Past Residencies
Thames Art Gallery Archive of Residencies
Instant Places: Laura Kavanaugh and Ian Birse
May 1 - 5, 2019
Artists Laura Kavanaugh and Ian Birse return to Chatham to present a unique performance combining sound, art and technology. They will also discuss their current exhibition, “Breathing Room” in the gallery on May 2 starting at 7:00PM.
Their spontaneous compositions combine voice and tabletop guitar with live sampling using a custom software/hardware system. They explain: “In a parallel world to the evolving sound field are projected abstractions being generated in real time: morphing organic shapes that periodically reveal 3D meshes that form the underlying structures.” The performance will take place in the Kiwanis Theatre. This event is being held n conjunction with their artist residency in Studio One from May 1-5, 2019.
Since 1998 Kavanaugh and Birse (aka Instant Places) have been creating audiovisual performances and generative artworks for online platforms and gallery exhibition throughout the Americas, Europe, Japan, and Australia. They are based in Vieux Hull, Quebec, Canada.
Scott Everingham
July 18 – 22, 2016
Scott Everingham creates environments and worlds that have yet to exist. Spaces are built and dismantled as if in a single moment of time where life and its by-products are created not by reality itself but by paint and brush. Everingham’s strong interest in fiction and the nature of fiction itself allow his work to develop with a controlled impulse. He often relies on chance and error to move each painting to completion, with both utopian and dystopian results.
By creating moments in time that have a constructed and fragmented footing, Everingham is free to explore the materiality of the paint and the relationships between marks and negative space. He is also able to examine how this liberty correlates directly with fiction, in that anything is possible. As such, a viewer may approach each painting as an experience, and to be prepared to explore other realities with an open mind.
Everingham has a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design (NSCAD University) and an MFA from the University of Waterloo. His paintings have been exhibited at The Power Plant, Toronto; The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; and The Art Gallery of Calgary; as well as in England, the US, and the Netherlands. In an upcoming exhibition at the Torrance Art Museum in Los Angeles, new works by Everingham will be shown alongside significant painters exploring abstraction. Everingham is a three-time finalist for the RBC Canadian Painting Competition and the recipient of recent Toronto and Ontario Emerging Artist grants. His work is held in private and public collections, including those of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, RBC, TD Bank, and NBC. Everingham lives and work in Toronto.
Melanie Authier
April 11 - 15, 2016
Melanie Authier was born in 1980 in Montreal. She received a BFA from Concordia University, Montreal (2002) and a MFA from the University of Guelph (2006). Authier has exhibited across the country and was recently included in Builders: Canadian Biennial at the National Gallery of Canada (2012). Recent solo exhibitions include Figments and Foils at Georgia Scherman Projects, Toronto (2014) and Grisailles at Rodman Hall, Brock University, St.Catharines (2013). Recent group shows include Young Canadian Painters at Idea Exchange - Cambridge Art Gallery, Cambridge (2014) and The Painting Project at Galerie de l’UQAM, Montreal (2013). Melanie’s paintings are in numerous national and international collections, including the National Gallery of Canada, Canada House – Canadian Embassy in London, UK, the Art Gallery of Guelph, Lotto-Quebec, RBC, TD Canada Trust Collection, BMO, Desjardins, and the Government of Foreign Affairs. Authier was the recipient of the Honourable Mention Prize for the 9th Annual RBC Painting Competition (2007). Melanie is represented by Georgia Scherman Projects, Toronto. For more information please visit www.melanieauthier.com
This residency is a prelude to Melanie’s upcoming national touring exhibition organized by the Thames Art Gallery, in partnership with Ottawa Art Gallery (Ottawa, Ontario), Art Gallery of Guelph (Guelph, Ontario), Kenderdine Art Gallery (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan), Galerie de I’UQAM (Montreal, Quebec), MSVU Art Gallery (Halifax, Nova Scotia), Musee regional de Rimouski (Rimouski, Quebec). Guest curated by Robert Enright, and scheduled to open at Thames Art Gallery July 15 – September 11, 2016.
Jaime Angelopoulos and Derrick Piens
August 17 - 21, 2015
Jaime and Derrick will be hosting an artist talk the evening of Thursday August 20th beginning at 6:30. The artists will talk about their studio practice, exhibitions they have shown in as well as their most recent residency and two person exhibition at KulttuuriKauppila Art Centre (Finland).
Derrick received his MFA from Meadows School of the Arts, Southern Methodist University (Dallas, TX, 2007) and a BFA from NSCAD University (Halifax, 2005).
Jaime received her MFA from York University (Toronto, 2010), and BFA from NSCAD University (Halifax, 2005). In 2013 she was awarded the Hazelton Sculpture Prize and has presented solo exhibitions across Canada and in the United States.
John Kissick
May 4 - 8, 2015
Known primarily as a painter and writer, John Kissick’s exhibition record includes over 30 solo exhibitions in Canada, the USA and Germany. His work has been included in a number of important survey exhibitions on contemporary painting and held in numerous public collections.
John is also the author of Art: Context and Criticism (1992-96), was editor of the Penn State Journal of Contemporary Criticism from 1990-95 and was a regular contributor to the New Art Examiner from 1990-2000. As a critic and essayist, he has written numerous catalogue essays and articles for periodicals. He has held numerous academic posts, including Hear of Critical Studies at Penn State University’s School of Visual Arts, Dean of the Faculty of Art at the Ontario College of Art & Design from 2000-2003, and from 2003-2014 was Director of the School of Fine Art and Music at the University of Guelph. He was elected into the Royal Canadian Academy for the Arts in 2005.
This residency is a prelude to John’s upcoming exhibition at the Thames Art Gallery scheduled for July 10 – September 6, 2015.
Rodney Konopaki and Rhonda Neufeld
September 9 – 13, 2013
Rodney and Rhonda have been discovering and creating through walking together for the past six years. They will share their experiences of collaborative walking and drawing in wild, rural and urban locales across the country and will then lead workshop participants in a series of small but significant exercises that will culminate with participants collaboratively making two dimensional drawings while moving through the three dimensional world.
Expect some surprises! The drawings produced in this workshop will be exhibited in the Community Project Room at the Thames Art Gallery. Pastels, pencils, paper and other materials will be provided by the gallery.
The poet Frederico Garcia Lorca said, “I do not believe in creation but in discovery, and I don’t believe in the seated artist but in the one who is walking down the road.”
Rodney and Rhonda have been collaborating on art projects since 2007. Both artists have long histories in drawing and print media, as practitioners and instructors. Rodney is on faculty at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver, having previously taught at Keyano College in Fort McMurray. Rhonda has had sessional teaching at various universities in western Canada.
Laura Moore
April 29 - May 10, 2013
Laura Moore has an MFA from York University, a BFA from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and a Diploma of Art from Fanshawe College. She is a transient member of Studio Pescarella in Pietrasanta, Italy where she spends periodic time carving large-scale stone.
Laura is an international artist and has been exhibiting her work since 1998. She has exhibited her work in venues such as; the St. Catharines City Hall Sculpture Garden, Ontario Science Centre, Thames Art Gallery in Chatham ON., Siena Art Institute in Siena Italy, Shoshana Wayne Gallery in Santa Monica, CA., USA, Peak Gallery in Toronto, ON., Stride Gallery in Calgary AB. and Anna Leonowens Gallery in Halifax, NS.
In September, 2011 Laura carved stone at the Uxbridge Sculpture Symposium in Uxbridge ON. This work became part of the Uxbridge Public Sculpture Garden’s permanent collection. In May, 2011 Laura attended the Vermont Studio Centre Residency Program. In May 2010, Laura carved a large scale stone entitled Mouse at the University of Windsor Residency Program. Mouse is now part of the Thames Art Gallery’s permanent collection. In 2005, Laura attended the first Atlantic Stone Carving Symposium in Inverness, Cape Breton.
Ron Shuebrook
September 25 – October 5, 2012
The Thames Art Gallery is pleased to have Contemporary Canadian artist Ron Shuebrook in its 2012 residency program. Works produced during this residency will be displayed alongside other drawings selected by guest curator John Kissick. This exhibition will travel across Ontario in 2013.
Throughout much of Shuebrook’s life as an artist, he has sought to develop a body of work that respects the intellectual and aesthetic legacy of early and mid-20th Century modernists, while accommodating his own curiosities, capacities, and beliefs. These various traditions, ranging from the examples of Cezanne, Matisse, and Mondrian to Hans Hofmann, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, Willem deKooning, and Philip Guston, have served him as persuasive models of engagement and ambition. These rigorous artists convinced him at an early age that conscious analysis and intuitive responses could be embodied in critical, yet expressive form.
Shuebrook exhibits both nationally and internationally. His works have been acquired by more than 50 public galleries, museums, and corporations including the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario. He has taught and been an administrator at several Canadian universities and art schools including the Ontario College of Art and Design where he served as President and Vice President. In 2005, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from OCAD for his contributions to art and education, and received the 2006 Award of Distinction in Arts Administration from the National Council of Arts Administrators.
For more than thirty years, Shuebrook is represented by the Olga Korper Gallery in Toronto. He has also published articles, reviews, and catalogue essays for Canadian and international periodicals and public galleries. He holds a B.Sc. in Art Education and a M.Ed. in Art Education from Kutztown University, PA, as well as an MFA from Kent State University, OH. Shuebrook lives in Guelph, Ontario and Blandford, Nova Scotia.
Ron Shuebrook will be at the Thames Art Gallery as Artist in Residence from September 25 – October 5, 2012. Artist’s remarks and introduction will take place on Friday, September 28 @ 7pm (free), as part of the Canada-wide arts initiative, Culture Days.