Christine D’Onofrio (Canadian, b. 1978) is a visual artist based in Vancouver who works in photography, video, digital media, interactive media, printmaking, sculpture, book works and installation. Her praxis explores themes related to art history and the nature of artistic practice, current and historical feminisms, exploitation, virtue, humiliation, humour and desire. D’Onofrio holds a BFA from York University in Toronto and completed her MFA at the University of British Columbia. She has shown extensively throughout Canada in solo and group exhibitions and currently teaches at UBC in the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory.
Heather Kai Smith (Canadian, b. 1988) is an artist from Calgary, Alberta, currently living and working in Vancouver. Rooted in drawing as a practice, her work includes animation, illustration, and printmaking. Recent bodies of work engage with legacies of feminist protests, such as the Seneca Women’s Peace Encampment (1983-94). Through hand drawing and installation, Smith seeks to activate historical, archival images as a way to rearticulate revolutionary desires and activism in a contemporary context. Smith completed her MFA at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in 2017, and graduated with a BFA in Drawing from the Alberta College of Art and Design in 2009, Calgary, AB.
In conjunction with our fall exhibition Beginning with the Seventies: Collective Acts, join us for a talk by Christine D’Onofrio (UBC Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory) and Heather Kai Smith (Emily Carr University of Art + Design).
Christine D’Onofrio’s interactive database – www.intuitioncommons.com – is projected onto the gallery wall. Contributors can nominate women who have had significant influence on their artistic practice and as the database grows, the visual connections, overlapping stories, keywords and links will appear as an interconnected rhizomatic archive. Heather Kai Smith’s drawings cite women’s gatherings and protests that are sourced from archival photographs. Her drawings depict the spirit of self-organization and consciousness raising activities that persist to the present day.
Inspired by the social movements of the 1970s – feminism, environmentalism, LGBTQ rights, Indigenous rights, access to health services and housing – the exhibition, Beginning with the Seventies: Collective Acts presents work by Dana Claxton, Jeneen Frei Njootli and the ReMatriate Collective, Christine D’Onofrio and Heather Kai Smith. The exhibition includes drawings, an interactive online database, an installation of a sewing room, photography, and historical Salish weavings borrowed from private and public collections including the Chilliwack Museum, the Coqualeetza Cultural Education Centre and the Museum of Anthropology.
Christine D’Onofrio (Canadian, b. 1978) is a visual artist based in Vancouver who works in photography, video, digital media, interactive media, printmaking, sculpture, book works and installation. Her praxis explores themes related to art history and the nature of artistic practice, current and historical feminisms, exploitation, virtue, humiliation, humour and desire. D’Onofrio holds a BFA from York University in Toronto and completed her MFA at the University of British Columbia. She has shown extensively throughout Canada in solo and group exhibitions and currently teaches at UBC in the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory.
Heather Kai Smith (Canadian, b. 1988) is an artist from Calgary, Alberta, currently living and working in Vancouver. Rooted in drawing as a practice, her work includes animation, illustration, and printmaking. Recent bodies of work engage with legacies of feminist protests, such as the Seneca Women’s Peace Encampment (1983-94). Through hand drawing and installation, Smith seeks to activate historical, archival images as a way to rearticulate revolutionary desires and activism in a contemporary context. Smith completed her MFA at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in 2017, and graduated with a BFA in Drawing from the Alberta College of Art and Design in 2009, Calgary, AB.