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.
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.
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.
Tanya Pavan
1st year, Studio Arts
Figuratively Speaking I
54 x 36 inches
wool embroidery on canvas
2022
Description:
Figuratively Speaking I, is an ode to the impetus of hope as it looks forward not only in the way the female figure gestures upward, reaches upward, with her physical body, but also as a tribute to the forward movement and momentum I find within myself in my own artistic practice. Hope spun from, and entangled within, as I set myself up in my first year as an art student, with a forward looking gaze at what I may be able to find within myself, and within the identity I share as an artist and art student. Hope of what I and we may garnish and gather from this artistic community we now share with others around us.
Hannah Louisy
6th year, Studio Arts
Underneath a Red Sun
13 x 12 inches
pencil crayon
2022
Description:
A figure lays down in a sea of grass. They place their hands over their heart as a white cocoon-like substance engulfs them. The blades of grass appear blurred by motion and converge at a point above the person’s head. The viewer feels like they are rushing forward, towards a place directly under the giant red sun.
The cocoon substance around the figure represents a site of self transformation or decomposition of the ego. It can be armour but also a prison with an open door. It traps the figure onto the ground, but doesn’t fully engulf them, so they can break away at any point. There is a sense of warmth that comes from the size and colour of the sun and the figure’s hands over their heart.
This piece contemplates the act of surrender, an act that innately requires a blind sense of hope. When you surrender to what is and what will be, you are placing trust in yourself, the world around you, and trust in the future. In this way surrender, trust, and hope go hand in hand.
Ana Teodorescu
5th year, Studio Arts
God please help me
40 x 40 inches
acrylic on canvas
2022
Description:
This painting represents the cyclic challenges one experiences through life and proposes some solutions. In the center, a character shows a Tai Chi movement that looks like flying, representing harmony and peace. The one on her left is struggling through the process, but experiences different states of emotions, good and bad. Near the left edge, a rower rows against an impossible vertical river and encourages one to enjoy life as crazy as it seems. Above him, two people are carrying a boat as a reminder that help is available and one should ask for it. On the right side of the painting is a ballet scene, which symbolizes grace and kindness as a means to appreciate life. At the top we can see a flying dove, symbol of The Holy Spirit, Who illuminates our true potential, telling us to keep the faith and move forward through the cycles.
Armaan Mohan
4th year, Film Studies
The Search
poetry and images
2022
Description:
The Search explores my search of hope amidst my struggles with depersonalization and derealization that accompanies my OCD. This was something that got really bad in 2022, but is slowly improving as the new year comes and the possibility of healing seems more plausible. Writing this poem was strange because everything came from inside me, but I couldn’t even understand it as it was happening at the time. It ends on a hopeful note because I know things will get better.
My biggest qualm with my upbringing
is that Human is the most advanced being,
and to regress is a result
of our accrual of karma.
For I would rather be like a seed,
who knows not if it will sprout
or if its efforts to start afresh
will be crushed by the impact of a bocce ball.
For it has accepted uncertainty wholly
and understood the limits of life in all its glory.
The fish seems happier,
its crooked smile never disappears,
whether in the epipelagic or abyssopelagic zones,
nor the poissonerie or in human shit.
My obsession with knowing
has birthed twenty extra fingers
that wrap around the neck of the Self.
And what if I told you the Self can break?
Yes, into a thousand shards of glass,
but no, you cannot step on them –
especially without socks on.
And can I ask you a question?
Why didn’t Medusa just look at herself in the mirror,
turn to stone
and escape the cycle of pain?
Maybe that wouldn’t work
(I’m not too well versed in Greek mythos)
but I would’ve done anything I could to help her
in all my broken stupor.
And I love you,
even though you don’t believe it,
even though you don’t care.
(although I secretly think you do)
I love the way tea travels down your throat,
the way cotton leaks out of your orifices,
how you dice shallots,
and your desire to take it up the ass just to feel real.
I promise you
the way your hair curls is special.
The patterns remind me of a hermit crab shell,
the one you broke when you were younger, remember?
But don’t feel guilty,
it was bound to happen.
Realistically,
Even though I keep reciting transmutative incantations
into the reflection on my fingernails,
I’ll never become a seed, no.
Nor a fish, no.
So I must deal somehow.
I have some ideas:
Roleplay as a rotting corpse before bed,
Dig soil until callouses form on my fingers,
Kiss, and kiss, and kiss, and kiss,
Let the sun melt the plastic off my face,
The 5-4-3-2-1 technique.
And for the first time in a while,
I remember that God exists.
I ask him to help me be present,
he says he can’t do that.
But just for me,
he raises the global temperature so high
that the shards of glass melt into a larger float.
Lucy Piper Giles Sharpe (she/her)
3rd year, Studio Arts
Philosophies of Pleasure
48″ x 60″
oil paint
Artist Statement:
Lucy Sharpe is an artist, student and cook living in Montreal. Her practice revolves primarily around mindful hedonism, as well as sex, cooking, feminism, intergenerational relationships and climate justice.
Description:
My work Philosophies of Pleasure investigates the way that indulgence allows us to more genuinely interact with one another. We are often taught to feel guilt about the things that make us feel good, and that guilt prevents us from genuinely engaging both physically and spiritually with those around us. By freeing yourself from shame, you are enabling yourself to interact with sincerity.
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