30th annual juried art exhibition

As promised, here are some photos from the group show I was recently a part of at the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington. The show ran from October 17 - November 7, 2010. I didn't take any photos at the opening reception as it was a bit crowded, so I just went back on another day when there were less people around to take these. 

Room #1:

Room #2:

I was very excited to find out that the jury had selected my piece to be a part of the show. Then I found out they awarded it with the VAC Award of Encouragement! So much love.

I'm very happy to have been a part of it.

news!

I recently entered a couple pieces into the 30th Annual Juried Exhibition at my local gallery. I found out yesterday that one of my pieces was chosen to be a part of the show! They chose Knitwit:


knitwit, originally uploaded by avalilly.

I'm really excited. I get to exhibit with a group of varied artists that I haven't met before (well, maybe some I've met)! It's nice, because most of the shows I've been a part of have been basically with a good number of classmates from university, so this is a nice step towards getting my work more exposure.

The show is at the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington and it opens on October 17, 2010 with the reception from 2-4pm and it runs until November 7, 2010.

Please stop in if you're in the area! :)

drawing area exhibition

Over the past week (March 3-12, 2010), some of my work was shown in York University's Drawing Area Exhibition in the Gales Gallery. Basically any work done in any of the drawing classes could be shown. I selected two of my most recent drawings. It's strange in these photos, it looks like I'm one of the only people utilizing bright colours, so they stand out a bit even though they're in the background.

The blue ones are mine!

By far one of the coolest drawing installations I've ever seen. She had some faint lights coming from various points around it. The actual paper is so fragile! I can't imagine how much patience is needed to pull this off.

 

The two portraits on the far left and far right were done with ink stamps, which I thought looked really neat. One girl used a butterfly stamp, one used stars, and the way they stamped them created the portraits. It was really neat to see up close and then from far away.

Overall I was quite impressed with the work and how the show was set up. The drawings were done by everyone between 1st and 5th year, so it was interesting to see all the different strengths and styles beside eachother.

chantilly lace

Recently, I was given (very short) notice that I would be participating in a group exhibition in the Gales gallery at York University. It was to feature works by five talented young female artists (Jess Thalmann, Jiallin Ji, Jo Fallack, Lili Huston-Herterich, and myself). Unfortunately, due to time contraints (ie. practically no notice and it being the busiest part of the semester), there was no way to really plan a show that would have a lot of cohesion between all the different work. So, we figured we would all just put in whatever work we could and that would be that.

Another unfortunate piece of business was that the artists who utilized the gallery space right before us were given the wrong shade of white paint to restore with and our walls ended up having very noticeable darker blocks of paint across them. Already being frustrated with the show and everyone being so busy, there wasn't any time to go out and buy the right paint and fix it. We decided to just roll with it and we installed our work over top and named the exhibition Chantilly Lace after the shade of paint that wasn't meant to be there.

These are the drawings that I installed in the show:

Outspoken (Laura Crowell 2009) 22"x30" conte on paper

Untitled (Laura Crowell 2009) 22"x30" conte on paper

La Scapigliata (Laura Crowell 2009) 22"x30" conte on paper

The show will be running until November 13, 2009.

Interesting experience, to say the least. I am a little sad that we were given such crappy notice about it though. I've wanted to show work in that gallery since I found out undergrads were allowed to apply, so it's unfortunate there wasn't enough time for me to produce new work for it.

Outspoken is my most recent piece. I'm hoping to continue with a series of drawings in a similar style. The hands drawing has already been shown at Whippersnapper gallery earlier in March of this year in the Play/Pause show. La Scapigliata is sort of just a drawing for the sake of drawing something. There's not a terribly big meaning behind it, so I felt a little silly including it.

Ah well, there was space on the wall, so why not!

special projects gallery

I'm in a fourth year drawing class, since the third year class of essentially the exact same design was full. We were given the opportunity to showcase some of our work in one of the university's galleries. I had three pieces shown. It ran from March 2nd-6th.

jaded
Originally uploaded by avalilly

girl with a swirl earring
Originally uploaded by avalilly

bikini of venus
Originally uploaded by avalilly

It's just a small space to show in, but any experience for the CV is good, right? I'm sure it's nicer for the work to be hanging in a gallery than rotting away in my $5 cardboard portfolio anyways.

I'm looking into getting a couple solo shows going. I want to expand on my modernized famous portraits series enough so I can atleast pair up with one or two other artists. Basically, I want to take famous portraits from way back when and apply modern day beauty/fashion trends to them as a lighthearted comment upon the frivolousness of our many ideas of feminin beauty ideals. Or something like that. Also, I have a thing for crazy squiggly light photos, so I'll probably give that a try as well. I'll elaborate on that another day...

play/pause

PLAY/PAUSE was a York University Undergraduate Visual Arts Students Association (VASA) juried art show. We ran it at Whippersnapper gallery in downtown Toronto from March 2nd-13th, 2009. My piece, "Untitled" (hands) made it in. The reception was held on March 6th, 2009 to much succcess. The place was packed! Here's some photos from the exhibition:

Overall, it was a wonderful show and a really good experience. I'm looking forward to doing this more often (talent and opportunities permitted)!

For more photos from this event, check out my Flickr set: Play/Pause!