Total Eclipse of the Art

🎼(Turn around)
Every now and then we get a little bit restless
and we host a fundraiser exhibition and sale!
(Turn around)
Every now and we get a little bit lonely
so our fundraiser coincides with our annual general meeting!🎶

In honour of the solar eclipse the Inc proudly presents "Total Eclipse of the Art" on view April 12-13 in the James Gallery. Stop by the reception Friday April 12 from 7-10pm during April Art Crawl. Visit our Annual General Meeting April 13 from 4:30-5:30pm. And we need you more than ever! Take an artwork home with you and together we can take it to the end of the line--the annual fundraising budget line that is! And if you hold your artwork tight, the Inc will be in operation forever!

 

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Olivia Brouwer is an interdisciplinary artist based in Cambridge, Ontario. In 2016, she graduated from the Art and Art History joint program, specializing in painting and printmaking, at the University of Toronto Mississauga and Sheridan College Institute of Technology. Since then, her work has been exhibited in a number of shows primarily across Southern Ontario, some of which include the Blackwood Gallery, the Art Gallery of Mississauga, Tangled Art + Disability, Idea Exchange, and Centre[3]. Brouwer was a recipient of the Centre[3] Emerging Artist Residency program, the Artist Residency program at the Cotton Factory, and the 2022 Femme Folks Fest Residency. She was one of 52 finalists for the 2021 Salt Spring National Art Prize, an award winner of the City of Hamilton Creator Award, as well as a recipient of various grants from Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts.

Snack Witch Joni Cheung is a grateful, uninvited guest born—and knows she wants to die—on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, Stó:lō, and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh peoples. Currently, she is working on the stolen lands of the Kanien’kehá:ka peoples. They are a Certified Sculpture Witch with an MFA from Concordia University (2023). A wicked #magicalgirl eating art + making snacks⁠, their interdisciplinary practice investigates the relationship between objects↔place↔identity, navigating discourses of transnationalism, migration, and diasporas, always with humour, and sometimes with food.

Moma Dada curiously explores the processes and the in-between spaces of art making by taking inspiration and guidance from naturally occurring things like plants, animals, wind, and the seasons. We are interested in encouraging in ourselves – new paths of learning, free expression, collaboration, community understanding and nurturing using methods alternative to conventional, which perceive creativity and art with reverence and distinction. Hamilton has a rich community of outsider artists who create for the sake of creation, and we wish to provide a communal space where everyone can express themselves freely.

Carmella Dolmer - I am an emerging multidisciplinary artist, with roots in both Hamilton, Canada,   &   Bicol, Philippines. With personal struggles restricting my young life, in my adulthood I just try to move and play freely—with free play being my main artistic practice. I think that art & beauty already make up our everyday lives, and that artmaking-rules & conventions ruin the perfection of what is already naturally demonstrated by children who play freely: something pure, raw, honest & unafraid. I think that free play can produce / act as a study of that raw beauty.  With this, my goal is to unlearn all conventions built into my art making, with the hope of someday becoming exactly like a child. https://www.softerfruit.ca/

Natalie Hunter was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. She is the recipient of many Canada Council for the Arts Research and Creation Grants, and Ontario Arts Council Visual Artists Creation Project Grants. She has shown her work in public art galleries and artist-run-centres across Canada, including: Rodman Hall Arts Centre, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Smokestack Gallery, Hamilton Supercrawl, Hamilton Winterfest, University of Waterloo Art Gallery, Thames Art Gallery, Mississauga Living Arts Centre, Art Gallery of Windsor, Centre 3 for Artistic and Social Practice, Factory Media Centre, Hamilton Artists Inc., Latcham Art Centre, Museum London, Propeller Art Gallery, John B. Aird Gallery, Gallery TPW, University of Manitoba School of Arts Gallery, The Reach Gallery Museum, and Capture Photography Festival, among others. Her work has been featured in Hamilton Arts and Letters, Femme Art Review, The Gathered Gallery, Other Peoples Pixels Blog, Canadian Journal of Culture Studies, and BlackFlash Magazine. She holds an MFA from the University of Waterloo where she is a sessional instructor, and received an Excellence in Online Teaching Award (2017). She lives and works in her home city of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. https://natalie-hunter.com/home.html

Nicole Levaque is a Canadian artist, currently based in Hamilton, ON. Working through sculptural installations and ceramics, she addresses hierarchies of consumption and her emotional attachment to objects. Levaque holds an MFA in Sculpture and Extended Media from Virginia Commonwealth University (2019) and a BFA in Painting from Concordia University in Tio’tiá:ke (Montreal), Quebec (2014). Her work has been exhibited and collected both locally and internationally. https://www.nicolelevaque.com/

Vick Naresh is a contemporary artist currently working and living in Hamilton, Canada. His ongoing body of work is an exploration in figurative abstraction that delves into metaphorical narratives tackling social contemporary & personal themes like post-colonial displacement & identity in a modernist context. His practice is influenced by a recognizable, yet undefined language of qualifying imagery mixed with geometric configurations & representations of imaginary environments further expanded with the use of visceral colour harmonies. These works index moments of reflection in an immaterial universe, attempting to comprehend the ethereal while superimposing layered memories. Visit https://www.vicknaresh.art/

stylo starr is a collage artist whose work centres nature, fantasy and the Afrofuture. Her work is driven by the observation and integration of fine layered detail in a collaboration with her deep amateur interests in astrology, crystals, herbalism, lepidopterology and the metaphysical – all of which are frequently explored in her collages. stylo’s art reflects beauty and power, and she believes prominent and positive representation of Blackness in the arts is critical and necessary. stylo has exhibited at the Art Gallery of Hamilton and the Art Gallery of Burlington among others and is an emerging curator and arts educator. She also facilitates creative mindfulness workshops open to a variety of age groups and experiences both in-person and online. stylo is based in her hometown of Hamilton, Ontario, situated upon the traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Mississaugas, where she works and lives with her feline companion, Samo. https://www.instagram.com/stylostarr/

Stephanie Vegh is a Canadian visual artist, writer and curator who obtained her Combined Honours BA in Art and Comparative Literature from McMaster University before studying her MFA at the Glasgow School of Art. She has since served as Artist-in-Residence at the Repton School in Derbyshire, England and written essays and reviews for various galleries and publications in the United Kingdom and Canada. Since returning to Hamilton in 2007, her drawings have been included in group and solo exhibitions in Glasgow, Leeds, Hamilton, Toronto, Kitchener and Winnipeg. From 2011-2017 she served as the Executive Director of the Hamilton Arts Council, and has previously served on the Boards of Directors of Hamilton Artists Inc. (2008-2010) and Centre 3 for Print and Media Arts (2008-2011). She is a three-time recipient of an Ontario Arts Council Project Grant for Visual Artists. https://www.stephanievegh.ca/