UW Fine Arts + UWAG Present MFA THESIS 2, Opening Thursday May 5 from 5-8 pm

[Jurakic, Ivan]

University of Waterloo Fine Arts Presents
MFA THESIS 2

May 5–21, 2016
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 5 from 5:00–8:00 pm

Gallery One
Aislinn Thomas
Dup-boug-a-dad

Dup-boug-a-dad is a video installation that explores different ways of being in the world. The artist describes this work: 
"My friend David loves cheerleading. Living in rural Nova Scotia, as he does, his main access to the sport is through YouTube. The footage in Dup-boug-a-dad was taken when he visited Kitchener-Waterloo in 2015 and practiced with the University of Waterloo cheerleading teams.

David also loves to sing. Being deaf, as he is, he sings in his own language. The song in Dup-boug-a-dad is, at least in part, about lifting a cheerleader up with one arm. He sang it while standing on a platform that vibrated in response to his voice, translating his words into felt, tactile sensations that allowed him to ‘hear’ his voice for the first time that we know of."

Aislinn Thomas is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice includes video, performance, installation and text-based work. She culls material from everyday experiences and relationships, exploring themes of vulnerability, empathy, possibility and failure. She is an MFA candidate at the University of Waterloo and earned a BA in Studio Art from the University of Guelph. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally and is the recipient of several grants and awards including a C.D. Howe Scholarship for Arts and Design, a Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada Masters Scholarship, an Ontario Graduate Fellowship, and grants from the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Gallery Two
Jennifer Akkermans
You Can Never Go Home

In the summer of 2014, Jennifer Akkermans packed everything she owned into her car and moved from Calgary to Waterloo. Since then, she has been attempting to build a home for herself in Ontario. You Can Never Go Home is a physical manifestation of this process. Torn between remembering her prairie home and attempting to acclimatize to a new place, Akkermans uses herself as a case study. Like some of the artworks in the exhibition, the process is incomplete. The obsessiveness and anxiety of the installation speaks to the discomfort and sense of discovery at the heart of her transition.
Jennifer Akkermans is an Alberta girl currently making a home for herself in Waterloo, Ontario. Prior to pursuing her MFA at the University of Waterloo, she was the Founder and Chief Researcher of the Institute of Morphoid Research. She has exhibited at the Art Gallery of Calgary, the Esker Foundation and Visual Arts Alberta, participated in residencies at the Banff Centre and Gushul Studio in the Crowsnest Pass, and produced a short documentary as part of EMMEDIA’s Production Access program. As a recipient of the 2015 Keith and Win Shantz Fellowship, she travelled to Cologne, Germany, to work with Alexandra Bircken.

Airstream Trailer
Anna van Milligen
dollhouse

dollhouse comes from two places—on one hand, an intense sensitivity to the continued existence of sexism and sexist oppression; and on the other, an affinity for pink, pretty, plastic things. The result is a hyperfeminine fantasy space, an intimate domestic interior blanketed in peach, pink, and baby blue. Constructed within the gutted shell of a vintage Airstream trailer, a series of compartments and alcoves display a peculiar collection of found, altered, and hand-made objects laid out in shrine-like arrangements, as if for worship—or perhaps illicit consumption. Torn between a desire to touch and a fear of spoiling the virginal purity of their surroundings, visitors are simultaneously invited in and made to feel like intruders in this strangely beautiful, perversely fascinating space.

Anna van Milligen is a Canadian-American installation artist whose interests include feminism, fake hair, faux fur, and peach. She is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Waterloo, and received her BFA from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. As a recipient of the 2015 Keith and Win Shantz Fellowship, she assisted Dutch film and installation artist Melanie Bonajo with several projects in the Netherlands. Upcoming shows include a two-person exhibition at Idea Exchange at the Preston Gallery in Cambridge, Ontario.     

Please join us in celebrating the work of these three promising emerging artists.
Exhibitions are free and open to the public.

ADMIT EVERYONE
University of Waterloo Art Gallery
East Campus Hall | ECH 1239
519.888.4567 ext. 33575
uwag.uwaterloo.ca
facebook.com/uwag.waterloo

HOURS
Tuesday to Saturday
12:00-5:00 pm
Or by appointment

CONTACT
Ivan Jurakic, Director / Curator
519.888.4567 ext. 36741
ijurakic at uwaterloo.ca

DRIVING
263 Phillip Street, Waterloo
Located in East Campus Hall on Phillip Street off University Avenue West
Use south entrance to ECH across from Engineering 6

PARKING
Limited meter parking is available behind ECH
Visitor Parking is available in Lot E6 or Lot Q for a flat rate of $5.00
http://www.uwaterloo.ca/map/index.php

MAILING
University of Waterloo Art Gallery
200 University Avenue West
Waterloo, ON, Canada N2L 3G1




Images (left to right): Aislinn Thomas, Dup-boug-a-dad (still), video installation, 2016. Photo: Tani Omorogbe. Jennifer Akkermans, You Can Never Go Home (detail), mixed-media installation, 2016. Anna van Milligen, attention whore (detail from dollhouse), mixed-media, 2016. Images courtesy of the artists unless otherwise noted.
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