With Concordia’s full return to on-campus activities this year, we wanted to make our 13th issue a celebration of reconnection, collaboration, and a renewed sense of community. The inspiration for this year’s theme is Impetus, a powerful, momentous force that prompts change and action.
Being a part of the InARTE Journal has been one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life. I have had the deep pleasure of working alongside a group of wonderful and talented team members. Thank you for all your hard work and dedication! What we have accomplished together this year would not have been possible without the keen eye and guidance of our Faculty Advisor, Kathleen Vaughan. We wish to thank FASA and the CSU for their funding and support. Thank you to the Concordia Greenhouse, and VAV Gallery for your support and collaboration and to Tricia Enns, our managing editor. Each of your invaluable contributions helped make this year’s issue a success!
Sincerely,
Pansy Kostoulias
2nd Year, Art Education
Editor, InARTE Journal
2022-2023
Celebration
Concordia Student Mural
November 2022
76 x 36 inches
Mixed media on paper
Description:
The impetus for our all event was a renewed sense of community with a full return to on-campus activities and classes. We wanted to create a space where people could come together, connect, exchange, and have fun making art side by side. Our event was open to all Concordia students. The result of that evening is this collective mural artwork. It is a joyful, colourful, manifestation of what we can accomplish together and also brings hope as impetus for community collaborations and connections in the future. Our team thanks all the students who brought their lively energy to our activity and contributed to the mural.
Barbara Ottevaere
5th year, Ceramics
The Road
10.5 x 8.5 inches
paper
2023
Description:
En filigrane de ce collage qui semble à priori représenter toute la fougue et l’insouciance de l’enfance se trouve l’élan que chacun porte en soi durant sa prime jeunesse. Il me semble que c’est cet élan qu’il faut tenter de retrouver lorsque, devenu adulte, la vie nous fait traverser des moments difficiles. En personnifiant la route qui jalonne notre vie en une silhouette à la fois joueuse et frondeuse, j’ai voulu mettre l’accent sur l’importance du désir comme élément vital.
At first glance, this collage seems to evoke the passion and carelessness of childhood that finds its momentum through our early years of life. It seems to me that we must find our way back to this feeling once we’ve entered adulthood, as life can sometimes bring us difficult moments. By personifying the road, which represents our journeys through life, into a joyful silhouette who appears rebellious and playful, I wanted to emphasize the importance of desire as a vital element in life.
Jayden Couper
1st year, Studio Arts
Seventeen
Film/animation
2022
Description:
‘Seventeen’ explores what it means to grow up and live in an ever-changing landscape. It dives into the abrupt personal discovery that life is going to be constantly filled with change, and adapting, and growing. Change has never come easy to me, and big transition periods can take even bigger tolls on me. With this short film I have finally allowed myself to understand that it is these changes that, although scary, are also beautiful and play a necessary role in forging forward on my own perfectly imperfect path.
A red line runs through various clips and images forming a connecting pathway. The line twists and turns, never being still or stagnant, representing the difficult and necessary ever-changing pathways we all follow. Places, people, and things, these are the changing elements in our life that make us who we are. Where are we going? Who knows. All I know is we have to keep moving and changing to get there.
nini
2nd year, Studio Arts
learning to fly
32″ x 40″ x 1.5″
fibers (wool roving-felting, wool yarn-crochet, poly-fill, and found objects)
2022
Description:
There’s a recurring spirit of playfulness in my practice and often imagery that may be associated with a lighthearted childlikeness. With my hands and fibers, I build the key to the world I want to live in. Whenever someone puts on these wings, the entrance of a world abundant in care and kindness reveals itself. In this space, the one who believes in patiently waiting for the wind reaches higher heights than the one who can only flap their wings the fastest; the one who contributes what they can is fuller than the one who takes it all. I hope to create this place, learn in this place, and make this place my home.
Andrea Chenier
2nd year, Studio Arts and Art History
Revival
60 x 20 inches
oil on canvas
2023
Description:
My painting Revival is about the hope that the changing of the seasons brings. I and many others struggle with winter and the seasonal depression it brings along. In this painting I explore the feeling of being saved when the snow begins to melt, and the trees start budding. The figure on the left of the painting represents myself or anyone else who struggles with winter like I do. Their clothing is wrinkled, and they appear tired, weighed down as they rest on the figure to the right, which represents the coming of spring. This figure appears happy and wears a pretty summer dress, painted in bright pinks, blues and yellows. The two figures clutch each other’s hands tightly. For the figure on the left, it is because they desperately need the smiling spring woman. The smiling woman clutches back, appearing happy to be a saviour for this person. Spring is my impetus for joy.
Cat Lipiec
2nd year, Ceramics
This Dude is Everywhere
dimensions variable
fibres (tissue paper, clear tape, string)
2022-23
Description:
This Dude is Everywhere aims to bring people together through smiles, laughter, and even confusion. When we live in a world filled with poverty, inequality, climate change, and so much more, it’s no wonder so many of us struggle with our mental health. The goal of this piece is to make people smile. These wildly colourful wearables have a magical effect on those that encounter them. I occasionally strut the streets of Montreal in the suits to see how people react to something random and unobtrusive interrupting their everyday lives. Made from party supplies, the suits bring people together through these encounters. In November 2022, I invited a group of people to take part in a parade with 16 smaller pieces they could choose from and put on however they pleased. Together we embarked through the Concordia tunnels and library, and everyone who participated commented that it was exactly what they and their exam-ridden classmates needed; a spark of hope and laughter in the community.
Levana Katz
6th year, Studio Arts
Swarm
collection of pieces ranging between 7.5″ x 20″ and 4″ x 12″
screenprint on paper, beeswax
2022
Description:
Swarm is part of an ongoing exploration of Hebrew calligraphy as a reference for my drawing practice. Hebrew calligraphy is an important part of my connection to both my Jewish heritage and my family, as it is a skill my mother passed on to me.
In these silkscreen prints, the fluid lines of the Hebrew letter “Lamed” (the first letter of my name) constitute the bodies of dragonflies, my mother’s favourite insect. In Jewish Mysticism, dragonflies represent transformation. While the Hebrew letters are reimagined as dragonflies, a symbol of continuity and change, they are encased in wax, a static material. The organic forms of the prints carry the tension between preservation and growth, as the final sculptures signal to a swarm of dragonflies in flight, insects encased in captivity, or a calligraphic signature.
Khalil Naouai
3rd year, Studio Arts
Words of Encouragement
18 x 12 inches
ink, digital color
2023
Description:
This comic was made thinking of the glimmers of hope that begin to emerge in a time of grief/mourning. Little by little the balance of pain to hope starts to shift towards the latter. Words of Encouragement was made for myself, trying to ignite hope in a time of feeling helpless. I can only hope it can do the same for someone else.
Guillaume Chabot
3rd year, Film Production
d • é • f • l • é • c • h • i • r • e
1920×1080
video
2022
Description:
This work presents two faces of the same person–the One and the Other. The One fell into a cliff, trapped and tied into a sordid dark space of mindless copy-pasting, of fading thoughts. The Other is still running free in an infinite space of childlike wonder, producing the original material of sincerity that feeds the manufacturer. Yet as the Other nears the edge of the cliff, the hope they carry is enough to wake the One from its stagnation. The One can warn the past, but will it come in time to break the circle?