Young Winnipeg Artists

Tough, smart and ready to rumble

Young Winnipeg Artists: 14 March to 31 May, 2003
Opening Friday 14 March at 8 PM

All welcome, free admission.

Curated by Cliff Eyland and Carol Phillips

Young Winnipeg Artists (YWAs) is a multi-media exhibition of work by up-and-coming visual artists -- all Winnipeg-based -- who range in age from early twenties to mid-thirties. This exhibition highlights Plug In ICA's continued success in bringing attention to important new art and the best in new artistic voices.

YWAs is an exciting opportunity to take stock of the current storehouse of talent harboured by ìthe cultural capital of North America,î (Utne Reader, 2002). YWAs coincides with the recent and unprecedented recognition of young Winnipeg artists in New York City and other capitals of the art world. Notices about Winnipeg artists in major art journals are now common: for example, the Winter 2002 issue of Modern Painters, a British art magazine, calls Winnipeg "a volcano of creativity of late" (p.153).

The exhibition includes recent painting by Roger Crait, Simon Hughes, Jake Kosciuk, Shaun Morin, Melanie Rocan, and Lisa Wood; installation art by KC Adams, Risa Horowitz, and Erika Lincoln; photo-based work by Dominique Rey, Les Newman, Chris MacDonald and Veronica Preweda; and mixed media work by Parminder Obhi and Cyrus Smith.

Viewing YWAs, one sees distinctions more than commonalities among the works perhaps because the most likely future for these artists is as solo voices. Much art production in Winnipeg is a private struggle and individualistic activity within a loose but supportive network. Despite the burgeoning of collectives such as the Royal Art Lodge, most of these young Winnipeg artists toil alone through the long Winnipeg winter.

The survival skills honed in this harsh, isolated, yet uniquely stimulating environment, stand these artists well in the competitive international world of art.

ìThe combination of guilelessness and entrepreneurial drive in these artists might be unexpected. However, there is a straightforwardness on the prairies that reminds me, believe it or not, of how New Yorkers address each other,î sums up Cliff Eyland, curator.

NOTES ON THE YWA ARTISTS:

KC Adams is a Winnipeg artist who combines diverse media such as clay, found objects, electronics, and computer interfaces to create physical and virtual installations.  Since graduating from Concordia University, Adams has had numerous solo and group exhibitions including the upcoming The Language of Intercession at The Art Gallery of Hamilton, and You Gotta Move at The Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba. She has created an interactive installation piece for YWA.

Roger Crait is an expressionistic painter who, often with satire and social commentary, paints his urban aboriginal life and apocalyptic fantasies. In one of his thickly-painted works, a space shuttle hurtles toward a city of towers and tepees. Sometimes text intrudes, as in his series of word paintings in which he coins words like aboriginatives. Crait has exhibited his work in Australia and most recently on Plug In's Osborne Street billboard.

Risa Horowitz completed her MFA in Saskatoon and recently moved to Winnipeg, where she works at aceartinc. Horowitz describes her work in YWAs: "melitzah [the Hebrew word meaning utterance] is comprised of an audio recording of my voice reading the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, and a visual archive containing the waveforms for the words of the dictionary. I am curious about the waveforms as visual representations of the auditory, which are linguistic representations of the cognitive.î

Simon Hughes makes architectural renderings of fanciful Canadian scenarios, one of which was recently reproduced on the cover of the Toronto art magazine Lola.  In one of his coloured drawings it snows inside such that indoor winter wear is a must.  Recently one of Hughes' video tapes was included in the Walker Art Center/Plug In touring show Magnetic North. His contribution to YWAs consists of a large Winnipeg-based architectural fantasy.

Jake Kosciuk just graduated from the University of Manitoba's School of Fine Art, but before that was precocious enough to have shown at Plug In when he was just out of high school. In a short career Kosciuk has moved from graffiti-inspired art to recent abstract painting which, although at a smaller scale, hearkens back to post-painterly abstraction and formalist collage.

Erika Lincoln has a technical focus which she applies to the construction of machines which perform her art. Lincoln's kinetic objects have a home-made character. Most recently she has shown a tree-like structure (at aceartinc) that moves its branches mechanically triggering an audible network throughout the gallery.

Chris MacDonald creates abstract ghost worlds in his photographs and recent paintings which examine relationships between light and space. He strives to transform ordinary light into something existing just beyond the familiarity of our immediate experience. He recently graduated from the University of Manitoba School of Art.

Shaun Morin counts as his major influence the Canadian-born American painter Philip Guston. Known on the streets of Winnipeg as graffiti artist Slomo, Morin is among the most prolific painters in Winnipeg. Morin will graduate from the University of Manitoba while the YWA exhibition is in progress.

Les Newman studied at the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design. He became known a few years ago for paintings that dealt with his experiences as a telephone market researcher. Since then he has made computer drawings and graphics, re-photographing them so that the finished work is at several removes from its digital source. Newman has a solo exhibition upcoming at aceartinc.

Parminder Obhi, born and raised in Selkirk, Manitoba, was influenced early on by the American funk artist Red Grooms. Occasionally exhibiting with the collective "Orange Lab" Obhi makes large coloured papier-m’chÈ works humorously depicting her social anxieties.

Veronica Preweda sets up colour photograph tableaux of Biblical scenes that include Gumby, Lego, Pez dispensers, and Fischer Price figures. Her "Last Supper" is based on Leonardo's famed painting, and her "Stations....î diorama is based on imagery she has studied in various churches. Preweda is a Roman Catholic but not a churchgoer. "My parents got divorced and my Dad got an annulment with cash. I have certain issues with that, but I am not trying to make a political statement.î

Dominique Rey is a Franco-Manitoban painter and photographer who studied at the Yale summer program as well as the University of Manitoba School of Art. She recently showed her Bathers series in a solo exhibition at Winnipeg's Gallery One One One.
Rey's photographs in YWA were taken in the Manitoba woods last summer during a camping trip and continue her Bathers theme.

Melanie Rocan is a Franco-Manitoban who is in her final year of undergraduate studies at the University of Manitoba School of Art. Despite her youth, Rocan has already had a solo exhibition at Winnipeg's Franco-Manitoban Cultural Centre. She is a natural painter with an eye for colour and a love of decorative play. Sometimes she incorporates fabric into her paintings. In the YWA exhibition she shows a lush, abstract expressionist-looking work.

Cyrus Smith is a multi-media artist whose work ranges from the hand-made painter's brushes that he is showing in YWA to sculptures made from materials he finds in his favourite Winnipeg dumpsters. He is due to graduate from the University of Manitoba School of Art next year. Recently, Smith created two interactive booths (Drunk and Sober) for one of Plug Inís salon evenings.

Lisa Wood works at Art City in Winnipeg's core. Her self-portrait paintings in oil involve a slow and meticulous technique reminiscent of an historical artist like Gwen John.  She is about to enter graduate school in the United States.

Plug In gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council, Manitoba Arts Council, The Winnipeg Arts Council and Kendrick Quality Printing.