Lynéa Ames

"Who’s to Say Which is the Right Direction?"

In my research I have been exploring the topics of: healing as an internal relationship, forest symbolism, representation of my non-binary body, and fairy-tales as mirrors into emotional truths. This collage features some earlier exploration of wearable work and performance, which are practices new to me and that are becoming integral aspects of my thesis project. Heading into 2021 I look forward to marrying these new methods with my painting practice, to produce a multidimensional body of work that transcends my prior aspirations for my creative practice. Lynéa Ames Website

Yingchao Chen

"Examination Booth Reconstructed"

Examination booth reconstructed is an installation that imitates an examination booth used during Imperial China, using canvas covered in straight lines marked by pencils to represent the walls, The audience is free to write anything using an eraser on the walls. The next participant will then fill erased parts with straight lines and the process repeats as such. With the repetitive sound of pencil making marks on canvases playing in the background for this interactive installation, romantic characteristics of mankind are also emphasized:- determination and persistence.

Examination booth reconstructed presents problems of the individual creative process through the action of meaningless tasks while questioning the inherent quality of erasing individuality of the examination system. The act of erasing is a comment on the current art testing conservative style which encourages students to focus on only technical skills, ignoring the importance and freedom of critical thinking.

Doris Chu

"Breeze"

My current thesis project is a series of self-reflective paintings that stem from childhood memories, dreams and experiences. The figurative dreamscape series is a form of self-contemplation and creates a space of uncertainty and potential. Although the paintings are a series of self-portraits, I hope they speak to the memories of youth and fantasy people experience.

This painting, titled Breeze, is the result of an exercise in expressing my childhood identity. I wanted to express a moment of uncertainty, isolation…a floating period of transition. Simultaneously I wanted to convey a sense of strength and resolve that youth possess but are often unaware of. My work features bright, saturated colour palettes and a soft rendering technique to further push the ideas of dreams, memories, and ephemerality. These portraits are what interest me the most of late and I look forward to developing them further.

Marli Davis

"Warm-Bodies, Ghostly-Specimens, Stoic-Machines"

Exploring parallels between Art, Science and Spirituality materializes scientific experimentation and diagnostic inspection within my practice. Visceral transience and tangibility is probed through installation, utilizing biomorphic materiality, specimen preservation, and hauntological mechanisms.

My deceased grandmother’s home; where I live and work, activates genealogy analysis. This space relates to the Specimen; housing ancestorial objects of investigation, connected to my Japanese heritage. Domestic artifacts are transmuted into cultural specimens; through taxonomic examination, dissection, calcification and reclamation. This articulates symbiosis between metaphysical lineage and my hybridized cultural identity. What is the dead trying to tell me? By re-animating ghostly memorabilia through DNA incubation and cultural extraction, the departed’s vitality is visualized. Each works’ systematic process aims to rectify the silent body by scrutinizing transgenerational epigenetics and ontological trauma.

An analytical textbook amalgamates this series; recording laboratory preservation. By positioning the self with this discourse, I address Warm Bodies, Ghostly Specimens, & Stoic Machines. Marli Davis Website

Emma Ducharme

"l'oeuil"

My work aims to depict the dichotomy of the true self in conjunction with the perceived self; that is to say, who we are, or how we’re perceived, versus who we think we are, who we are to ourselves. The work I create aims to challenge the concept of the self-portrait and demystify some of the elements of which humanness is comprised. My research examines how the surrounding world, and in particular how places and spaces, influence how we project ourselves and in turn how we are perceived. The work is an emotional reflection of a visage rather than a physical one. With this project I examines my own experiences of confronting the Self, and how I can understand myself better though introspection. My research includes studying how portrait painters and sculptors tackle notions of identity, as well as psychological and sociological journals regarding the Self. Emma Ducharme Website

Digital Mixed Media, "Ghosts in Places I've Gone", Time Duration: 00:00:37.

Shelby Doerfler

"Ghosts in Places I've Gone"

In this piece, I use digital mixed media to create a small animation meant to be exhibited as a projection. I use photos of places I’ve been and draw a piece of myself I left behind. This series came together as I thought about how even though I went to these places I might never visit again I still have memories, therefore a part of myself is there. My art has always dealt with themes like identity and memory, and art has always been a way for self-exploration into these topics for an understanding of myself. My work has taken on a lot more of an experimental feel over the last few months, as I have started to incorporate many different elements. Hopefully this year I can continue this series as well as branch out and explore as much as I can.

Fiona Enright

"Fragments of Speech Recognition Algorithm Research"

These drawings are sections of a visual art-based information behaviour study that demystifies and critiques algorithms. It analyzes how algorithms have and will affect information-seeking behaviour in the digital sphere. These works reference visual representations of data, such as scientific diagrams, and organic forms to illuminate both the technical and experiential aspects of algorithm-based information seeking. I initially intended to make sculptures for my thesis, but I decided that drawing’s close relation to data-representation is more relevant to my subject. This year, I will create more drawings like those presented here, which will collectively act as a primer on information behaviour-related algorithms.

Fragments of Speech Recognition Algorithm Research presents the basic concepts of speech recognition algorithms, such as those used by Siri and Alexa, and provide commentary on the technical and ethical issues related to this technology. Fiona Enright Instagram

Kathryn Greenwood

"Carnations"

My work investigates the status of plants within urban society. I illuminate the way consumerism may influence the amount of attention and perceived value we apply to different plant species, and the dichotomy that results. Evoking the psychological concept of plant blindness, my paintings call attention to the biases we unconsciously apply to plants. Kathryn Greenwood Website

Charlotte Healey

"Hercules and Antaeus Study"

This series focuses on intimacy and isolation within the framework of the ongoing pandemic. When touch and exposure to others is mitigated images of groups and exchanges allude to social contract, nostalgia, loss, and uncertainty. I pilfer elements from other paintings, photographs, and media and I sketch them out, separate them and throw them together. This excavation and re-building is about dredging up an impression or essence to reflect a more contemporary moment. Charlotte Healey Website

Claire Heidinger

"Food for Thought (Vagina Dumpling)"

This clay study was created as a non-perishable stand-in for an edible dumpling. Folding the skin into a dumpling that was then molded to represent a vulva. After firing, the skin has been painted in a blue and white pattern inspired by Ming porcelain.

My practice has evolved from painting to adapt to the conditions the pandemic has left us in. Referencing a current culture focused on take-out dining, physical distancing, social communications, and online sales/markets. The imagery of my research stems from the contemplation of the hyper sexualization of the Asian female body, and the struggles Asian women face when trying to reclaim our own sexuality. The cultural and familial traditions of making have developed this research and thought, creating art objects that do not fit the colonial and capital gallery institution spaces. I aim to further develop these ideas, experimenting with edible food as art objects.

"Ginger Porcelain Imitation"

I am working with ideas of Asian female sexuality, investigating a visual fetishism fueled by the gaze. My practice incorporates research based in post-colonial literature and diasporic culture, realized through painting, food, and sculpture. Visuals rooted in sentiment, identity, and accessibility are the mentalities that maintain my creative process.

I created multiple translations or imitations of the patterns of porcelain onto biodegradable food products. A lemon, ginger, and bok choy have been gessoed and painted in acrylic with the same patterns found on their porcelain counterparts. There is a quality to these works that negates the archival aspect of traditional easel painting. These items will eventually wither and rot, unlike the original vessel. They are no longer functional objects (in original intention) and a value has been prescribed. The tension between the two objects rejects a “polished-ness” adding aspects of gross and disgust as the subject will rot overtime. Claire Heidinger Website

Isabelle Halmos

"Take the Long Way Home"

Take the Long Way Home is a personal three-part series about the lasting body dysmorphia from being sexually harassed and assaulted at a young age. After coming up with the idea to paint myself trying to cope at three different ages, I decided I would make the series more dream-like to contrast the dark themes. The first painting in the series shows myself as a young girl looking at my reflection in a floating pond and seeing a sexual woman looking back. The being in the reflection represents the confusion I feel about how I look because I have been objectified since I was a child. The next two paintings in the series will consist of myself drowning underwater having just entered the pond, and a painting of myself exiting the pond as a woman who hasn’t healed yet but is ready to. Isabelle Halmos Website

Eveleen Hann

"Untitled"

Over the course of the fall semester, I have been researching and working with ideas related to collective anxiety attacks, in particular dance mania. Dance mania is defined as a socio-psychological disorder that has occurred historically within communities that have undergone high levels of stress. Those afflicted begin dancing and are incapable of stopping. The driving force behind this project is the word “viral,” which is inspired by this year’s events online and offline. My choice to use both digital and analogue is motivated by the “viral” existing in digital and physical spaces. Moving forward, I wish to continue using the figure as a method of exploring the virality of both illness and image through layering, disconnecting, and potentially animating my drawings.

Nicola Palmieri Infantino

"Palmerston Ave"

My artwork represents a memory or moment using architectural spaces and still life with the absence of people. My current research is symbolism in art, street art, personal archiving, nostalgia and artists Edward Hopper and Richard Diebenkorn. The work and ideas have evolved from painting actual people from the memory, to portraying the space and objects that are representative of them. The Palmerston painting, is based off of a photograph I took in Toronto during the summer. Originally, I was interested in capturing the individual nuances of the homes but it evolved into a self-portrait during a time where we are in a constant state of self-reflection.

This year, I am starting with a small oil painting series based off of my collection of still-life coffee photos that will discuss communication and coffee culture. I will also be creating a sketchbook of simple drawings that I will capture moments throughout this semester. Nicola Infantino Website

Erica Jochim

"Self Portrait with Mirror"

The themes I have been working through in thesis are; identity, body politics, perception, and the art historical/ contemporary representation of women. The visible identity markers people can observe gives a limited scope of a person’s identity. These visual assumptions are tied to us throughout our lives and influence the way we are treated and are expected to act. I want to provoke how the viewer interrelates with identity and their assumptions. Going forward, I will continue with material exploration and formats beyond the canvas. Erica Jochim Instagram

Natia Lemay

"The Descendant Project"

This Canadian history book is evidence of the inaccuracies of history and Black and Indigenous Canadians' erasure. "The Descendant Project" is a collection of historical and familial information that I have researched over the last four years. This research is inflicted onto the original book "Golden Leaves of Canadas Past," deconstructed into drawings, paintings, prints, and stories illustrating the missing pieces of the Canadian experience. This project tries to embody the Black and Indigenous Canadian's frustration and trauma when consistently confronted with systematic erasure and requests of emotional, intellectual, and physical labour to educate and create change in others.

The image provided is of the unedited cover of the original text. This performative action attempts to give the viewer the feeling of frustration—lack of access to information and my lack of participation in their request of emotional labour. Natia Lemay Website

Yi-Jen Lee

"Memory from Havana and Varadero"

The memories of trips are my inspiration because it makes me who I am. “Memory from Havana and Varadero” is my 30”x 40” acrylic painting. I put different sceneries of Havana and Varadero together by using tracing paper to rearrange the compositions and explored the relationship between lines, forms, and colors. My central theme is to hold on to and revive my memories of those places I visited. I would like my artwork to be an open dialogue and create resonance with the viewer to look back to their memories, which makes them who they are today.

My direction for 2021 is to research more of my identity by combining the most important memories. Being a Taiwanese immigrant in Canada, I found myself struggling between these two cultures. I am planning to research how these two cultures influence my way of seeing this world and how my cultures influenced my memories.

Adriana Lee

"Astronaut"

I have looked back at the art history and my own practice to study how they evolved and moved forward to the future. Appreciating existing works shaping new creations gave me a question of “what is the future form of creation?” and soon made me focus on the correlation between unconsciousness and expression.

The dissatisfaction of reality fulfilling by surreal expression led to my avoidant perspective, while my work reflects the contemporary art world: the presence of dystopia. I dreamed of a world that has no appeared differentials with the anonymity of spacesuit and expressed a sense of helplessness by describing it as if it is someone else’s. Paradoxically, I can imagine the brightest future when I recall how small my existence is, and what is often called miracles also happened within the same laws of physics in the real world. Adriana Lee Website

Zishuo Li

"Cosmos II"

We live in a material world. The materials around us all have their own unique qualities such as scent, vibrancy, transparency and texture etc. I’m always experimenting with new methods and materials along my art practice. The plants and rocks are collected like treasures and appeared in my works in various ways. My connection with nature was extended to the surface I’m working on by incorporating touch, smell and colors of the material I use. It is my intention to pass all the inspiration and comfort I gained from nature to the viewers that share the space with my works. Zishuo Li Website

Stephanie Ligeti

"Blow Up"

In my paintings I present cropped and edited stills from popular horror films. Drawing on psychoanalysis and Julia Kristeva’s theory of the abject, the work aims to question the function of gendered representations in cinema and narrative. Muted tones and blurred gestures act as cinematic filter to induce aged and out of focus images, asserting both the presence and precariousness of monstrous portrayals. Stephanie Ligeti Website

Dana Margulis

"Preservation 1"

The desired outcome of my thesis work is to create art pieces which emanate the energy of protection. I was inspired by protective amulets and icons from orthodox Christianity and folklore for various healing and protective purposes. A symbol may be worn for protection from evil or an icon representing a Saint or angel may watch over its owner. I am interested in the beliefs behind these objects and the special material practices associated with them. I draw inspiration for my canvas form from the egg shape and the crystal geode formation. These natural objects with an outside encasing which protects the precious center. I am continuing to experiment with material use to better deliver the representation of my concept. To me the tactility of media exploration is vital to my art practice and end result. It is a therapeutic and personal process. As amulets were used to protect the wearer, I attempt to create my own protective amulets through my art.

Vivian Peachey

"Deluge"

The muddle of information, opinion and fact. It names consequences and Hercules action needed to curb the affects of a changing climate. This deluge of data and despair causes my heart to race, thrusts my gaze outward and can cause inertia. The ‘Deluge Paintings’ originate from walks along the Humber River observing matted and tangled branches and leaves, and remnants of fabric and plastic, caught and twisted. A poignant depiction - nature entangled with our bountiful detritus. Perhaps the narrative can go beyond what is communicated as a seemingly intractable situation, to a place where hope can inspire coordinated action.

Hau Pham

"Free to Download"

I aim to produce paintings that reflect myself, exploring ideas of the Asian female identity, to understand how one values themselves and how that value is determined by others. Translating these reflections with oil paint, my works communicate guilt, confusion and uncertainty embedded in the history of ornamentalism.

The strength of social media has allowed the fear of the internalized study of self and physical appearance to not only manifest, but to become normalized. Pushing on standardized othering through perpetuated performative perfection and exoticization. The idea of images of me being viewed by others is both exhilarating and terrifying. By re-documenting the idea of someone else digitally consuming my images through the canon of the painted self-portraits, I echo its own historical hierarchical status, the justification of the documented preserved self-portrait, and the feeling of owned and acquired by others. Hau Pham Instagram

Jessika Pouget

"Halloween Candy"

Building off of last semesters research I continuing to focus on an impulsive and collage-based body of work deeply rooted in nostalgia and tactility. These works in progress felt good both in the making process and in observation. I had decided to “murder the aesthetic parents” (that being classical painting) and fully delve into my love of kitsch and craft. By using the language of abstraction, I am building a body of work that will function like an “I Spy” game for both viewer and artist. These works will not only be personal capsules of emotion but a universal “I Spy Book” of possible shared experiences where the audience can attempt to find the “hidden” objects listed in the artist’s didactic (even though there will be no correct answers). Jessika Pouget Website

Ingrid Repic

"Claire" & "Viona and the Deer"

As an emerging Canadian artist who draws from the abundant supply of images provided by social media feeds, I carefully collect reference photographs for my delicate and intimate watercolor paintings. I adapt transient, snap-shot imagery and encourages the viewer to slow down and laboriously study the subjects the way that I had. Admittedly a member of the generation steeped in a culture of profile pages and smartphones, I investigate and reflect on the themes of documentation, narcissism and projected ideals. Through portraits, still lives and figure painting, my work highlights the careful curation of “The Self” in contemporary culture while acknowledging the overlap of photography, fashion and material arts. Ingrid Repic Website

Maria Rutigliano

"Untitled"

Maria Rutigliano is a fourth-year thesis student who is an abstract painter. She uses colour and forms in an expressionist way to represent emotions and experiences. The themes in her work began with anxiety and darkness, this emerged into her interest in death, decay and light. Untitled is a mixed media work about life evolving/ emerging from decay. The two very different colour pallets serve as these two opposites in depicting the growth (life) from the ground (decay). Rutigliano uses different fabrics and material to mimic an earthly environment. Her choice of material is solely for purpose of texture, manipulating them to look how she wants them to and give her the effect she feels would best suit her work. Rutigliano is further exploring this idea of life emerging from decay throughout her thesis work and hopes to create a large body of work that relate in series.

Ethan Smith

"Band-Aid Solution"

My work is meant to visually represent a chronological process of overcoming struggles with mental health. Using the simile of crawling out of a pit to explore these themes step by step through the lease of self-reflection and self-critique, in doing so I aim to establish a catharsis and better understanding of these themes for myself and others.

Eunseo Sung

"Pandemic Moments"

My life has been stable before Covid-19. Therefore, I had fewer opportunities to observe various facial expressions before the outbreak. As I am currently experiencing the crisis, I intend to record the pandemic moments and explore how facial expressions have changed after the pandemic. My original idea was to create realistic portrait drawings of people during pandemic times by collecting the various types of photographs from news articles to record coronavirus experience. Nevertheless, I came to be interested in taking photographs of my surroundings and myself, rather than relying on internet photos. My goal is not only to show how each of us responds to current disasters by revealing our facial expressions to bring out the emotions and personalities, but I also want to depict the moments of crisis in a realistic way from my perspective as if I’m looking at myself and surroundings in the mirror.

Hilary Miriam Whorms

"Skyscape"

My thesis is an exploration of identity through memory and retrospective interpretations of captured moments in time, using body-sized skyscapes on wood and small, intimate family portraits on copper. Both of these elements explore ephemerality, notions of distance and exclusion, and the transient nature of the human condition. I am interested in the connection between photography and painting, the abstract nature of disintegration found in old photos, and how that relates to the abstract qualities of low-resolution images of the sky. This combination of representation and abstraction based on photographic images with a decay into the emptiness of the modern sublime is a foundational element for my continued work. Hilary Miriam Whorms Website

Natalie Wesselius

“Existential pain… and other pains”

I attempt to capture pains of existentialism into a metaphysical space, one that exists personally in my mind, onto paper in sporadic, impulsive, and performative ways. I am influenced by epistemological philosophies, always going back to the subjective phenomenon of being, at times making me very skeptical of truth.

I struggled with speech at a young age and turned to drawing to communicate, this supporting the idea that the effect of painting is a language to be analyzed and absorbed in its original form. Using still life’s and objects can encompass and reflect the psyche, your class, and my reality. This has influenced me to pursue representing objects, such as chairs, to signify the presence and absence of the figure within the context of an inner space. I will also show the effects of a commodified world, one that is becoming increasingly disconnected. Perhaps coinciding with my feelings of other-world-ness. Natalie Wesselius Website

Ye Jin Yang

"Depression 6:30AM (35.159164, 129.162431)"

Colourful changes of scenery endlessly reveal different colours by season, place, and time, and let people feel various feelings. The sky and the sea, particularly, elicit diverse emotions from time to time by changing colours and shapes freely. Within this inspiration, Represent Emotion brings the concept of capturing sentiment from scenery. This project investigates the psychological effects of colours on emotions and expresses personal emotions that the sky and the sea bring out. And I intend to reconstruct the conveyed emotions from various forms of landscape into a gradual abstract form through the harmony of pure formative elements; colour, line, and shape.

In Fall 2020, I have mainly focused on visiting the site for research and practicing accidental marks. With continuous research and experimentation, I am expecting to apply intentional marks on the accidental mark in Winter 2021 by utilizing soft oil pastels, watercolour crayons, fabrics, or Korean watercolour.

Mia Yang

" 福 fú (Memories) "

Looking at old photographs bring back memories of the past; it has the superpower to teleport us back to the specific day, time, and place where we can feel every little detail, on the other hands, sometimes I feel I am fading away on the photograph left with an empty background. In my work, I intend to discover the relationship between memories and photographs through the medium of paper. Embed memories of the past into papers to continue on its’s life cycle. For the presentation of the works, I regard this series of work as photograph pieces from a photo album. They are bound into the format of a book through buttonhole book-binding. Furthermore, the meaning of fortune and good luck is embedded in the paper-cut book cover through the combination of the Chinese knot and the character, fú. Mia Yang Website