Isolation and Art Making
2 - 4 p.m.
2 - 4 p.m.
An online exhibition featuring work from students and instructors in Continuing Studies at OCAD U.
Self-isolation is very natural for artists and in the process of art making. But, it’s quite different when everyone else is doing it too. This exhibition looks at art made during the current pandemic and focuses on what artists are isolating from. What is the impact of forced separation and how does it influence art?
Carolyn Code
Finding Softness
Yarn, wood, soapstone
This piece is a response to the hard circumstances that we find ourselves in. These times show us how important community is and how important it is to find connections. Our separation still allows us to connect and find softness and comfort.
Caitlyn Jerome
Rose coloured glasses
During the pandemic we are witnessing the beginning of a revolution. Black voices are finally being heard after years of oppression. My piece explores how historically white women have stepped on black women to gain privilege.
Dina Elkady
3D Printed Lighting Pendants
My work revolves around the mystical relation between nature and technology; I design wearable pieces inspired by Ernst Haeckel’s marine creature illustrations and use 3D printing technology to breathe life into 19th century works of science and art.
https://www.instagram.com/3destuff/?hl=en
Erika Nielsen
Emergence # 3, 2020
Acrylic on panel, 6” x 6”
The pieces in my current body of work, Emergence, 2020 (monochrome series), evolved during the COVID-19 pandemic, during which structures, like our homes, functioned as both protective fortresses and as incubators or birthplaces for healing and renewal. My artistic process involves building a 'fortress' structure, and then an intuitive and sensuous shaping of a wet medium, suggesting fluidity, evolution, flow, emergence, and renewal.
Kiran Sohi
Video Series
https://www.saatchiart.com/kiransohi
Benjamin Lee Hicks
visible is not the same as being seen – image.7/8
This image is one small piece of the graphic stories I am developing for my PhD dissertation in teacher professional learning. It considers the feeling of being simultaneously hyper visible and extremely alone, a phenomenon finding more widespread echoes in these pandemic times. The phenomenon is certainly not unfamiliar to some of us in North American schools and society. Our multi-gendered and/or non- straight/white/conventionally “able” bodies already know many things about how to hold both the very beautiful and the potentially devastating with equal reverence because: this is how we learn to love/create beyond survival.
Claudia Miatello
This comic looks at isolation during the pandemic from a child’s point of view. I hope it encourages children to explore their feelings and ideas through imaginative play.
Ingrid Mida
Fantasy Friends, 2020
Ink on paper coloured digitally in Photoshop, 8” x 10”
During the pandemic there is a need for escape. It has given rise to loneliness, and with my furniture people I imagine that my furniture can talk to me.
Instagram.com/@the_dress_detective
Adell Shneer
Mom - July 16, 2020
Drawings created on my iPad with Tayasui Memopad2
During the early stages of the lock-down during the Covid-19 pandemic I was unable to see my mother, Toby Reichert. My mom has late stage dementia, is non-verbal and resides in a long-term care home. The anxiety during this time was intense. When visits were finally permitted outdoors (with a negative Covid-19 test, a mask, and physical distancing), I visited as often as I could. This drawing is from photos I took on my visits. Creating this drawing allowed me to get closer to my mom in a way that was impossible otherwise. This is an ongoing project.
Schem Rogerson Bader
Montreal, 2020
Collage with hand cut photograph over postcard
This piece is part of a larger series where subjects of photographs are removed and assembled on top or beneath salvaged postcards. The vintage photographs are personal family images. The postcards are found objects. By incorporating them together, they speak to displacement of subject, and time, and space.
Robyn Rennie
Upon Reflection
Acrylic/mixed media, 11” x 8”
Upon Reflection is my response to sexism and racism experienced by black women. Even though I experienced abuse and sexism growing up, when I “look in the mirror” I see that it was white privilege that allowed me to access higher education and employment – things that were never withheld from me because of the colour of my skin.
Harry Ao Cai
Bird 2
This piece was made during a time when the ability to venture outside and buy something became a luxury, a time when receipts and handshakes were no longer so freely given.
Dr. Rubi Alluz McElheran
And His Merry Men
Oil on canvas
“No longer were there individual destinies, only a collective destiny, made of plague and emotions shared by all.” - Albert Camus, The Plague.
Anna Do
Draw To Escape
I used to draw to escape reality, now I draw to keep myself sane.
https://worditoutloud.home.blog/
https://annado.myportfolio.com/
Ravi Persaud
(Waiting) Room with a View
Being isolated from exploring the world has left us looking for inspiration in some bizarre everyday places, such as waiting in the doctor's office for a routine check-up.
Eric Garsonnin
3829 - Building H23 from inside main entrance to old Asylum
Echoes of past isolation and troubles on old asylum buildings repurposed as Humber College.
https://www.facebook.com/ericgarsonnin
Vinicius A.C. Mauro
We are all alone
This photograph represents the intense feeling of abandonment and isolation intensified by the pandemic. It is part of a larger series taken in different parts of the world, which symbolize how the impact of COVID has no frontiers.
Ashley Tredenick
Park Hangs
My guy, I can relate.
Spurthi Parupalli
You x You
Imperfectly joyous exploration of an anxious mind.
Please be advised that OCAD U hosted events may be documented through photographs and video. These images may be used by the University for promotional, advertising, and educational purposes. By participating in our events, both on campus and off-site, you consent to allowing OCAD University to document and use your image and likeness. However, if you do not want us to use a photo or video of you or your child, please don’t hesitate to let us know when you arrive at the event. You’re also welcome to get in touch with OCAD University’s Marketing & Communications office: communications@ocadu.ca.
Be mindful of those in our community who have scent sensitivities; please help OCAD U maintain a healthy, scent-free campus.