Main Gallery
2023 Annual Members' Exhibition
July 14 - August 25
Opening Reception/Art Crawl: Friday, July 14, 7–10 pm
2023 Annual Members’ Exhibition
Centre[3]’s Annual Members’ Exhibition is a celebration of the talent and creativity of our vibrant community of artists. This year, we are thrilled to present an extraordinary selection of works that showcase the unique perspectives, techniques, and passions of our members, Elissa Barber, Isabel Diana, Eric Euler, Pauline Halsey, Laura Kay Keeling, Elaine Lauzon, Amber Lee Williams, Nadine Wyczolkowski, and PauTheRebel. This group exhibition is an eclectic mix of video, painting, ceramics, photography, monotypes, textiles and more. From uncanny landscapes to intriguing abstracts, this exhibition is a mesmerizing odyssey, asking us how far we need to go to be inspired and enthralled.
Works selected by the Centre[3] Programming Committee Members: Olivia Brouwer, Aytak Dibavar, Teba Faisal, Arturo Jimenez, Conrad Marion, Barin Osho, and Ron Siu.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Elissa Barber | Statement:
The painting and vase in this exhibition depict iterations of my daughter Fiore as I “imagine” her in 20 years but also represent her connection with an imaginary sister, a daughter I lost but never really had. Sisters often form a foundation for my work as I have four of them. The connection and bond we share is akin to connecting pieces of a puzzle to form a full story. There is also a sense of nostalgia and longing for more innocent times, reflected through the overall palette in the work and in the symbols that appear (heart locket, whimsical tattoo).
Elissa Barber is a Hamilton-based artist working in a variety of mediums including oil painting, ceramics and printmaking; she creates a personal lens through which to view the female experience that reacts broadly to the historical and contemporary subjugations of this identity while focusing on intimate moments and shared ideas.
Isabel Diana | Artist Statement
Isabel Diana is a Colombian/Canadian Printmaker. Her practice focuses on marginalized narratives in motion. She uses colour, shape, and photographs to express her experiences as a marginalized person with non-visible disabilities navigating a colonized society. Her upbringing being a mix of North and South America is where she pulls much of her inspiration from and continues to develop bodies of work in collaboration with her childhood memories. She primarily works in Silkscreen and Lithography and has in the past years expanded into the world of textiles through tufting.
Isabel Diana is a Hamilton based printmaker. She holds a BFA in Printmaking and a minor in Art and Social Change from OCAD U, Toronto. In 2022 she received her MFA in Print Media from PNCA in Portland, Oregon. She recently relocated back to Hamilton to pursue an MA at McMaster University in Fall 2023.
Eric Euler | Artist Statement
My visual art practice toggles between printmaking, painting, drawing, installation, graphic design, and community art practices to explore themes as diverse as DIY music culture, the post capitalistic wasteland, mental health, and regional identity. In 2017 I embarked on my largest body of work using the monotype process entitled Passages: Symbols of Transformation. This series of over one hundred monotype prints uses dark, personal, and mythological visual vocabularies to explore the complexities of toxic masculinity, mental health, but also of self care and ultimately – transformation. If there was one word that could distill my creative practice it would be transformation.
Eric Euler is a Northern Ontario born visual artist, educator, and musician. In Spring 2021 Eric moved to Dundas Ontario after accepting an Instructional Assistant position at McMaster University, where he currently manages and maintains the print studio, provides council to students, conducts research, and spreads the gospel of ink.
Pauline Halsey | Artist Statement
Pauline Halsey is a ceramics artist creating works that exist at the conjunction of form and functionality. Focusing on ideas surrounding decoration and kitsch, her practice explores the positionality of ceramics among other artistic mediums. Pauline’s process of creating sculptural vessels allows her to question the hierarchical structures in which objects are assigned value. She investigates how the notions of consumerism affect the perception of art. Her work playfully challenges concepts of right and wrong within ceramics, making considerations through a feminist lens. Navigating the space of decor and design, Pauline often takes inspiration from flea markets and antique stores.
Pauline Halsey (She/Her) is an emerging ceramicist who graduated from Mcmaster University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2023. As a woman artist in a historically male-dominated sphere, she reconsiders previous notions about pottery. Introduced to clay early in life, the medium has continuously intrigued her ever since.
Laura Kay Keeling | Artist Statement
I (Laura Kay Keeling) am a self-taught visual artist, with a practice that questions how we form connections with the natural world. My work encompasses analog photography and video, digital collage, and installation. As a process-based artist utilizing archival investigations, my artwork includes elements from plants and flowers that I have grown (for example petals dropped from a flower) or have foraged. I scan, photograph, press, and repeat when preparing these sourced natural elements. Then, they are added to what I lovingly refer to as my archive, which at the moment includes over 150 natural elements, creating an ever-evolving digital catalog of the natural world.
Laura Kay Keeling (she/her/they) is a self-taught visual artist, currently located in Hamilton. She has exhibited artwork in South Korea at Daegu Art Fair, Artist Project, DesignTO, BigArtTO, CONTACT, Smokestack Gallery, among other locations. As well as having a studio practice, she is an active arts administrator and instructor.
www.laurakaykeeling.com // www.instagram.com/laurakaykeeling
Elaine Lauzon (missELAINEous) | Artist Statement
I got hooked on printing after taking a Monotype Printing workshop at Centre3. Unfortunately lockdown happened right afterwards. That didn’t stop me though, I continued learning and printing at home. This ended up being a good way to beat the lockdown blues and be creative. I was able to order supplies online and watch a lot of instructional videos. Once lockdown ended I was ready to get back into the studio and print on a press again.
My enjoyment for printing keeps growing. As my learning curve expands I will be experimenting with some multimedia projects that incorporate printing with other practices such as painting and drawing.
Elaine Lauzon ( missELAINEous ) is a Canadian visual artist from Hamilton. She works in watercolour, oil paint, monotype and intaglio printing, pencils, pens and digital painting. Her images are often created with spontaneous creativity energy. Sometimes shapes and colours in dreams will influence her artwork, creating little ethereal worlds. For this show she is presenting a group of monotype prints that she printed in the Centre3 studio.
PauTheRebel | Artist Statement
Sonhadora is a Brazilian-Portuguese word meaning “Dreamer”. Sonhadora (Passenger Dreams).mp4 is an experimental film layered with 2D & 3D animation, along with a musical component composed by pak. In this film, we witness the daydreamer’s perspective and disassociation in a colourful pink and/or starry world, blocking the noises of the everyday. Whether she could be commuting from one place to another or longing for a bus ride, she is well immersed within her daydream as it changes her entire worldview.
PauTheRebel is a Brazilian-Canadian interdisciplinary artist residing in Oakville, Ontario and the internet. Their practice consists of drawing, illustration, pattern-making, mixed-media, video and animations; including a love for creating narrative and characters that pair with her current themes including nostalgia, love, gender, and daydreaming.
Amber Lee Williams | Artist Statement
The Polaroid emulsion lifts that make up this series are made from a book (titled Clouds and Storms) that belonged to my deceased mother. They allude to what is lost in time. The images remind me that weather is part of our daily lives—something that we all experience even though we can’t control it. And this element of unpredictability in the weather is echoed within the emulsion lift process, an alchemy that is akin to grief—how sorrow quickly moves to joy, and then back to grief (all within a few heart beats).
Amber Lee Williams is an interdisciplinary artist from the Niagara region. She recently completed her MFA at the University of Waterloo. Family is at the center of her practice. Her research resides in and around the home: observing and photographing her children, and drawing inspiration from the possessions left behind by deceased loved ones.
Nadine Wyczolkowski | Artist Statement
These works capture the old and the new: juxtapositions of condition and similarities of architectural forms. It pays homage to the building that is being demolished. The specifically situated skyline holds universal themes of change, deterioration, and decay. It places conventional and unconventional aesthetics in the same sightline. What is typically valorized is in the background, while the unexpected demolition site is the focal point. Sentimentality for the past…memories of places and spaces are recalled. Informed by undergraduate studies in social theory and geography, my artwork explores the connections between places and people across time.
Nadine Wyczolkowski’s art has been exhibited in museums, public, commercial, and student-run galleries in Canada, Italy, Japan, Poland, and the United States. Her art often explores connections across various restriction-imposing structures and geometric abstraction. She has been the recipient of a Career Catalyst and Exhibition Assistance grants from the OAC.
This exhibition is generously supported by
