UPCOMING EXHIBITION: 

 

Found in oblivion  by Melika Forouzan Pour
 

Exhibition Dates:  October 7 - November 25, 2022

A/P invites members and guests to the IN PERSON Opening Reception and Artist Talk:  October 14 from 7-9pm 
 

Found in oblivion is an exhibition in praise of lost places and people. It is an attempt to revive those memories which might have been forgotten over time, a contemporary interpretation of historical images by bringing attention to old family photographs of Iranians.

This exhibition consists of four projects:

Distorted memories includes old photographs of children folded in transparent papers with printed the pattern of Persian handwriting “Do you remember?” which is borrowed from the text that had been written at the back of one of the photographs. Using the transparent papers refers to the sheeting papers used in old family albums to protect the photos.

Wanderers series is an attempt to bring life back to abandoned houses, it is a combination of contemporary photos of demolished and abandoned houses and the ghost like figures of people taken from old family photos that have been printed on transparent papers.

A letter to... is the embossment of texts and letters that were written at the back of photos and postcards on white papers in transparent envelopes that alludes to the concept of emerging and disappearing of memory and history at the same time.

Displacement a series of double layered frames shows people detached from their surrounding environment and places without people. It is an invitation to touch, observe and discover memories and stories of distance and displacement.

Melika Forouzan Pour (she/her) was born in Tehran, Iran in 1986 and has been living in Calgary since February 2021. She graduated in the bachelor of Fine arts and Master of Arts in photography from the University of Tehran, Iran. She took her second Master in Fine Arts from the University of Calgary. She explores place attachment and memory in her works. Her art pieces have exhibited in Iran, Britain and Canada and she has published articles in the fields of family photography and collective memory in Iranian Art Journals.

CURRENT EXHIBITION: 

 

LASTING IMPRESSIONS: A/P's 2022 Members' Exhibition
 

Past Exhibition:

 

2ND PRESSING:
Presented by AUArts Print Students in collaboration with Alberta Printmakers
 

Dates:  July 15 - August 5

Closing Reception:  August 5 from 7-9pm 

Members and invited guests are welcome to attend this event, which will include artwork sales, a silent auction and light refreshments.

About the Exhibition:

2ND PRESSING is an exhibition of prints that were designed to highlight the collaborative nature of printmaking. 

→ 9 AUArts Print Students collaborated with A/P to design, curate, and print 18 limited editions using A/P's Vandercook Letterpress. 

→ This project is A/P's 2nd annual AUArts Student-led initiative, which celebrates students while building their connections with A/P and the broader arts community. 

Artists: 
AJ Colum, Paul Dudar, Isis Horne, Levin Ifko, Rachel MacKinnon, Nicole Olson Grant-Suttie, Sam Rollo, Andy Rubio, Jessica Wu

*All 18 limited edition artworks are available for sale to fund future collaborations between A/P and AUArts Students, which serve to support students' career growth in the broader artistic community. 

About the Artists:

AJ Colum has only been stung by a bee once and It was entirely their fault. For she stepped on it as it was just trying to chill in a sunbeam. An ex full time horse rider, who once wrote a play about the Greek gods eating cereal. Working in in a basement closet studio at least ten minutes away from the nearest gas station, now she moonlights (literally it 2am) as an artist who switches styles and medias faster than lightening. Fascinated by the natural world and its ability to conform into images with a high percentage of cartoon logic. So no logic at all. She enjoys taking the perceived meanings words and phrase as a suggestion rather than a rule. On top of exploring the personification and symbolize of none humans. AJ’s pieces sometimes explore emotional catharsis for experiences with the issues surrounding access, gender and capitalism. But sometimes it’s just a dinosaur with a juice box.

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Paul Dudar is a fourth year Print Media student at the Alberta University of the Arts. His aim is to use modern print making techniques and illustration to explore modes of visual storytelling and narrative. Art and illustration were instilled in him at a young age by his family members and have grown to be important parts of his educational experience both in academia and in the reflection on his personal life. Paul was awarded honor roll standing in his first two years at AUArts and is looking forward to further collaboration with the Alberta Printmakers Society.

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Isis Horne is a Print Major at Alberta University of the Arts with a minor in Fibre. Isis’s focus in her studies is the exploration of escape into fantasy in a turbulent childhood, to transform the dark into delicate and ethereal. In her practice, Isis combines illustration and print to produce visual narratives onto cloth to share stories of her experience of intergenerational trauma and the effects of parental addiction on youth. Alongside sharing her own experiences, Isis has reached out within her community to produce a Zine project called Children of Chaos, which shares the anonymous stories of others experiences of parental addiction. Isis has recently been interested in data collection and how she can visually describe and communicate the effects of her experiences in the day to day through print and painting. This coming year Isis will be continuing her work of blending fantasy with reality and producing a second zine sharing the voices of the children bred from chaos.

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Levin Ifko is an interdisciplinary artist based in Mohkinstsis (Calgary AB). Interested in how play and change shape queer and trans identity, they explore ambiguity through work in video, sculpture, print, and music. Ifko was recently the artist-in-residence at The New Gallery in an open-studio style project called Writing With My Hands (2022). Their visual art is currently being shown in a group show called Urban Soul, with the Alberta Society of Artists TREX Southwest program (2021-2023). Ifko graduated in 2022 with a BFA in Media Arts from the Alberta University of the Arts.

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Rachel MacKinnon a designer, illustrator, printmaker, and recent graduate from the Alberta University of the Arts. Her work ranges from comics to colourful silkscreens and book designs. She sees herself as a hybrid designer who brings illustrative elements into modern design and likes to add fun and whimsy into her practice! Rachel enjoys books, cats, and occasionally talking about herself in the third person.

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Nicole Olson Grant-Suttie is an artist who revels in the intricate processes involved in printmaking. She finds magic in the meticulous, and pleasure in patterns. Coming from a background in theatrical lighting design, her tendency is to bring forth the light from the shadows. Nicole is grateful for this opportunity to learn not only the letterpress but also the process involved in coordinating such an exhibit.

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Sam Rollo: I am a recent graduate of the Alberta University of the Arts (class of 2022) with a BFA in Print Media and am the current director of the Marion Nicoll Gallery. As former director of the student-run print media gallery Galerie Gaulin, and a current volunteer and board member for the not-for-profit Alberta Printmakers, I have been focused on developing collaborative, inclusive programming that encourages connection and community building through the organization of projects such as the Letterpress Printed Postcard Project, group exhibitions, and building/installing a Community Zine Exchange at AUArts. My artistic practice is based in anti-authoritarianism and community building. I primarily work with collage and silkscreen and use tactics found in agit-prop (agitational propaganda) to represent “business as usual” as dystopian while conveying a push for an alternative condition. In my studio practice I am a firm believer in knowledge and skill sharing, peer to peer support, and providing mentorship opportunities whenever possible.

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Andy Rubio is a Queer, Trans*, and mixed-race artist practicing in Mohkinstsis, Treaty 7 Land Territory. Currently, they are completing their final year towards a BFA majoring in Print Making at AuArts. Through processes of printmaking, primarily silkscreen, they enjoy exploring themes and experiences of Queer visibility, liminal space, representation, commodification, and nostalgia, along with imagery related to automobiles, dead animals, and anthropomorphic taxis.

Jessica Wu: I am a Calgary based artist currently pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Printmaking at Alberta University of the Arts. My work mainly focuses on my experiences with sexuality, gender, and cultural identity. I explore themes of time, memory, remembering, and forgetting in my work. I examine the ways in which memory is tied to personal identity, the sense of self, cultural identity, and family. Objects of material culture and nostalgic objects are often starting points for my imagery. Things that hold cultural significance, childhood toys, and family photos are some of the things I have been referencing. The designs I made for this project are inspired by traditional folk Chinese papercutting designs. My adaptation of these motifs pays homage to my cultural heritage through my lens as a printmaker and person in the Chinese diaspora. 

Past Exhibition: 
 

Zones / Indicators  by Elizabeth Claire Rose
 

Exhibition Dates:  April 1 - May 13, 2022
IN PERSON Opening Reception:  April 1 from 7-9 PM (MST) - Artist in attendance

VIRTUAL ARTIST TALK:  April 28 from 8 - 9 PM MDT  REGISTER HERE

"My practice as an artist begins with the study and research of parallel places and ecosystems. I observe and identify how they mirror each other’s function and form, and how, through their similarities they are able to exhibit uniqueness. Studying these sites is especially important in the face of climate change, as highly sensitive places like islands and alpine areas become more vulnerable to fluctuating temperatures, rising lake and sea levels, which in turn impacts the survival of flora and fauna in these vulnerable landscapes. 

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Referencing my own experiences traveling through altitudinal zones to alpine areas, and across latitudinal lines, I create work which connects geographically disconnected landscapes focusing on their shared ecologies: how each site is connected through climatic shifts, soil qualities, and habitat range. I repetitively rework traditional copperplate matrices, often in combination and collage with photo-lithography, and photography to extract observations, uncovering cultural and natural histories."

Elizabeth Claire Rose was born in Central Illinois,  grew up exploring natural areas of the midwestern United States, which cultivated her creativity and interests in ecology, biogeography, and the ecological value of varied landscapes. Rose received her MFA in Printmaking from Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University and a BA in Fine Art with a minor in Wilderness Studies from the University of Montana. Rose is an alumna of the Fulbright Program in Poland (2019-2020) where she was awarded a research grant in printmaking.

To learn more about her work, please visit www.elizabethclairerose.com