlessly in a manner where one cannot exist without the other.

Relieve to Break Free (Giving Gun - Plausible), 2021, performance, production still

Relieve to Break Free (Helmet), 2021, performance, production still

Relieve to Break Free (Training Groungs Mid Flip), 2021, performance, production still

Jade Zitko

I find painting remarkable. Colour, line, form, shape, brushwork and liquidity are the painter’s tools, and they are both certain and unpredictable. With these tools I strive to express how I experience the world around me. For there are many interesting materials presented around us. While I often begin a painting by studying a particular object or constructing a model, feelings and emotions are also starting places. Abstraction has the capacity to represent the unique characteristics of an object. Such as the shapes found in the reflection of a glass vase reveals the finer details of its structure. The ability to build up paint makes it possible to convey emotions for they are not something that has just one layer. For instance, representing the calmness I feel sitting outside on a sunny morning. The passion in the process of creating makes for a memorable experience.

Delicate, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 152 x 122 cm

Mellow, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 147 x 119 cm

Dazed, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 152 x 152 cm