Art From Here

Latitude 53

Art From Here was developed to support artists and generate critical discourse, connection and community. AFH brings focus to an amiskwacîwâskahikan-Edmonton artist, sharing their work and practice alongside a written response from a writer. This culminates with a virtual studio visit with the artist, where the community can engage with the artist and their work. AFH is developed in partnership with Latitude 53, the Society of Northern Alberta Printmakers (SNAP), Ociciwan and the Mitchell Art Gallery (MAG).

  1. 03/01/2023

    Veronika Marks

    This audio is from our virtual studio visit with artist Veronika Marks in conversation with Brandi Strauss, and was originally recorded on February 27, 2023 over Zoom. About Veronika Veronika Marks is a multidisciplinary artist from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada with a Bachelors in Fine Art. Her work explores the outer fringes of human consciousness through an intersection of mysticism, sensuality, and emotional well-being. She uses a combination of performance, digital manipulation, sculpture and painting. Each medium informs one another as she moves intuitively through them. Through meditation and trance induction, Veronika uses her body with others as a conduit in film to physically manifest visions. The imagery captured on video is then used as research and inspiration for her paintings and sculptures. Currently, she is working with volunteers who have agreed to embody a stream of consciousness, while revisiting lived experiences with psychosis. About Brandi Brandi Strauss is a multidisciplinary self-taught artist and musician currently residing in amiskwaciy Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Using the moniker Static Control she explores varying forms of self expression using an amalgamation of techniques. She examines the ominous elements of humanity, and how we maintain to co-exist with the natural world - despite its chaos. By meticulously dismantling found images piece by piece, a new world and perspective is revealed. A world made of controlled yet surreal chaos, throughout vivid displays of recollection, science and the unknown.

    47 min
  2. 11/30/2022

    Elsa Robinson

    This audio is from our virtual studio visit with artist Elsa Robinson in conversation with Dawn Carter, and was  originally recorded on November 29, 2022 over Zoom. About Elsa Elsa Robinson is a Jamaican-Canadian multi-media artist and art educator. Elsa’s artistic expression uses painting, collage, textile art, installation art, poetry, dance, and acting to ‘speak’ to audiences from her cultural inheritance. Her decades-long devotion to artistic practice has imbued her work with vibrancy, versatility and an intuitive spiritual poignancy through which she transmits her deep love and care for humanity. At the start of her art career, Elsa worked as a self-taught artist. Recognizing the value of extending her art making skills, her understanding of he own art and her place in art history, Elsa invested in her art education and now holds the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Art and Design from the University of Alberta and the degree of Master of Fine Arts from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Elsa is a passionate arts educator who facilitates workshops for artists of all ages and experience levels. About Dawn Dawn Carter is a writer, educator, performance poet, public speaker, entrepreneur, and community advocate of Barbadian British Canadian heritage. She is also the first Black woman to run a major 2SLGBTQ+ organization in Western Canada. She emigrated with her family from England, where anti-Black racism was on the rise. Dawn and her family lived in rural Alberta before settling in Edmonton. After a few years in Toronto, she returned to Dirt City, where she considers herself a Northsider for life. Through Dawn’s life experiences she has been able to create art that not only tells amazing stories but creates awareness and constantly contributes to the community around her.

    1h 11m
  3. 10/26/2022

    Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet

    This audio is from our virtual studio visit with artist Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet in conversation with Michelle Campos Castillo, and was originally recorded  on October 25, 2022 over Zoom. Reading List Kiona and Michelle shared some of their favourite graphic novels during this episode. Below is a list of the books we discussed. Purchase from your fave indie bookstore or directly from the publisher if you can! We Were Younger Once by Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet Skim by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki Big Kids by Michael DeForge Shadow Life by Hiromi Goto and Ann Xu This is How I Disappear by Mirion Malle Coyote Doggirl by Lisa Hanawalt Condolady by Elisabeth Beliveau Here by Richard McGuire About Kiona Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist practicing in amiskwaciwâskahikan on Treaty 6 Territory. She grew up West of the city near the hamlet of Calahoo where she lived with her relatives on scrip land. Her family lines are Cree and Métis descending from Michel First Nation, as well as Dutch and mixed European. Kiona works in painting, printmaking, and drawing, recollecting personal stories of grief and tenderness. Her practice uses a non-linear telling of her memories through narrative work as a form of diaristic archiving. It draws from feelings of loss and enfranchisement, but also from deep belly laughter, and a gentle fondness for where the histories between herself and her family overlap and disperse. She’s recently exhibited work at Ociciwan Contemporary Art Centre (2021), Latitude 53 (2021, 2022), Khyber Centre for the Arts (2021), Harcourt House (2022), and Neutral Ground (2022). She co-curated the soil between plants with Making Space (2022), and What’s Held through TREX NW and the Art Gallery of Grande Prairie (2022). Additionally, Kiona was a recipient of the Lieutenant Governor Emerging Artist Award (2022), and just finished her debut graphic novel with Conundrum Press, titled We Were Younger Once (2022). Working alongside other artists in initiatives of community care, Kiona co-organizes Making Space in partnership with Sanaa Humayun. She likes visiting her moshom on the farm, and gossiping with her mom, relatives, and friends on the prairies. About Michelle Michelle Campos Castillo is a Salvadoran visual artist living in  Edmonton. She has been the recipient of several public art commissions  from the City of Edmonton, including Platanos, a set of three sculptures  on permanent display at Belvedere Transit Centre, and is finalizing  artwork for the LRT Valley Line in the west end of the city. Her most  recent exhibits are a solo show, Terremoto, presented in the summer of  2022 at grunt gallery in Vancouver, BC and as part of Imborrable at the  National Gallery in San Salvador, El Salvador. She is currently working  on a graphic memoir titled Colonia, based on her life in El Salvador  during the country’s civil war.

    50 min
  4. 09/10/2022

    Shawnee Danielle

    This audio is from our virtual studio visit with artist Shawnee Danielle in conversation with Kyra Heneghan-Smith, and was originally recorded on September 10, 2022 over Zoom. About Shawnee Shawnee Danielle is an Indigenous Cree artist who was  raised on the Maskwacis Reserve and is currently based in  Amiskwaciwâskahikan or so-called Edmonton. In 2018, she graduated from  MacEwan University with a Diploma in Fine Arts and moved forward in her  academic studies to complete her Bachelor’s in Fine Arts in Art and  Design at the University of Alberta in 2020. In 2019, she received the  Indigenous Careers Award and was awarded numerously by Nipisihkopahk  Iyinisiwin Trust Fund for the completion of her education throughout her  academic career. She considers her practice to be a continuous  exploration of her own Cree identity, both learning and exercising  traditional practices, as she navigates her relationship with cultural  identity through themes related around femininity, indigeneity, trauma,  and body. While she works primarily as a painter, she also works with  various mediums such as installation, video, digital media and  photography. About Kyra Kyra Heneghan-Smith is a multidisciplinary artist living in  Amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta) whose primary mediums include  soft sculpture, photography, illustration, and painting. Drawing  inspiration from nature and ecology, Kyra explores themes of gender,  intimacy, and environmental decline. She is interested in poetics and  pattern, and much of her work employs tools like metaphor and  repetition. Kyra Graduated from MacEwan University in 2018 with a  diploma in fine arts, and she received her BFA from the University of  Alberta in 2021. Since graduating, Kyra has developed a commercial  design practice, and spends much of her time learning and exploring new  ways of making. Outside of work or the studio, Kyra can be found tending  to her vegetable garden - an extension of her creative practice.

    38 min
  5. 06/24/2022

    Kerri-Lynn Reeves

    This audio is from our virtual studio visit with artist Kerri-Lynn Reeves in conversation with Jenny Western, and was originally recorded on June 23, 2022 over Zoom. About Kerri-Lynn Kerri-Lynn Reeves (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist, educator,  and mother originally from rural Manitoba, where she grew up as a  European-Canadian settler on Treaty 2 land. At the heart of it, her work  explores the relationship of the social and the material through the  use of spatial, relational, and craft practices. With a commitment to  blurring the lines between life and art, Reeves earned her Master of Fine Arts - Studio Arts in Fibres and Material Practices from Concordia  University in 2016 with her first child strapped to her chest. Reeves, now a mother / step-mother of four, continues to explore the confluences  of her art making, teaching, and parenting practices. Reeves is a  tenure-track Assistant Professor in Studio Arts at MacEwan University in  Edmonton, AB, ᐊᒥᐢᑿᒌᐚᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ (Amiskwacîwâskahikan), Treaty 6 Territory. About Jenny Jenny Western is an artist, writer, and curator based in Winnipeg,  Manitoba. She holds an undergraduate degree in History from the University of Winnipeg and a Masters in Art History and Curatorial  Practice from York University in Toronto. While completing her graduate studies, she accepted a position at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba in Brandon where she held the position of Curator and later  became the AGSM’s Adjunct Curator. Western has curated exhibitions and  programs across Canada and she makes up one-third of the Sobey Award  nominated art collective The Ephemerals. Western is of European, Oneida, and Stockbridge-Musee descent and a member of the Brothertown Indian Nation of Wisconsin.

    54 min

About

Art From Here was developed to support artists and generate critical discourse, connection and community. AFH brings focus to an amiskwacîwâskahikan-Edmonton artist, sharing their work and practice alongside a written response from a writer. This culminates with a virtual studio visit with the artist, where the community can engage with the artist and their work. AFH is developed in partnership with Latitude 53, the Society of Northern Alberta Printmakers (SNAP), Ociciwan and the Mitchell Art Gallery (MAG).