Diaz Contemporary is pleased to present Chalk and Butter, a group exhibition of the 2011 graduates of the MFA program at the University of Guelph. This show, which includes work by everyone in the class, demonstrates the breadth of issues, material concerns, and experiments that have been undertaken by these emerging artists.
Incorporating everything from abstract painting to installation and sound, the exhibition explores a wide variety of themes including narrative, performance, the contingencies of language, and the relation between individual and object. The works open a range of dialogues about ideas such as the transcendent, meditative aspects of art making, the aesthetics of anxiety, and about the contemporary viability of historically defined cultural forms. Many of the artists explore or propose embodied and subjective experiences over the supposed objectivity of technology and history. A multi-hued cross-section of work by a diverse group of artists, Chalk and Butter is tied together by courageous risk-taking, a resistance to categorization, and by an interest in chance, intuition, and the pleasure of working with materials to discover aspects of our collective experience.
The show is a rare opportunity to see the work of these artists in the context of the community in which they have developed over the past two years.
The artists included in the exhibition are: Ashleigh Bartlett, Nadia Belerique, Marco D’Andrea, Martie Giefert, Jessica Groome, Julia Hall, Melissa Hamonic, David Hucal, Dawn Johnston, Tiziana La Melia, Maryse Larivière, Laura Marotta, Amanda McMorran, Erica Mendritzki.
Accompanying the exhibition is a PDF catalogue, designed and written by Katie Bethune-Leamen.
Diaz Contemporary wishes to thank John Kissick, FASTWÜRMS, Katie Bethune-Leamen, and James Carl, as well as all of the artists for their support in the organization of this exhibition.
  
|
