SELF // ISOLATION
Chelsea Watson

Self // Isolation is a collection of digital pieces generated from photographs taken by the artist in her home. One portrait was taken for every month she spent alone in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using code to manipulate the photographs through a process called generative art, the images morph from everyday household objects and scenes of day-to-day life, into indiscernible blurs. Drawing from experience with anxiety and depression, the artist attempts to capture the chaos, fog and distortion, which is often experienced in times of trauma, and acutely felt by most during the pandemic. The project is a comment on the unreliability of memory and the brain’s misperception of reality, and ultimately a reflection on the artist’s progressive mental decline during the lockdown.

Chelsea Watson is an artist from Calgary, Canada currently residing in Toronto. Her unique process, known as generative or computational art, uses creative coding to make computer programs that create art. Chelsea’s work is purposefully random with an appreciation for imperfection. She draws inspiration from tactile art forms, such as paintings, ceramics and textiles to create layered and textured pieces with code as her medium.

Keywords: Addiction | Dispalcement | Harm Reduction | Healthcare | Indigenous rights | Trauma

This event is FREE and everyone is welcome. We hope you can join us to enjoy this showcase from home – wherever that may be! In case the Zoom event reaches capacity, we will also live stream this event on the Workman Arts Facebook page.

We also have a virtual Gallery on Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/193283975@N06/galleries/72157719479293760/

Based on a 2021 Digital Workshop Series that Lisa Anita Wegner created for Yuri Araj for KickStart Disability Art and Culture in Vancouver, Workman Arts presents the Toronto Edition. You will hear from Apanaki Temitayo M & Lisa Anita Wegner, two extraordinary artists who live with multiple invisible disabilities and have made it a priority to not let that stand in the way of achieving their creative and life goals. Join us for an hour and a half long presentation of art, films, stories and inspiration. Talks will be followed with a Q&A period.

Where: Zoom
When: Thursday, April 8, 2021, 6 PM – 7.30 PM EST

This is a free event for Workman Arts members and the general public.

ASL interpretation and live captioning will be available.

Join us for a collective virtual paint night to raise $2,500 for mental health programming! Have fun and contribute to a cause that is essential for all.

Where: Zoom
When: Thursday, January 27, 2022, 7 PM – 9 PM
Only 50 tickets available! (only one ticket needed per screen/household)

Cost is by donation with a minimum donation of $50*

• First person to donate $100 receives an all-access pass to Rendezvous with Madness Festival
• First person to donate $200 receives the instructor’s painting AND an all-access pass to Rendezvous with Madness Festival

Materials needed

• 1 small canvas (5 x 7 or 8 x 10)
• 5 paint colours of your choice (colours used for the example painting are primary yellow, magenta and primary cyan/blue, with black and white)
• Two paintbrushes:
  • #10 flat/bright brush (#10 round can also work – 2 inches wide)
  • #2 round brush (pencil size)
• Paint Palette (Plastic cover or lids)
• Small bucket of water
• Paper Towel
• No solvents are required. All paints are water-based. 

Materials can be purchased at the dollar store or an art supply store (Aboveground Art, Curry’s, Michaels) or mailed to your home for an additional fee of $25 per kit. Click here to open the materials kit in a new tab to add to your cart after you’ve added your ticket.

Please note that orders for materials kits for mailing must be received no later than Friday, January 21, to ensure they will get to you in time.

*Tax Receipting Policy: In accordance with CRA regulations, the value of benefits must be deducted from the total gift. We will provide a tax receipt for the portion of any donations above $50 (i.e $75 ticket eligible for a receipt for $25, $100 ticket eligible for a receipt for $50, etc.). Materials kits are not receiptable.

Multitude of Fish is an installation consisting of 1000 handmade clay fish. In this piece, the artist touches on layers of meaning through its process and how it’s experienced by the viewer. She explored how things we cannot see like intention, emotions and thoughts, form our reality. This is reflected in the creation process as each mark carved into the clay builds up to the fish and eventually becomes a piece to the overall installation. For the past two years, Jenny worked with the image of water in her drawings which was preliminary work that led up to this installation. In her work, the fish flows through its surrounding space and leads the viewer on a journey reminiscent of the inner realm.

Jenny Chen is a multimedia artist, currently working in watercolor, pen and clay. Her work uses symbols to create otherworldly environments while considering themes of existentialism and spirituality. Her exhibition history includes the Living Arts Centre (group), Toronto Media Arts Centre (group) and United Contemporary (solo). She is a recipient of grants from the Ontario Arts Council (exhibition assistance) and Cue Arts Projects.

Images of the Multitude of Fish installation in Re:Building Resilience:

Photos by Henry Chang

untitled ([not] always like this) is an ongoing artwork created by collecting the artist’s used tissues and dipping them in porcelain, adding worth to an otherwise worthless object. The piece is a response to the society we live in and the importance placed on doing: you must make, you must work, you must grind. Our opinions of ourselves are tied to a quantifiable output rather than how we feel. Instead, we should spend time listening to our bodies, allowing ourselves to take things slow, being intentional with the way we move through the world and giving ourselves permission to heal from the everyday. These tissues hold the memories of going against the grain, of days stuck in sickness and hours lost crying.

Kassandra Walters is a multimedia artist currently practicing in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal. Her art tackles mental health, all that it encompasses and all that encompasses it. With a strong desire to normalize speaking about the unspeakable, Kassandra’s work is honest and raw. She finds solace in the act of making through repetition.

This artist has an item in the RWM swag bag to go with their piece in the exhibition. All ticket holders will be invited to receive RWM swag bags available for free curbside pickup during festival hours.

Images of the untitled ([not] always like this) installation in Re:Building Resilience:

Photos by Henry Chang

Into the dark of my skin uses a bird’s eye view to look at all possible perspectives, going beyond the corners of the frame. Mutated and shared bodies visually meet in only one spot, never meeting in a second. Their virtual encounter is a need that satisfies and nourishes the fetal and its obsolete memory. This, unfortunately, is a search for impossible love or the cohabitation of two human beings, which is only possible through a visual juxtaposition. The video medium creates a ground that allows a meeting…impossible bodies, different times and places.

Wieslawa Nowicka explores the branches of visual art and its pluralism. As a result, she has liberated herself from a singularity, permitting her to explore the facets of history, anthropology, and psychoanalysis through the plurality of arts – painting, design, performance and video installations.

CONTENT WARNINGS

Nudity

Images of the Into the dark of my skin installation in Re:Building Resilience:

Photos by Henry Chang

Quote from the artist: My work is a reflection of an idiot world run by idiots. A two faced world where if you “appear” good, then you are an upstanding person. Being good is not important, just “appearing” good. A place where you can have a career managing and polishing someone’s public persona to make them appear human when they’re actually reptiles. A place where selfishness rules and the ego dictates action. I’m just here for a limited time and I paint what actually IS.

As a self-taught outsider artist from Toronto, Mitchell’s talent is intuitive and his paintings spring from an authentic need for expression. He discovered that through painting, one can overcome hardships. Working in a variety of media in a self -defined style, his larger works begin as vast, abstracted canvases that act like theatre venues, unveiling narratives of semi-figurative actions, improbable scenarios and inordinate scripts. The works offer the artist’s unique vision of the world through narratives of discontentment and critique, mockery and playfulness or just the simplicity of being.

CONTENT WARNINGS

Violence, Suicide, Anxiety

Please visit our online store to purchase:
Looking Up While Down I
Lamb (Scarecrow Redux)
Phoenix Pt. II

Images of the Scarecrow installation in Re:Building Resilience:

Photos by Henry Chang

Executed as a hybrid of sculpture and painting, Alpha Support explores the distance between presumption and certainty when observing the masks that obscure vulnerability. The work examines sub-narratives of anxiety, mental health, relationships, support systems, security and the regeneration of personal power. They encourage that we take more social risks; offer support to those who have fallen, accept support in return, advance beyond projected facades to form deeper connections and sideline insecurities to allow our true selves to surface.

Justin Mencel is a Canadian painter, sculptor, and animator. He uses interpretations of space and time to explore elements of human nature and mental health. His work is sold by Birch Contemporary in Toronto.

To purchase pieces from the Alpha Support series, please contact paulina_wiszowata@workmanarts.com for more info.

Images of the Alpha Support installation in Re:Building Resilience:

Photos by Paulina Wiszowata