Still image from Vapor Mall, Samantha Noseworthy, video, 2018.
Artcite Inc. is pleased to present our first exhibition of 2021, 'End of Daze' curated by Imogen Clendinning. This virtual exhibition features work by artists Kiera Boult, Samantha Noseworthy and Rihkee Strapp. The site will launch through the Artcite website on January 8th, alongside a live Instagram event featuring End of Daze artist Rihkee Strapp and their collaborator Tejhler Leadbeater at 7pm (est).
The novel coronavirus has forever altered how we utilize media and digital spaces to form connections with one another and the outside world. Through the world wide web we access community, organizing, learning, healthcare, and justice organizations through GIFS, memes, astrology, and apocalyptic prophecies. The Internet is all things, it represents access, it is a circuit to another world. Our instantaneous dependence on the Internet follows on the heels of the world of dial-up, with it, triggering a nostalgia for the dot com utopias of the early 2000s. During this time, many were optimistic about the potential of the net as a means of connecting us. Since then, our collective relationship to the web has altered, revealing the destructive possibilities embedded online through access of information.
In End of Daze, Kiera Boult, Samantha Noseworthy and Rihkee Strapp engage with Y2K aesthetics, problematizing nostalgia and drawing from popular media in order to interrogate how the dominating culture has, and continues to, fall short. Their fascinations with pastness can be recognized in these artists’ works through their use of Y2K aesthetics and early Internet pixelated imagery. Their works borrow from infomercials, public access TV, video games, vaporwave & cult classics in order to consider how nostalgia and disillusionment can be co-opted to play a role in conversations about decolonization, race, identity and femininity.
Kiera Boult is an interdisciplinary artist and performer from Hamilton. Boult’s practice utilizes camp and comedy to skeptically address issues that surround the role and/or identity of the artist and the institution. In 2019, Boult was the recipient of the Hamilton Emerging Visual Artist Award. Her work has been exhibited at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Art Gallery of Hamilton, and Trinity Square Video. She has participated in the Art Gallery of York University’s final Performance Bus, 7a*11D’s 7a*md8 – ONLINE and Life of a Crap Head’s Doored. Boult appears in the recent Chroma Issue of Canadian Art. She holds a BFA in Criticism and Curatorial Practice from OCAD University and is currently Vtape’s Submissions, Collections & Outreach Coordinator.
Samantha Noseworthy is an Atlantic Canadian visual artist who works primarily in video, new media, and drawing. Her works investigate sentimental nostalgia and fantasy through the use of found footage, internet culture, and outdated technologies. Samantha presents surreal worlds that are sometimes familiar and often humorous, aiming to leave viewers with a sense of mystery and fascination.
Samantha received her HBA from the University of Toronto in 2015, and her MFA from the University of Western Ontario in 2018. Her work has been featured nationally and internationally, with notable exhibitions at McIntosh Gallery (London, Ontario), In/Future Art and Music Festival (Toronto, Ontario), and Art-Athina Contemporary Art Fair (Athens, Greece).
Rihkee Strapp: “I am Metis ayakwe born in Red Lake, Ontario. Stories my grandmother told me of the Indigenous run silk screen company called the Triple-K Cooperative were my first introduction to thinking about how communities create the conditions to enable individuals like Norval Morrisseau to succeed in the North. I was introduced to systems thinking during my time in the Studio Y fellowship at the MaRS Discovery District. This allowed me to describe and analyse my ideas in new ways. While I attended the fellowship, I continued to travel to Serpent River to participate in ceremony. In my arts practice I reconcile nuances of identity, and cultural appropriation.”
Tune in on January 8th at 7pm (est) via Artcite's Instagram account for a live performance featuring Rihkee Strapp's collaborator, performance artist Tejhler Leadbeater.