Artist Sayeh Sarfarez translates political movements and uprising occurring in Iran into a drawing series in which childlike, almost naive forms and innocent aesthetics are juxtaposed with threatening motifs.

Figures within these pictures are abstracted into flat-coloured shapes; crowded scenes appear simplistic and innocent in nature until a violent narrative appears. The basis of Sarfaraz’ drawings and compositions are rooted in Persian miniature paintings which she expresses in a contemporary format with modern references.

Initially ambiguous, the shapes within the series indicate situations regarding power, control and weapons of war. These depicted instances become a social composition that deals with repression, violent struggles and censorship. Between the childlike quality and the brutality of current events, the images challenge us to fight against our docile loss of critical perspective.

Join us for the opening reception of Génération Sacrifiée on Thursday October 22 (7 – 10pm) at grunt gallery. The artist will be in attendance at the opening. This exhibition occurs from Oct 22 – Nov 28, 2015.

Read a brief interview with the artist here.

Bio:

Sayeh Sarfaraz was born in Shiraz, Iran and later attended l’École Supérieure Des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg France. She is currently based in Montreal, Quebec.

Remediating Mama Pina’s Cookbook is a three channel video piece that approaches the artist’s great grandmother’s cookbook, as an archival technology that speaks to the generational transmission of gender roles, social status, and cultural memory. Through her attempts to recreate the various handwriting styles, instructions, and recipes from the cookbook, the artist reactivates the archive and raises questions about the nature of what can constitute an archive, the relationship of archival content and form, and the divisions between performed and recorded knowledge.

Bio: Dr. Gabriela Aceves Sepúlveda is a cultural historian and interdisciplinary media artist working at the intersections of video and performance with a research focus on feminist media and Latin American visual culture.

Related: Gabriela Aceves Sepúlveda will be speaking on the panel Artists in the Archive, Thursday November 26, 7pm at the Western Front.

Her work is also featured in Ethnographic Terminalia’s e-zine Terminus: Archives, Ephemera, and Electronic Art launching Wednesday November 26, 6pm at grunt gallery.

Both events are a part of Vancouver Independent Archives Week 2015.

Vancouver-based artist Osvaldo Ramirez Castillo explores issues around collective memory, historical trauma, and cultural identity in relation to the violence that occurred against civilians during the 12-year Civil War in El Salvador.

A series of mixed media drawings depict surreal and vibrant scenes filled with creatures in uniform; fragmented bodies tense with sinew and muscle; and carefully drawn figures with faces partially obscured or obliterated. Iconography sourced from North American vernacular culture, Pre-Columbian mythology, and Salvadoran popular folklore is amalgamated to explore the role of non-linear storytelling expressed in mythic form.

grunt gallery’s Media Lab shows a stop-motion animation that recalls individual identities of lost civilians juxtaposed against Super 8mm film footage of a road leading to the village of EL Mozote, where a massacre of nearly 1000 civilians took place in 1981 by the Salvadoran state army during the armed conflict.

This exhibition also includes a site-specific work of a colourful sawdust carpet, on the floor of the gallery. This work is based out of a Latin American traditional custom of creating large tapestry-like designs on the ground in public spaces during religious festivities.

Castillo’s work refers to a cultural past and contemporary present, fusing a hybridized aesthetic to engage issues about migration, historical trauma, identity, and memory. His narratives express a multifaceted, interlocking and non-linear approach. Consequently, the body of work revises and casts new personal interpretations on memory-building as a form of resistance, political commentary and healing.

Join us for the opening reception on Thursday September 10 (7–10pm); this reception coincides with SWARM, an annual artist-run centre festival in Vancouver, BC.  An essay written by Alexis Hranchuk will be available at the opening. The exhibition runs from September 11–October 10, 2015.

 Essay by Alexis Hranchuk | Download
Essay by Laura Bucci | Laura Bucci Essay

Artist Bio:

Born in El Salvador, Castillo immigrated to Canada in 1989 at the age of 11. He attended the Ontario College of Art and Design (Toronto 1998-2001) and received an MFA from Concordia University (2004-2007). A previous resident of Montreal, Castillo relocated to Vancouver in 2013.

CURATORS: Guest curated by Yasmin Nurming-Por and Britt Gallpen, produced in conjunction with International Symposium on Electronic Arts (ISEA); Glenn Alteen and Tarah Hogue (grunt gallery); and Kate Hennessy and Trudi Lynn Smith (Ethnographic Terminalia)

grunt gallery, Ethnographic Terminalia and the 21st International Symposium on Electronic Arts (ISEA) are excited to present an exhibition, panel, workshop and a performance for ARCTICNOISE. The exhibition is located at grunt gallery and runs from August 5 to August 22, 2015 with an opening reception on Monday, August 17 (7–10pm).

ARCTICNOISE is a media installation by Geronimo Inutiq (madeskimo) that draws on archival film footage and sound materials sourced from the Isuma Archive at the National Gallery of Canada, as well as sound and film materials from the artist’s personal collection and other ethnographical material. Conceived as an Indigenous response to Glenn Gould’s celebrated composition “The Idea of the North”, Inutiq will appropriate Gould’s piece as a musical score, paired with new voices and imagery to produce a layered and multi-vocal work.

The project folds into Inutiq’s larger practice of his alter-ego, madeskimo, that draws on the use of instruments, and digital and analogue synthesizers, as well as the remixing and processing of samples from a large variety of sources— including traditional Inuit, Aboriginal, modern electronic and urban music—in order to create an experimental platform.

At its crux, ARCTICNOISE intends to initiate conversations between various communities, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, and to provoke thoughtful exchange about the roles of Inuit orality and materiality in a post-colonial space within the context of new media artwork. New media, with its appropriative and collage-like nature, is employed as a specific strategy to foster a multi-vocal and multi-generational approach to these sensitive issues.

A curatorial essay written by Yasmin Nurming-Por and Britt Gallpen will be available at the exhibition.

ARCTICNOISE exhibition catalogue (print version available in our Gift Shop)

Links:
ISEA: Disruption
ARCTICNOISE
Ethnographic Terminalia

ISEA 2015 – Vancouver: Grunt Gallery Spotlight with Tarah Hogue from Jimmy Phung on Vimeo.

Review of ARCTICNOISE by Weiyi Chang in the November 2015 issue of Luma Quarterly.

ADDITIONAL PROGRAMMING:

Workshop:

Terminus: Archives, Ephemera, and Electronic Art
Saturday August 15 (9:30 am to 5:30 pm)

at VIVO Media Arts | 2625 Kaslo Street, Kaslo St, Vancouver, BC V5M 3G9

Yasmin Nurming-Por and Britt Gallpen, with grunt gallery’s Curatorial Resident Tarah Hogue, are collaborating with the collective Ethnographic Terminalia to produce a workshop at the International Symposium of Electronic Arts (ISEA), which will be hosted by VIVO on Saturday, August 15th from 9:30 am to 5:30 pm, open to the public for viewing.

Following the 2015 ISEA theme of Disruption as it relates to the archive and its expression in new media, “Terminus: Archives, Ephemera, and Electronic Art,” will include presentations of electronic art works and theoretical frameworks that disrupt material, figurative, discursive, cultural, and political manifestations of the archive, broadly conceived. The workshop will result in a DIY publication of the proceedings that will be made available to the public in limited edition print and online formats.

Ethnographic Terminalia
ISEA: Disruption
Terminus: Archives, Ephemera, and Electronic Art

Panel:

ARCTICNOISE: DIALOGUES
Wednesday, August 19 (6:30 pm to 8:30 pm)

at NEC Native Education College | 285 E 5th Ave, Vancouver, BC V5T 1H2

This event will include an artist talk by Geronimo Inutiq, a discussion of the curatorial process by Britt Gallpen and Yasmin Nurming-Por, and a presentation by Christine Lalonde, Associate Curator, Indigenous Art, National Gallery of Canada. These will be followed by responses from two local respondents (TBC).

DISTURBANCE Performance
Saturday, August 15th @ 8:00 pm

at the Vancouver Art Gallery | 750 Hornby St, Vancouver, BC V6Z 2H7 

Vancouver Art Gallery’s FUSE is a wildly popular event where art, music and performance collide. On August 15, 2015 FUSE will be the site of DISTURBANCE, guest curated by Kate Armstrong and Malcolm Levy in connection with the 21st International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA 2015), one of the world’s most prestigious global festivals presenting work at the intersection of art and technology.

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Media Contact for the exhibition:

Karlene Harvey, grunt gallery | 604-875-9516 or, karlene@grunt.ca

Media Contact for ISEA programming:

Maria Fedorova |isea2015-artinfo@sfu.ca

Funding Acknowledgments:

ARCTICNOISE is co-presented by ISEA and grunt gallery. We gratefully acknowledge funding from the Canada Council for the Arts, the McLean Foundation, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. A very special thank you to VIVO Media Arts Centre and the Native Education College for hosting the panel and workshop for ARCTICNOISE.

Grunt gallery is grateful for the support of our Operating Funders: The City of Vancouver, the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Diptychs by artist Mark Igloliorte features over a hundred observational works of still lifes and studio vignette paintings, a series that has been ongoing since 2010. Painted upon torn phonebook paper, Igloliorte uses this practice to explore ideas of place – both the studio interior and at the city, town or whole region the phonebook paper indexes.

Alla prima paintings of similar size and palette depict commonplace objects and fragments of studio space. These diptychs concentrate on the same subject matter and are hung in pairs throughout the gallery. Through this dual repetition the artist considers observational variance and representation. While subject matter is painted twice over, this repetition is not an effort to replicate. Instead, the shift or fluctuation in perspective rejects an authoritative version, placing a greater emphasis in multitudes over a definitive original.

Join us on Thursday June 4 (7-10 pm) for the opening reception of Diptychs at grunt gallery. The artist will be in attendance. This exhibition runs from June 4 – July 18, 2015.

Press Clippings:
Canadian artist Mark Igloliorte paints a series of ‘growing and experimenting’ | BeatRoute

Artist Bio:

Mark Igloliorte is an artist who was born in Corner Brook, Newfoundland and grew up in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador. His artistic work is primarily painting and drawing. He has exhibited in group and solo shows across Canada. Recently, Igloliorte has participated in national and international exhibitions such as Beat Nation, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC; Le Nouveau Pleinairisme, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Québec, QC; drift, (Solo), curator Ryan Rice, The Toronto Free Gallery, Toronto, ON; and The Québec Triennial 2011: The Work Ahead of Us, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Montréal QC. He has been the recipient of a number of awards and grants including the Lillian Vineberg Award in Painting and Drawing, The Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council Visual Arts Grant, and a Canada Council for the Arts Emerging Artist Grant. Igloliorte is represented by Gallerie Donald Browne.

He holds a Bachelor of Education (Intermediate/Secondary) from Memorial University of Newfoundland, a Bachelor of Fine Art, Major in Fine Art from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and a Master’s of Fine Art, Studio Art – Painting and Drawing from Concordia University School of Graduate Studies.

Igloliorte is an Assistant Professor at Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

Mark Igloliorte website

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READ MORE:

Material Traces- Performativity, Artistic “Work,” and New Concepts of Agency by Amelia Jones

Eraser Street – Hubris, Humility and Humanity in the Making of a City! is an exhibition that mixes Robideau’s newest and oldest photographs of moments, milestones and monuments in Vancouver, tracing the character of the city and its residents during the last 40 years of non-stop growth. The work reflects upon the quality of life in Vancouver, the value of heritage, the economic engine of development, homelessness and the voice of the people. Robideau’s holographic satirical text charts history while critiquing the forces of government and commerce that have had a hand in shaping our urban environment.

Handmade black and white gelatin silver photographs are juxtaposed with computer mediated digital inkjet prints, reinforcing the flux of change experienced in these images. Robideau’s narrative embraces a lament for what has been lost, a celebration for what has survived, and an admonition for the future of a city still in its infancy.

Join us on Thursday April 9 from 7pm – 10pm for the opening reception of Eraser Street. There will be a forthcoming publication with an essay written by Clint Burnham. The exhibition runs from April 9 to May 16, 2015.

SPECIAL EVENTS:

An Evening in the Archive with Henri Robideau: A fundraiser for the grunt Archive
Saturday, April 25, 2015
Drinks at 6:30 pm, Dinner at 7:30 pm | Ticket Info:
http://www.eventbrite.com/e/an-evening-in-the-archive-with-henri-robideau-tickets-16293120161

Roundtable on Housing and photography in Vancouver: Henri Robideau
Saturday, May 9, 2015  (1–4pm) at grunt gallery. | FULL EVENT INFO.
facilitated by Clint Burnham

Audrey Siegl
Wendy Pedersen
Lorna Brown
Eugene McCann
Jeff Derksen
Henri Robideau
Clint Burnham

Press Clippings:

Georgia Straight | Henri Robideau’s Eraser Street tackles displacement

grunt gallery gratefully acknowledges support from the Hamber Foundation towards this exhibition and catalogue. The artist would like to thank CUPE 15 for supporting the production of the Solidarity Era series. An additional thanks to the BC Arts Council for the project funding making this exhibition possible.

Artist Bio:

Henri Robideau is a photographer and cultural narrator. His life in photography spans nearly five decades – the medium providing both his profession and his means of artistic expression. He is best known for The Pancanadienne Gianthropological Survey, a two-decade record of eccentric Canadian landmarks; Flapjacks & Photographs, the biography of early British Columbia photographer Mattie Gunterman; and 500 Fun Years, the story of colonialism. Panoramic image collages, holographic text and narrative sequences are the hallmarks of his work, which has been exhibited and collected nationally and internationally. Since 1979, he has taught photography in half a dozen Canadian universities and is currently a sessional instructor at Emily Carr University. For the past twenty years his large format photographic skills have been in demand by Canada’s leading artists, whom he has assisted in the production of their work. He is currently exploring digital colour technology, alternative means of perpetual photographic presentation and writing anecdotal stories about the ironic tragedy of human existence.

grunt gallery is pleased to present Brandon Vickerd’s Chopper. Based out of Toronto, Brandon Vickerd is an artist whose work ranges from site-specific interventions and public performances to object-based sculpture.

Chopper is an exhibition of several sculptural objects that reference 1960s motorcycle exoskeletons abstracted beyond their utilitarian purpose. Materials include mechanical parts, fibreglass, foam, car paint and steel. The sleekness of these sculptures suggests minimalist futuristic forms; their shapes appear aerodynamic, evoking ideas of movement, speed and power. At further inspection, they also appear as unknown relics, distinguished from immediate recognition of their mimicked motorcycle reference.

“Providing a feeling of propulsion, the sculptures in this series seem to be haunted by a lapsed future. In the gleaming hardness of custom paint and polished steel is the faint reflection of the failed project of the futurists and utopian dreamers.”
– Brandon Vickerd, Artist Statement.

Chopper resides in an uncertain limbo, generated from past notions while simultaneously whispering towards an unknown future.

Join us on Thursday February 26 from 7pm – 10pm for the opening reception of Chopper. The exhibition runs from February 26 to March 28, 2015.