EXHIBITION | 01 May – 31 July 2019
PLATFORM centre is pleased to announce Suddenly, no, at long last, a group exhibition featuring the work of Ian August (MB), Sylvia Matas (MB), Mark Neufeld (MB), Bret Parenteau (MB) and Lisa Stinner-Kun (MB). The show is curated by Collin Zipp (MB) and runs from 01 May – 31 July 2020. The show will open online 01 May and in-gallery viewing hours are by appointment.
How do we perceive nothingness or even fully know what it is? Everywhere we look we can see, feel or think something. Nothingness is by no means nothing. In artistic practices nothingness can appear in many forms and in many ways. Using nothingness as the initial starting point, the work in this exhibition explores emptiness, anticipation, the void, stillness and banality. The artists in Suddenly, no, at long last examine the many experiential qualities of nothingness in each of their works.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Ian August is an artist based in Winnipeg. August’s recent paintings are inspired by the function of thresholds in Dutch interior painting of the seventeenth century. These works are characterized by multiple doors and windows commenting on each other to entice the curious gaze of the viewer. At least that’s how I explain myself when I’m busted taking cell phone pictures of people’s windows. August received his MFA from York University, and his BFA, honours from the University of Manitoba’s School of Art. His work has been the subject of many solo exhibitions, including Plunder Dupes, Actual Gallery, Winnipeg; and Re: Build Them, Gallery 1C03, Winnipeg. His work has also been included in numerous group exhibitions.
Sylvia Matas is an interdisciplinary artist from Winnipeg. She received her MFA from the Chelsea College of Art and Design in London, England. Her work has been exhibited at the Maclaren Art Centre (Barrie, ON), The Winnipeg Art Gallery, Plug In ICA (Winnipeg, MB), Truck Contemporary Art (Calgary, AB), Útúrdúr (Reykjavik), the Art Museum at the University of Toronto and Mercer Union (Toronto).
Mark Neufeld navigates between a variety of disciplines and media with painting as the basis for his activities. Neufeld’s work takes the form of installations that interweave paintings with readymadeobjects and assemblages. Themes from a variety of cultural interests, from popular culture, music and art history, are woven together. In recent works, Neufeld has explored mythologies of the cowboy and the west, at times noting parallels between the ideologically constructed blank slate of “the new world” and westward expansionism, and the various tabulae rasae of modernism. Neufeld received his BFA from Emily Carr University, an MFA from the University of Victoria and is the recipient of a number of awards and grants, including the Joseph Plaskett Award. Neufeld has exhibited across Canada, in the United States, in Germany, Australia and Norway, and most recently he participated The Projectionist at The Reach, Ideas & Things at the Kamloops Art Gallery, Re-enactments at Gallery 1C03, University of Winnipeg and Performance with Two Sculptures, at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery.
Bret Parenteau is a sound artist based in Winnipeg. Under the initials B.P., Parenteau has been crafting his formula of noise, field recording, & tape manipulation for the past few years. Parenteau is the Head of Makade Star label based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Treaty 1 Territory and Historic Métis Nation Homeland.
Lisa Stinner-Kun is a Winnipeg-based artist whose work is concerned with the photographic reconstruction of the human-built environment. Since graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a MFA in Photography, Stinner-Kun has shown her work in exhibitions locally, nationally and internationally. She has received numerous grants and scholarships for her photographic work, including from the Canada Council for the Arts. Stinner-Kun teaches at Martha Street Studio and is a regular instructor at the School of Art, University of Manitoba.
