Author: Zavitz Gallery

Emma Lippert

Album1_Track1.mp3 is a journey through life using music as the guide. This collection of self-portraits represents the artist’s emotional reactions to seven significant songs from their life. Each song is tied to a moment in time that, for whatever reason, has shaped who they have become today. For many, music is the thread that weaves its way through time connecting memories. It can carry the residue of good and bad times, of seemingly unimportant events, and of life-changing ones. The artist invites you to explore each image and reflect on which songs accompany you through your life.

Emma Lippert works in many media, but primarily photography. She enjoys challenging herself with self-portraiture and has recently taken an interest in the ethereal qualities of certain photographic techniques. She explores themes of identity, memory, and human experience through her work. She strives to make work that can move you, that can make you reflect on who you are and what you carry with you.

Jude Akrey

“I was called upon in the 3^rd grade class,

I gave my answer and it caused a fuss, 

I’m not the same as ev’ryone else

And times were hard for people like us

Well now

What good is freedom?

God laughs at people like us

I see it coming

Like a light coming down from above”

Isabella De Tullio

I often meditate on the personal sentiment and suffering that are inseparable from reality. 

I believe that all beings are products of many intricate narratives. Yet, the objective truth of such narratives is fragmented by emotion and an ever-developing perspective. I am attentive to the influences which shape individuals, but I often question how objective experiences can inform subjective personhoods. The relationship between individuals and their worlds is richly complex;  everything that one may witness or experience accumulates within and holds the potential to profoundly inspire and generate meaningful influence on the developing perspective and identity. As I investigate such accumulations, I contemplate the proliferating significances of such perspectives concerning the occupants themselves, as well as within an objective reality. The boundaries between self and truth fascinate me endlessly. Their relationship appears contradictory and competitive, yet reciprocal and symbiotic. My practice is dedicated to the exploration of these boundaries. Using my personal history as the primary informant for my work, I reflect on my present perception of the external world through the assessment of clarity and delusion, intending to achieve a broadened sense of self-awareness. As my investigation unfolds, it seems to me that through deciphering the relevance of my own prominent experiences, I am simultaneously nurturing myself, and honouring what is true. Parallel to representing the evolution of my own unique perspective, I also seek to emphasize the commonalities that liken differing perspectives. Through the deliberate use of universal signifiers, such as natural and domestic imagery, I hope that my work might resonate with others, and evoke their own personal sentiments. My pursuit to understand perspective is an ongoing process, and I invite others to reflect on how they are present, and what is present within them. 

MacKenzie Anderson

Memory Work addresses ideas of nostalgia, ephemera, and the delicate growth of a child as they become an adult. The transcendent feeling of reflection on childhood speaks through mediums reminiscent of play and those of structure. This exploration of emotional development reaches across the individual differences of the viewer and speaks a universal language.

Symbolic drawings of nondescript character(s) bring forth a connection between playful imagery and melancholic feeling. The longing to reconstruct memories manipulated by time becomes a process of acceptance of the past and its effects on the present.

Gestural expressions of comic scenes and performance video both analyze the comfort in the mundane aspects of childhood and juxtapose the fragility of those moments in the human mind. 

Anderson’s practice traverses through personal and fictional time-based concepts to evoke instinctive emotions, both positive and negative. Her multidisciplinary practice emphasizes how mark making can be meditation in internal work of the mind and the creation of objects allows for storage of nostalgic weight. 

This is Memory Work.

Neluka Ameresekere and Emma Lippert

FRAGMENTS explores the nuances of human memory, the inherent triggers associated with it, and the importance of seemingly random events in our everyday lives. This exhibition was created from a collection of memories submitted anonymously by community members that held special and visceral significance to them. We asked participants for the triggers of their memories and explanations of what each sound, smell, taste, or object brought to mind. The beauty in the variety of answers is what fuelled this project and helped create an incredibly unique, yet universally relevant, collection of moments. FRAGMENTS moves the viewer through each type of memory from the wall exploring sounds that may provoke certain memories, to the still life containing significant objects, to the poem created from entries that were somewhat intangible yet beautifully written. We encourage the viewer to take time with each piece, appreciate the intimate memories that were shared for its creation, and reflect on what memories the work might prompt within themselves. 

Emma Lippert is an artist who dabbles in many media, most specifically photography. She has been pulled into the world of experimental art and text-based art, and she enjoyed the challenges and triumphs of this project. 

Neluka Ameresekere is an artist who specializes in photography, but has also explored other mediums such as experimental, and interactive art. This project serves as a canvas for her to utilize the many mediums she has learned to create a unique visual and auditory experience.

Hannah Cattran & Anna Golding

Rach Norton-Shearing & Justin Stewart

Kira Alexanian

Cocoon reflects on growth, nostalgia and the whimsicality of childhood. This solo exhibition studies the overlaps between painting, textile work, and sculpture installation. Inspired by literal and imaginative symbols of the artist’s childhood, Cocoon weaves the dreamy softness of youth with a certain melancholy that lies in one’s reflection of childhood. At times, flawed mark-making and visible signs of labour emphasize an imperfect, almost childlike hand. Bright colours and warm environments are meant to encompass the viewer in an eccentric world of fantastical innocence. Precise symmetry meets arbitrary expressive lines in an attempt to recollect the intricate details of adolescence. The artist invites viewers to interact with and entwine themselves in Cocoon, but to be gentle, nurturing, and tender while doing so.

Hannah Pecyna

You know me too well aims to explore feelings of forced connection, invasion, discomfort and control. It seeks to inspect the feeling of someone digesting you without your consent, of them knowing you too well. 

Marjan Kaviani

In Solemn Silence is an exhibition that explores the relationship between the figure and the atmosphere. Kaviani’s current practice involves referencing photographs of her family through a second lens, one that is catered with feelings of discomfort and longing. She seeks to replicate the feeling of certain moments in life where numerous discrepancies in time, logic and space coalesce creating bizarre existential-like moments, in which she is constantly subject to, especially when she is brought face to face with her culture and relatives. Psychology influences Kaviani’s work immensely as she is completing her double major in Psychology along with Studio Art at the University of Guelph.

You can see more of Marjan’s work on Instagram @kavianigallery and on her website www.marjankaviani.com