Brad Necyk /  Telling Stories Otherwise

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January 10 - February 28, 2020

"Over the past four years, I have been co-creating art in collaboration with people living with illness in communities across Canada. I have been working with recent transplant patients, head and neck cancer patients, suicide survivors in the Arctic, and psychiatric patients at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. In this exhibition, embedded in artworks, you will see the works we co-created as I spent time with these individuals and in their communities. You will also see my own illness experiences and how they weave and knot with the work, as well as insights created with patients. Illness is a vital meaning-making event in people's lives, and the stories we use to narrate our illness to others and ourselves matter deeply. I aim to tell stories about the experience of illness with the hope that this might increase our confidence and vocabulary to discuss, experience, and express these meaningful events."

Brad Necyk is a multimedia artist and writer in Canada whose practice engages with issues of medicine, mental health, and precarious populations and subjects. His works include drawings and paintings, still and motion film, sculpture, 3D imaging and printing, virtual reality, and performance.  He recently completed a research-creation PhD in Psychiatry and was awarded the Governor General's Gold Medal.

Stephanie de Couto Costa /  Anthology of Mourning

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March 6 - April 7, 2020

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Opening Reception: March 6 from 7-9pm

Artist in attendance.

"The works in this exhibition explore the expanded notions of mourning; meaning not confined to the loss of loved ones, but includes displacement, loss of identity, community, ideals, and loss of self. More specifically, mourning is examined from an ethnological perspective, reflecting on how our heritage, belief systems, genealogy, effects or guides our experiences of grief. In Anthology of Mourning, these ideas are explored through printed works and drawings, often referred to as still lifes and tapestries. The works are created from the assemblage of an extensive collection of imagery and visual lexicon that I have been building and referencing throughout my practice.

There is a strong presence of textile designs and traditions in the works. My family working in this industry, fabric has always been part of my visual landscape evoking notions of labour, class and cultural identity. In my own translation of textile work, I’m interested in exploring cloth as a fleshy extension of the body. Cloth and patterning becomes a communicative adornment, expressing something the body cannot. It’s a means of hiding the self but also revealing the self. Through cryptic language, repetition and the appropriation of traditional motifs, the works act as pictograms using patterning as text, revealing a desire to establish a dialogue between past and present, seeking to keep what as left alive."

Stephanie de Couto Costa is a visual artist and writer in Montreal, Canada. Interested in process driven material practices, her work encompasses different media such as printmaking, textiles, drawing and installation. She has participated in a number of international exhibitions and residencies, including a research and creation project in Lisbon, Portugal. She completed a MFA in Studio Arts from Concordia University, where she works as an Assistant Professor in the division of Print Media.