Pamahiin/Ritual Visual Art Exhibit Opening Night Reception-August 17th
Exhibit open until August 31. Gallery hours Weds & Thurs 12-8pm or by appointment
Featuring the works of the following artists:
Jo SiMalaya Alcampo
Jo SiMalaya Alcampo is an interdisciplinary artist who explores cultural/body memory and the healing of intergenerational soul wounds through community storytelling, installation-based art, and electroacoustic soundscapes. Jo recently spoke at the KAPWA-3 Conference: "Indigenous Knowledge in the Academe - Bridging Local And Global Paradigms" at the University of the Philippines in Baguio City. She made the journey with a group of Filipino-Canadian healers, artists, and critical thinkers from Toronto: Aimee Gomez, Jennifer Maramba, Christine Balmes, and Kristen Sison a.k.a. KAPWA collective and they are committed to sharing the learning process with our communities. "Pamahiin/Ritual This!" is one offering.
Website: www.josimalaya.com
Timothy Manalo
Timothy Manalo was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2006, he attended the Ontario College of Art and Design (now OCAD University), where he received his Bachelor’s of Fine Art from the Sculpture and Installation program and was honoured with the coveted OCAD Medal upon graduation in 2010. Known for being technically skilled, Timothy Manalo has gained numerous experience within the fabrication industry as an sculptor and fabricator working in fibreglass, mascot-making and custom interior finishing companies. Most recently he has started working as an ice sculptor for an ice producing company. His true focus is on his personal art practice, which he is able to exercise in his studio located in downtown Toronto.
Maureen Mendoza
Maureen Mendoza is a 23-year-old graphic designer with a Bachelor of Design from OCAD University. She is constantly being inspired by flora and fauna and incorporates them into her designs as much as possible. She loves to work with her hands and her favourite design projects are those that include handmade elements.
My Own Time Collective
My Own Time (MOT) Arts Collective is a network of artists who share a strong interest in any product of the creative mind. The collective emerged out of the McMaster Student’s Union funded club Artists Anonymous whose mandate was to provide a creative outlet for artists not in a Fine Arts program. MOT expands on the Artists Anonymous philosophy by aiming at larger, long-term works and a broader artistic setting. Its members and contributors span from writers and poets, to self-taught photographers, artists, and artisans. Through its various activities, particularly the MOT Art Book, the collective hopes to establish strong ties to the local Hamilton, Westdale, and Dundas communities, as well as the McMaster campus.
In addition to the Art Book, which is a quarterly publication that directs the collective’s creative energies towards an immediate collaborative project, MOT participates in key Southern Ontario art events, such as the Hamilton James St. N. Art Crawl, the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, and Toronto’s Nuit Blanche. In the two years since its establishment, MOT has produced four issues of the MOT Art Book in two volumes, successfully staged installations at Nuit Blanche two years in a row, and initiated several small-scale projects and collaborations. The collective is taking steps towards establishing future collaborations with local organizations and venues including OPRIG, You Me Gallery, The Toronto Zine Library, and Open Circle.
Find MOT on the web at: http://my-owntime.blogspot.ca/
MOT Member Bios
Ava Dideban
Ava Dideban is an artist and designer and has worked as Multimedia Editor for McMaster University’s student newspaper, The Silhouette. While her preferred medium is digital art, making Adobe Photoshop and Wacom’s digital tablet her tools of the trade, she also works in traditional media for inking and calligraphy and will dabble in paints and pastels. Another of her interests is graffiti and typography. She’s primarily influenced by art styles of the 80s, including the comic books, anime, and cartoons of that era. As well, she’s influenced by architecture and ergonomics. Her inspirations range from classic to modern day artists, including Claude Monet, Leonardo da Vinci, Rumiko Takahashi, and James Jean. Her recent projects include commissioned work for the band Inlet Sound, and the McMaster Parkinson’s Research and Awareness Society. She believes art should be inclusive and that it lies in the eye of the beholder.
Sarah Salise
Sarah Salise is a student of life, a “junk art” enthusiast, a novice DIY-er/crafter, and a doodler who is passionate for many things creative. Her primary traditional mediums are the paper, pen and pencil trio. She makes it a mission to always incorporate recycled materials in her crafts such as using ready-made and found objects. Because of this she has contributed in Hamilton's Annual RevWear fashion show for two years creating and constructing outfits from up-cycled salvages. She has also facilitated workshops on how to turn pop tabs and strings into bracelets. Influenced by her childhood memories of the Philippines, she is eager to rediscover the culture she has left behind and the history she has taken for granted through the arts. She believes that a person's artwork reflects their current state of mind where a personal narrative often unfolds.
Joy Santiago
Joy Santiago is a self-taught artist and professional doodler whose goal is to express sensuality and both non-conventional and conventional beauty in all her works. She is a true traditional artist but finishes most of her work in a digital medium. She loves drawing with ink and is currently in a watercolour and charcoal frenzy. Her main influences include the works of Disney, Studio Ghibli, late 80s cartoons and early 90s cartoon styles. She is inspired by the works of Kate Beaton, Junji Ito, Gustav Klimt, Alphonse Mucha, Vincent Van Gogh, Edmund Blair Leighton and John Collier. She is currently running a sketch blog and is in hot pursuits to become a professional artist. She believes in the technical side of art and that art should never, ever, never, ever, ever, ever, NEVER EVER take itself seriously; Even in life and death situations.
Catherine Mary Zagar
In her life and artwork, Catherine is always after what it feels like to live brilliantly and love sincerely. She follows themes of movement and empathy, loss and the afterwards ecstatic memory, and travels for inspiration: desert thunderstorms, mountain climbing, songs about distance, long road trips on unkept highways, rail yards and urban sprawl, foreign bookstores.
In addition to her avid blogging, these things return in her favourite media, which are combinations of acrylics on canvas, print, photographs, and poetry. Most recently Catherine produced an online publication called Gas Station Coffee, a prose-poetry project about living and writing in West Texas. At the Scotiabank Nuit Blanche Art Festival 2011 in Toronto she successfully mounted a guerrilla performance installation called Absolution Letters [absolutionletters.wordpress.com]. Currently, she is working on a QR-code based installation of a choose-your-own-ending Toronto storybook, to be put up at street level for adventurous pedestrians during Nuit Blanche 2012.