In association with Brock University and the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine & Performing Arts, this upcoming exhibition BEGINNINGS will be featuring 16 faculty and alumni artists from Brock University. Opening on Saturday May 7, 2022 and continues to Saturday June 4, 2022.
“There is an abundance of artistic activity happening all around us. It is wonderful to see the work of Brock Visual Arts Faculty and Alumni come together in our community” Amy Friend, Chair of Visual Arts.
List of Artists:
Amanda Burk
Drawing is central to Burk’s art practice and research. In her art practice, she works primarily in charcoal and graphite, often making large-scale drawings. Her recent work uses animal imagery to speak about lived experience and our own animal nature. Burk’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and can be found in such collections as the City of Toronto, COBRA to Contemporary (Netherlands) and the Thunder Bay Art Gallery. Recently her drawings were featured in the International Drawing Annual, INDA 13 (Manifest Press), and Tussle Magazine. Burk has recently relocated to the Niagara region, after twelve years living in North Bay, Ontario. She teaches drawing in the Department of Visual Arts in the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts at Brock University. Burk received her MFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and her Honours BA Fine Arts Specialization from the University of Waterloo.
Amber Lee Williams
Amber Lee Williams is a Canadian interdisciplinary artist living and working in St. Catharines, Ontario. Following the birth of her first daughter, she decided overnight to return to school and completed an undergraduate degree in Visual Arts at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts. She is a current MFA candidate at the University of Waterloo. Her work explores themes of motherhood and loss; life and death; absence and presence; and is often drawn from the details of everyday life. Amber’s areas of art include analog, digital, and experimental photography, drawing, sculpture, assemblage, painting, and more. Her art practice involves a number of different approaches and processes happening simultaneously in the same space, moving from one idea or medium to the next. Often beginning with meticulous planning, Amber gives in to spontaneous experimentation and allows the process to redefine the work.
Amy Friend
Amy Friend is a Canadian artist predominately working with the medium of photography. Friend has exhibited nationally and internationally, including” Gexto Photofestival (Spain), DongGang Photography Museum (Korea), Mosteiro de Tibães at the Encontros Da Imagem, (Portugal), Onassis Cultural Center (Greece), National Portrait Gallery (UK). Her work has been featured in publications such as: California Sunday Magazine (USA), GUP Magazine (Amsterdam), LUX (Poland), and New York Times Magazine (USA).
Arnie McBay
Arnold McBay’s work encompasses a spectrum of methods ranging from drawing, sculpture and installation, and most recently has expanded to include sound and animated language/poetry appropriations. He teaches studio courses at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine & Performing Arts at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario and has been the recipient of numerous awards and grants. His work is in private and public collections across North America, and he is represented by Thielsen Galleries of London, ON.
Bruce Thompson
Bruce is an artist who lives and works in St. Catharines, Ontario. He completed his BA in Visual Art from Brock University and his MFA from the University of Windsor. His recent work is mainly focused on bringing the everyday happenings – walks, objects, and the phenomenological, to visual form. Previous work dealt with LGBTQ couple’s portraits and gatherings. He is also a professional actor and singer, having performed all over North America as well as the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and in touring productions of Titanic and Forever Plaid. He has won several awards for his acting work in San Francisco and was in the Broadway production of Les Miserables at the Imperial Theater in New York.
Christina Sealey
An artist and musician based in Hamilton, Ontario, Christina Sealey holds an MFA in Drawing and Painting from the Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland (1999) and a BA (Hons.) from McMaster University (1996). Christina has exhibited throughout Canada and the UK in both public and commercial galleries and artist-run centres. Her work is represented in private, corporate and public collections including The Art Gallery of Hamilton, The Frederick Horseman Varley Gallery, The Hamilton Club, Standard Life, Scotland and the private collection of Margaret Trudeau. She has been awarded grants for her painting from both the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts and from private foundations including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, New York and Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, Montreal. Christina has taught drawing and painting at OCAD University, McMaster University and is now currently teaching at Brock University.
Darrell Neufeld
With an eye for colour, light, patterns, textures and composition, Darrell’s art strives to expose hidden beauty in the familiar. Working in oil and inspired by the world around him, his work is influenced by photography – an interest he has pursued for decades. His favourite subjects include local land and seascapes. He also has a keen interest in portraiture and figurative work. A native of Niagara, Darrell studied visual art at Brock University, majoring in studio art. In 2019, he accepted an invitation to join the Jordan Art Gallery as a partner artist, providing a permanent place to exhibit and sell his work.
Gail Higenell
Gail creates multifaceted art forms that revolve around a sense of place. Her work captures an emotional connection between herself and her visible or imaginary location. She is intrigued by forgotten places, where a sense of place is created by merging echoes of the past with the contemporary natural world. Her home, surrounding landscape, and imagination are all places that help Gail understand her place in this world. The natural world is her primary source of inspiration. Within this world, she finds herself exploring and investigating the minute details one generally misses in nature: texture, line, form, colour, and pattern. These become the elements that she paints and layers in her work.
Donna Szoke
An interdisciplinary artist whose practice includes video, animation, media art, installation, drawing, sculpture, and design, Donna Szoke’s work has exhibited in Canada, USA, France, Germany, Turkey, Hungary, Croatia, Cuba, UAE, and South Korea. She has artwork and design in six Canadian public art collections, the TIFF Film Archive, and the Criterion Film Collection. Szoke’s art practice began in Winnipeg, Manitoba designing for Guy Maddin’s early films, creating performance art and conceptually based drawings. After moving to Vancouver her practice shifted to digital video, collaboration, and installation. Since moving to Ontario, her work also includes sculpture and printmaking. Her work revolves around embodied perception, and the fluidity of lived experience. She has received awards from Canada Council for the Arts, BC Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. She holds an MFA in Interdisicplinary Arts from Simon Fraser University (Vancouver). She is an Associate Professor of Visual Arts at Brock University where she received the Faculty of Humanities Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Activity in 2017.
Emily Andrews
A multi-media artist, actress, and musician from Niagara Falls, Ontario, Emily Andrews works in a variety of media, including oil painting, collage, installation art, and sculpture. A true surrealist at heart, her work is often inspired by science, nature, history, and her own strange dreams. A vibrant member of the Niagara region arts community, Emily has participated in events such as Niagara Night of Art and In the Soil Arts Festival. In 2012, the Ontario Trillium Foundation chose her as an artist in residence and in 2014 she was the recipient of the Allister Young Arts & Culture Endowment Fund. She received a diamond award for best local artist for the 2020 Readers’ Choice Awards and in 2021 was a recipient of the Niagara Falls Cultural Development Fund. Her work has been shown in many group and solo exhibitions and can be found in both private and public collections. Her latest series, Strange Happenings & Rare Findings, features surrealistic oil paintings that explore bizarre scenarios in a mid-century setting. Emily has a BA in Visual Arts from Brock University and has taught Observational Drawing and 3D Design Material Exploration in the Art & Design Foundation program at Niagara College.
Lauren Regier
An interdisciplinary artist based in Niagara, Ontario, Lauren Regier’s practice explores the ways in which humans perceive their surroundings and the roles they play. In bringing forth intrinsic elements of a healthy ecosystem, she draws parallels in how humans relate, or diverge from these paths.
Linda Carreiro
Currently a Professor of Visual Art at Brock University, Linda Carreiro has held previous positions at OCAD University and the University of Calgary. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions across Canada, the United States, and Europe, including Centre for Books Arts (NYC), Limerick Printmakers Gallery (Ireland), Mallin Gallery (Kansas City), TRUCK Contemporary Art (Calgary), Harcourt House (Edmonton) and Cuesta College Gallery (San Luis Obispo), as well as selection in group shows internationally.
Lindsay Liboiron
Born in Hamilton, ON (1999), Lindsay Liboiron completed her BA (Honours) in Visual Arts at Brock University (2021). With a focus on drawing, oil and acrylic painting, Lindsay works primarily in realism, specializing in portraits.
Lindsay has displayed her artwork in various group and juried exhibitions around the Greater Toronto Area and Niagara Region, and has an upcoming solo exhibition at Grimsby Public Art Gallery in September 2022. She has also been awarded with the Martha Zandvliet Memorial Award in Painting (2020) and awarded 3rd place in the Biannual Juried Exhibition at the Grimsby Public Art Gallery (2019).
Liz Hayden
A long time resident of St. Catharines, Liz works primarily in acrylics creating both abstract and image-based paintings that reflect her interest in natural and cultivated environments. Continuous experimentation in mark-making and media are a characteristic of her work. Returning as a mature student, Liz was thrilled to attend the brand new Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts to earn her Honours B.A. (Studio Art) with distinction in 2016.
Murray Kropf
Murray earned a CAAT degree in Fine Arts from Fanshawe College in 1979, studied painting under Patterson Ewen in the summer of 1979 at the University of Western Ontario, followed by a BFA in 1980 at the University of Windsor. He then went on to earn a Masters in Painting and Mixed Media at the University of Windsor. During the course of his education he was awarded numerous awards and scholarships as well as two Ontario Graduate Scholarships. Murray has participated in numerous exhibitions, both juried and solo, in Canada and the United States and has received many Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council awards.
Troy Ouellette
An artist/researcher specializing in Assemblage theory, technology and conceptual art, Troy David Ouellette received his PhD, in Visual Arts, from York University in 2014 and his M.F.A. from the University of Windsor in 2007. He has taught Design, Sculpture and undergraduate courses at various universities and colleges in Southern Ontario. From 1999 until 2006 he was the Sculpture Facilitator at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Banff Alberta. His work has been included in several solo and group exhibitions in Canada, Australia and the United States. He resides in St. Catharines, Ontario.
