Martha Street Studio

Category: Exhibitions

  • What’s on next: Traversing the line, with no fixed point // Briana Palmer

    What’s on next: Traversing the line, with no fixed point // Briana Palmer

    Exhibition Dates:
    Thursday January 9th – Friday February 7th, 2020

    Opening Reception: Thursday January 9th, 5-8 pm
    Artist will be in attendance

    Artist Talk: Saturday January 11th, 2pm
    ASL interpretation available by request. Requests must be submitted by 5pm on January 8th by emailing askmartha@printmakers.mb.ca or calling 204-779-6253.

    These events are free to attend and open to the public.

    Traversing the line, with no fixed point uses various printmaking methods and mixed media to question the use and position of the railway system in national memory and history. It can be a reminder of one’s heritage, while for others it is a symbol of slavery, genocide, and colonization. In this exhibition the artist creates a fictional world with objects in constant flux of meaning and interpretation.

    Briana Palmer lives in Hamilton Ontario, and teaches in the studio arts program at McMaster University. Originally from the West Coast, Briana received her BFA from the Alberta Collage of Art and Design and MFA from the University of Alberta. Her primary practice is in printmaking, sculpture and installation; creating works that reflect an intersection between perception, experience, and social ideologies taken from her own cultural practices, up-bringing and daily experiences. Using unusual combinations of media and materials, she arranges enchanted worlds where the objects and images are transported from their original source, relocating their history, and becoming poised between the uncertainly of what we know and understand, and what must be reconsidered.

    Palmer’s works have been exhibited in Canada, U.S and Europe. Her prints are in the collections of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Southern Graphics Council International, and the University of Alberta.

  • The In-Betweens // Alison James

    The In-Betweens // Alison James

    Exhibition Dates:
    Friday November 1 – Thursday December 5, 2019

    Opening Reception: Friday November 1st, 5-8 pm
    Artist will be in attendance

    Artist Talk: Saturday November 16, 2pm
    ASL interpretation available by request. Requests must be submitted by 5pm on November 13th by emailing askmartha@printmakers.mb.ca or calling 204-779-6253.

    These events are free to attend and open to the public.

    Episodic memories lay the foundation of evolving human identities. A key aspect of long-term memory, they are a collection of personal experiences that occur in a specific time and setting and contain the emotional and contextual knowledge of each event. Their vital role in personal identity drives Alison James to ask: why are some experiences encoded, consolidated, and recalled successfully while others are not? What distinct characteristics do they share? What is derived from them?

    The In-Betweens addresses these questions through a series of looping, stop-motion animations of James’ episodic memories. Constructed from screen printed papercut figures and sets, the animations highlight the emotions of each memory portrayed. Unnerving movements of vivid screen printed papercuts draw viewers into quiet scenes fraught with emotion. The techniques used reflect the reconstructive nature of remembering. The process of screen printing is reconstructive; involving the construction of an image, its deconstruction to create positives and the subsequent reconstruction of layers when printing. Assembling of the papercuts reaffirms this notion. Continuous looping of the animations evokes the memories’ repeated recollection over time.

    Alison James is a multidisciplinary artist based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. In her research-based practice, she utilizes the technical processes of printmaking and animation to investigate the reconstructive nature of autobiographical memory and personal identity. Alison holds a BFA Honours degree from the University of Manitoba and has exhibited her work nationally and internationally. Past exhibitions and screenings include I Had a Feeling, Atelier Presse Papier, Trois-Rivières, QC (2016), Gimli Film Festival, Gimli, MB (2015), Les Sommets du cinéma d’animation, Montreal and Québec City, QC (2014) and Animasivo, Mexico City, Mexico (2014). Alison has participated in residencies at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Frans Masereel Centrum, and Atelier Graff.

    The artist would like to thank the School of Art at the University of Manitoba for their support.

    Artist Statement:

    We are what we remember. This notion troubles me. In the last number of years, I have come to realize that the majority of my episodic memories, and thus my life narrative, are tied to documentation — photographs, home videos, and verbal storytelling. What does this mean, when such records are created and presented in a way that makes life seem to largely consist of a string of joyful experiences — smiling faces partaking in celebrations, vacations, holidays?

    My recent work converges on the in-betweens — personal episodic memories that do not conform to life scripts documented in my family’s archive. Through screen printing and stop-motion animation, I endeavour to reconstruct strong episodic memories that share three common threads; they do not exist in the form of material record nor were they relayed to me as a story, I seldom shared them, if at all, and most notably — they possess a significant emotional charge. What does it take to encode such a memory, I wonder? Are they truer than those connected to documentation? More meaningful?

    When recalling a memory, it is impossible to conjure a perfectly preserved experience. Rather, we reconstruct the past from a personal present, introducing errors and imbuing the memory with our present-day mood, values and outlook on life. I meditate on memory reconstruction through screen printing: a highly deliberate technique that involves  composing an image, deconstructing it to create layers, then reassembling it through the printing process. Animation breathes life into these constructions, seeking to conjure the elusive core of the memory — emotion.

  • Obscura // Angela Snieder

    Obscura // Angela Snieder

    Exhibition Dates: Friday September 6th – Friday October 18th, 2019

    Opening Reception: Friday September 6th, 5-8 pm

    Artist Talk: Saturday September 7th, 2pm

    Martha Street Studio is pleased to present Obscura, a solo exhibition of work by Angela Snieder (ON). Obscura will be on display at Martha Street Studio from Friday September 6th to Friday October 18th. An opening reception will be held on September 6th from 5-8 pm with the artist in attendance. Snieder will present an artist talk on Saturday September 6th at 2pm.

    Obscura engages with questions of truth and artifice related to experience, perception, and lens-based processes. Through various photographic forms, including photopolymer prints, large-scale pasted prints and moving analog projections, the works in the exhibition aim to prompt a negotiation of reality and its representations that calls into question the truthfulness of photography.

    The role of illusion is central to the printed and projected scenes. Photographic textures and surfaces offer a sense of familiarity, recalling physical spaces such as mineshafts, caves, undergrowth or mountains, but incongruities in scale and subject matter unsettle the scenes and allude to their artifice. What is happening in the shifting moment when the eye catches on to the trick; and how does the knowledge of this conspiracy alter the experience of the image? The feeling of certainty comes in and out of focus as tall grass undulates or an illuminated fog floats in a snow-filled room. 

    The newest work, Field (2019), is a moving analog projection created with two camera obscura devices. Whereas historically the camera obscura projected an image of the external world (reversed and inverted), the devices in the exhibition reveal fabricated physical spaces, projected through apertures onto the walls of a darkened room.

    Artist Statement

    How can we think about the relationship between physical and psychological spaces? My creative practice explores the possibility that the intersection of the two can foster deeply contemplative experiences and enable attentive and empathetic consideration of our relationship with the world.

    Working in photo-based print media and installation, I make use of the mimetic qualities inherent to photography, with the hope of drawing attention not only to the photograph’s capacity for deception, but also to the duplicitous nature of perception and memory. Since their invention, photographic impressions have held an evidentiary power due to their indexical relationship with the physical world. Using the diorama as a creative device, I construct spaces that play with this implicit sense of trust. The resulting printed and projected images reference built structures, but exist in a state of transformation, as if being reclaimed by natural materials and processes. These dream-like scenes serve to explore an ‘in-betweenness’; spaces of both protection and entrapment, of natural and built, of fascination and fear. They are settings in which something is on the verge of taking place.









    Angela Snieder is an artist working primarily in photo-based print media and installation. She completed her BFA at York University (2013) and her MFA in Printmaking at the University of Alberta (2017). Angela taught for several years at the University of Alberta in Printmaking, Foundations, Drawing and Intermedia, and at the Society of Northern Alberta Print Artists (SNAP). She has exhibited nationally and internationally, most recently in a solo show at Alberta Printmakers in Calgary, and in group shows including the 7th International Guanlan Print Biennial in Shenzhen, China, and the Krakòw International Print Triennial in Krakòw, Poland. She is the recipient of a SSHRC graduate scholarship and a Research and Creation Grant from the Canada Council for the Arts for an ongoing project with collaborator Morgan Wedderspoon. Angela currently resides in Hamilton, Ontario.