Meet the vitrine artists
Art Volt will only reveal the artworks for sale at the vernissage, but three artists graduating this spring, Rebecca Ramsey, Kuh Del Rosario and Laurel Rennie, will display works in the FOFA vitrine in advance of the event to celebrate convocation.
Ramsey, a recent graduate of the MFA in Studio Arts, is grateful for this support from the AVC. Working in sculpture with a focus on ceramics, her contribution is derived from her thesis show that was inspired by objects that are present in hygiene infrastructures.
“I’m interested in how the plumbing system of the building becomes a metaphor for the body,” Ramsey says. “Intimately intertwined, they reveal things about each other and act as models for understanding larger cycles of transformation and circulation in the natural world.”
Del Rosario, who recently earned an MFA in Studio Arts with a concentration in sculpture and ceramics, was the recipient of the 2023 Brucebo Fine Art Summer Residency Scholarship and was also awarded the 2024 Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Fellowship in Contemporary Art.
Using everyday items and salvaged materials, she draws from her personal history to tell stories through her artwork. “It is a method for grounding and remembering the future as it continually unfolds,” Del Rosario explains.
“More recently, my work focuses on time as expressed on the skins of things, death as transformation and composting as a metaphor for living.”
Rennie, a recent graduate of the MFA in Fibres and Material Practices, produces textural and multi-layered textile pieces that combine plant and chemical dyes, piecework, sewing, quilting, embroidery and wood-carving.
“As the world becomes increasingly inhospitable to many forms of life — largely because of human impact — I create work that gathers stories from plants, dreams, mystery, non-humans and the sensual world as a way of processing our knotted relationships and histories,” she says.
The support offered by the AVC is important to Rennie, she shares, as is an ongoing connection to Concordia and fellow alumni.
“The Art Volt team has been extremely generous. As an emerging artist, it feels very necessary to build a web of community and support — to keep going and be able to create,” she says.
“For me, Art Volt is part of that web. I’m hoping my inclusion in the AVC leads to more connections, my work being shown more widely and exhibited in new spaces. I’m open to any and all possibilities.”
10 artists will be added to the AVC roster this year:
Returning artists with new works being added to the AVC:
- Alejandra Zamudio Diaz, BFA 19
- Crystel Pereira, BFA 21
- Gabor Bata, BFA 19, MFA3
- Paulina Bereza, BFA 22
The 2024 Art Volt Collection vernissage will be held at the FOFA Gallery (1515 Ste. Catherine St. W.) on June 19, from 6 to 9 p.m.
Learn more about Concordia’s Faculty of Fine Arts.