The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of work by the 2009 graduates of the UBC’s two-year Master of Fine Arts program: Interrobang. A non-standard English-language punctuation mark, the interrobang combines the function of a question mark and an exclamation point. A connection and bonding between different characters, interrobang, the exhibition, presents divergent work by five emerging artists in video, sound, sculpture, drawing, painting and new media.
Shea Allan-McCachen’s drawings, paintings and collages investigate bodily abstraction. Incorporating primary source material from Hustler magazine, her fragmented assemblages of genitalia, bodiless apparel and indistinguishable swatches of skin evoke an anxiety about the body while partaking in an aesthetic search for beauty. The result is a matrix of fleshy exploration in which the traditional concept of a figure is absent.
Scott Billings’s media works explore the relationship between the body and the cinematic machine. By taking apart and reconfiguring older obsolete machines, such as turning theatrical lighting into a projector, Billings creates moving objects and moving images that play with the concepts of mimicry and motility to depict and understand the quality of being animal.
Sound artist Krista Dragomer works collaboratively with video artist Rashin Fahandej to explore moments that occur between historical events, borders and identities. Their sound and video works engage the audience in a sensorial experience of culture as something that exists within one’s body. The artists’ audiovisual installations combine projection with monitors and multi-channel stereo sound.
Built on the principles of the Open Source movement Julio López’s current project HUB, is an experimental web-based initiative. For the duration of the project, Lopez will operate a computer lab that provides a workspace and access to software and technologies free of charge, and delivers educational programming focused on providing participants with technical knowledge. A series of talks will highlight the work of local Vancouver artists that use a variety of technologies within their artistic practice. More information and a schedule of events can be found at www.hubcentre.org.
Jen Weih’s practice investigates a combination of the rational and the irrational. The work proposes a dialogue between construction and collapse, elegance and horror, sense and non-sense. Her projects include a range of aesthetics from “bad” fonts to geometric balance and can include found, manufactured, or crafted materials. Work for this show will include a collection of 8 ½ x 11 inch, 20 lb. bond paper sculptures produced through a combination of conscious decision making and unconscious and chance-based processes.
The Department of Art History, Visual Art, and Theory will host an afternoon event where each graduating student will speak about her or his work, followed by a discussion led by Liz Magor, held at the Gallery.