Vernice Tse, Drawings, 2020. Courtesy the artist.

Are We All We Are

BFA Graduating Exhibition 2020
April 16 – May 7, 2020 | Instagram
@sfugalleries | @sfucontemporaryarts

Aidan Branch, Rachel Chan, Ann Cheng, David Cheung, Josie Dawson-Whisker, Tiffany Fan, Kim Grewal, Yanting Jiang, Alexis Johnston, Aaron Lampitoc, Shelby Lu, Haylee Marx, Opal Mclean, Lukas Paul, Victoria Tai, Tiffany Tam, Vernice Tse, Emma Tynan, Kitty Walker, Elisha Wang, Rachel Warwick, and Carmen Wong.

This exhibition presents the work of visual art students graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University.

We are the art that doesn't know where it's going until it's there, that emotes, that seizes time, that sees the world.

We are the art that changes the world, that farts around, that expresses individuality, that takes an unplanned process as a form, that is an idealized form of body and face, that tries to hide.

We are the art that is made of lines and boba, that creates experiences with an audience, that isn't afraid to be vulnerable, that compares cultural references through material forms, that reflects on emotions through gesture, that shakes the screen.

We are the art that uses abstract forms to create imaginary spaces, that is made of stutterings and glitter-glue and failed conversation, that shares an experience of time and space, that refuses to sleep at a reasonable hour, that sees ourselves in each other.

"All we are. All we are, we are. We are all, all we need." The chorus to Warlock's song "All We Are" acts as a point of entry into how the BFA 2020 graduating cohort sees themselves in relation to each other. Our works span different media, concepts, practices, and disciplines, and when we consider the care and dedication that each of us has put into being an artist throughout our degree studies, we realize that we have developed into a community of peers.

The concept of the anthem gives focus to how we have come to respect, care for and support each other as a group. The concept of the anthem is related to the space of the stadium, be it a church, arena or studio. Within these large spatial structures, people gather together, their chants unifying into one.

This sense of harmony is hard to sustain at a time like this, when our usual structures of support are crumbling. We are unable to physically connect to the people who ground us, who comfort our emotions and who help us think through our practices. If distance is our adversary, then Are We All We Are will become a stadium. We will take the dangers of distance and use them as our anthem, our weapon, our hope.

Presented by the School for the Contemporary Arts and SFU Galleries.

Publications

Rachel Warwick

DEEP CULT by Rachel Warwick.pdf

MAKING FRIENDS (IN THEORY) by Rachel Warwick.pdf

Aaron Lampitoc

Feld Notes by Aaron Lampitoc.pdf

Elisha Wang

Guided Walks by Elisha Wang.pdf

Lukas Paul

Lukas Paul is a visual artist, filmmaker and designer whose practice primarily focuses on digital media. His work often plays with the coded foundations of the virtual image, emphasizing the perceived and actual materiality of digital media.

1. Copa Junta, 2020, video, 3 minutes (still).

2. Copa Junta, 2020, video, 3 minutes (still). Click HERE for the video.

David Cheung

David Cheung is a Vancouver based multimedia artist. His current practice involves intricate hand-crafted sculptural works where he utilizes a combination of media and techniques borrowed from painting and sculpture to explore concepts of cultural exchange and interaction.

1. Mix and Match, 2020, digital photograph.

An iterative process of breaking and remaking, “Mix and Match” documents varying styles of plates made and then rebuilt into others by using Photoshop. Through the steps, the works comment on the beauty of the different styles of plates within Western and Eastern contexts, as well as questioning the technique and value behind digital and physical methods of construction.

2 a – b. Untitled — Plate, 2020, blue ceramic paint on porcelain plate, epoxy, gold leaf and gold powder.

The style of fine china is used in “Untitled — Plate,” and the techniques of kintsugi used to mend different eras and designs of plates from East to West interplay with the value and context of readily available commodities.

3. Goodluck (福), 2020, red ceramic paint on porcelain plate, epoxy, gold leaf and gold powder.

Goodluck (福) is an experimental work in which aspects of Eastern iconography and ideographs are depicted. It comments on the plate’s fragility, as well as processes of breaking and mending, questioning if it’s context is good luck or bad luck.

4. Made in China, 2020, digital label print.

A digitally photoshopped and printed label, replicating the source of the commodity’s origin.

5. Destruction or Construction?, 2020, plates, hammer, epoxy, gold leaf and gold powder.

An early experimentation with the kintsugi technique, which is a Japanese technique that mends broken pottery with lacquered gold dust or gold leaf, and which adds values and restores beauty to a broken object.

Yanting Jiang

Originally from Chongqing, China, Yanting Jiang currently studies in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her work includes installations, drawings, sculptures, and photography. Jiang’s practice focuses on exploring abstract geometrical shapes and their relation to vivid colours, as well as their ability to create optical impacts that surpass the basic elements of storytelling and narrative making.

1 – 5. Matrix, 2020, digital drawing, 3600 x 5400 pixels.

Concerned with geometric configurations, Jiang utilizes varying sizes of squares to create digital spaces that generate visually overwhelming and mind-boggling experiences for the viewers. Stepping out of her comfort zone, here she experiments with colours to push the optical effects further.

Tiffany Fan

Tiffany Fan is a Vancouver based visual artist born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan. Fan’s practice is minimalist in aesthetic, with projects often revolving around personal meanings. Themes she repeatedly explores include transparency and ephemerality in conceptual and material forms.

1. Untitled (Perceiving Ephemerality), 2020, ice, video (still). Click HERE for the video.

When liquid is frozen, what was always moving becomes still, until it melts again back into water. Fan finds fascination in working with ice — the process is driven by a frantic race against time.

2. Untitled (Perceiving Ephemerality), 2020, ice, photograph.

It is durational and temporal. The work takes on different forms depending on the time and day it is being seen. Whether it be in its given form, or in the state of melting, there is a sense of witnessing the process of time slipping by, the sense that every look will be different from the next.

3. Untitled (Studying Ephemerality), 2020, ice, photograph.

“Ice is a transient form, which is in a way not a form at all, for it always presses towards formlessness again.” —Esther Leslie

4. Untitled (Observing Ephemerality), 2020, ice, video (still). Click HERE for the video.

Capturing, encapsulating, and putting a pause on time and motion within something that is always moving...

5. Untitled (Witnessing Ephemerality), 2020, ice, video (still). Click HERE for the video.

Untitled (Ephemerality) thinks through ideas of motion and stillness, of perpetual change, and the passage of time. Utilizing the transient forms of ice and water, Fan tackles the concepts of material and environmental change.

Opal Mclean

Opal Mclean is an interdisciplinary artist with a focus on performance and mixed media. She documents these performances, which often occur in public space, as a way of relating to present social, cultural and political realities. Through performative actions, her work negotiates the liminal space between interior psychological states and the public sphere.

1. (Don’t) Make Me Dance I, 2019, video (still). Click HERE for the video.

(Don’t) Make Me Dance is a collection of videos of an improvised performance enacted in spaces the artist frequents, where she investigates her strategies for existing in social contexts. Drawing on her background in theatre, the artist performs intuitively based on the mood of the music. For a moment, she exists to engage with the space rather than pass through it. In a way, she engages with herself. She dwells in her movement rather than ignoring it. By occupying public transit, the artist navigates the world in close proximity to others, interrupting behaviours while being mindful of the conditions around her.

2. (Don’t) Make Me Dance II, 2019, video (still). Click HERE for the video.

The second iteration takes place inside a mall - a commercial space, where we are bombarded by advertisements from all directions - a pressure cooker of modern living. The artist sometimes moves with the crowd until she is taken away by the music. Her actions do not blend into the crowd around her-- but she exists in this space anyway.

3. (Don’t) Make Me Dance III, 2020, video (still). Click HERE for the video.

The artist begins to explore the intersection between private and public space by dancing in the hallway of her apartment building, a space that needs to be navigated with attention. With limited space, and other residents in close proximity, the artist risks an encounter with someone she will likely see again. She remains dancing in a space that is usually used for passing through, but that she can almost call her own.

4. (Don’t) Make Me Dance IV, 2020, video (still). Click HERE for the video.

As patterns of daily life shift in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the artist adapts to a new boundary between public and private. The artist continues to occupy her own space through dance as a means of maintaining hope. Her performance exists alongside household tasks to highlight the brighter side of living. Situations may change, and that is what improvisation is all about.

5. (Don’t) Make Me Dance V, 2020, video (still). Click HERE for the video.

Isolation has brought forward the need for connection. The artist, in response to a lack of social contact, invites her peers to dance with her. Dancing fills a need to stay connected to one another, allowing a group of people to exist in the same psychological space even if they are far away from each other. They share action in a technological space that, much like their movement, exists only when enacted.

Tiffany Tam

Tiffany Tam is an artist born and raised in Vancouver, BC. Working with digital image-making media has led to her recent explorations of different methods of animation. Her works reflect upon sentiments surrounding the emotionally and psychologically driven events of her life.

1. Cry Count, 2020, animated video (still). Click HERE for the video.

This work was created by realizing an emotional pattern of the artist’s own, where the pattern becomes a cycle.

2. Instructions Imagined, 2020, video (still). Click HERE for the video.

As society moves into digital spaces, there is no authentic way of experiencing a work in a physical space. So Tam created Instructions Imagined as a preface to her main work in this virtual gallery show.

Rachel Chan

Rachel Chan is an illustrator based in Vancouver, BC. She is interested in the potential of aesthetically minimal work to be interpreted in myriad ways through experimentation with 2D animations and other digital software.

1. Burnout, 2020, 2D animation.

A drawing of a brain, layer 23/138.

2. Burnout, 2020, 2D animation.

Burning the brain, layer 126/138.

3. Burnout, 2020, 2D animation.

A flattened image of the fire layers on one canvas.

4. Burnout, 2020, 2D animation (still). Click HERE for the video.

A process video, from start to finish, of the entire animation.

5. Burnout, 2020, 2D animation (still). Click HERE for the video.

This animation illustrates a never ending cycle of the brain burning out, depicting the artist herself as being lost. Throughout the years, she always enjoyed making art but recently found that she is not as passionate as before, resulting in exhaustion.

Ann Cheng

Ann Cheng is an artist. Born in Taiwan, she is now based in Vancouver, BC. Cheng is interested in making artworks that are small-scaled and that explore relationships between colour and the production of feelings of horror.

1. what to drink?, 2020, acrylic and plastic cups.

So many choices. So hard to choose.

2. Grass Jelly or Pudding, 2020, acrylic and plastic cups.

Grass Jelly Tea Latte and Caramel Pudding Black Tea Latte. Is Latte coffee?

Rachel Warwick

Rachel Warwick is an interdisciplinary artist, collaborator and organizer. Her practice is research-oriented, focused on understanding identity through the connection of people to place and space. Warwick’s work is heavily influenced by relational aesthetics, Annette Krauss’s theories of unlearning and the ideas explored in Support Structures (2009), a collection of essays and works edited by Celine Condorelli.

Download PDF copies of Making Friends (In Theory) and Deep Cult.

1. Making Friends (In Theory), 2019 – ongoing.

An ongoing series of relational groups where people begin to construct, develop and deliberate on the group’s design and operation.

2. Making Friends (In Theory): Application for the Singular (Self) Structure, 2020.

These relational groups do not focus on a singular outcome, but on a continuous exploration into a multitude of interests.

3. Making Friends (In Theory): Construction of A Structure, 2020, video (still). Click HERE for the video.

The structure is meant to think about how space is created amongst a group of people with the use of table pedagogy — a learning structure that is about how we learn through the conversations one might typically experience at the kitchen or coffee table.

4 – 7. Making Friends (In Theory): Artifacts, 2019 – ongoing.

Found material from sites of social constructions.

Image 4 & 5: Statement of Feminist Publishing Ethics From the 1985 Women in Print Conference (SFU Archives). Image 6: Tillie Olsen, “Tell Me a Riddle” (New York City: Dell Publishing Co., 1976). Originally from Ariel Books Ltd., Vancouver, BC. Found at Paperhound Books, Vancouver, BC. Image 7: Kathleen Martindale, ed., “Feminist Ethics,” vol. 2, no. 3 (Summer 1988). Found at Paperhound Books, Vancouver, BC.

8. Making Friends (In Theory): Placeholder for Material, 2020.

Kitty Walker

Vancouver based artist Kitty Walker’s work explores the different forms of everyday life, and considers the strange, unfamiliar and unexplainable aspects that lie behind it. Working to close the gap between art and the mundanities of life, she applies a playful filter to the ordinary and decontextualizes the normal.

1. myopic, 2020, fabric and rope.

This work is for the nearsighted: for those who can walk through the forest and leave without noticing the moss on the north side of the trees, without noticing the careful folds from the knots of bark and without noticing the limits of our vision.

2. impasse, 2020, fabric and rope.

Our observation of the world is supplemented with the wrapping of rope around a branch. Each bind covers the surface below; we know what is below but are unable to see. Our acuity is weakened by the distraction of what is there.

3. yarn, 2020, fabric and rope.

Haven’t you always imagined forests to be terrific storytellers? Without the distraction of words, you can see more freely.

4. layers, 2020, fabric and rope.

Each photo contains the same elements — forest, rope, fabric — although each photo looks completely different. Perspective creates many ways to know and perceive; colours change, temperatures change and narratives change.

5. rest, 2020, fabric and rope.

“Life [exists] only because of a myriad of synchronicities that bring us to this particular place at this particular moment. In return for such a gift, the only sane response is to glitter in reply.” — Robin Wall Kimmerer

I find making meaning in my work tricky, and yet there will always be meaning to me since I made the work. I exist in the work. Expanding the work outwards, to an audience, is where I struggle as I try to put my thoughts into the mind of others. Robin Wall Kimmerer is influential to me. She helps to realize meaning-making is a personal experience that comes from being and existing.

Josie Dawson-Whisker

Josie Dawson-Whisker is a visual artist from Vancouver Island. Currently working in Vancouver, Dawson-Whisker explores her interests in environmental activism through a variety of media including collage, painting, sculpture, and photography.

1. Exoskeleton, 2020, video (still). Click HERE for the video.

“Day in the life of Frankentrash…”

2 – 6. Exoskeleton, 2020, clear packing tape, scavenged items.

“Belly full of PBTs…” PBT: persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic substances; chemical compounds that resist biodegradation, easily move through the environment and are high in toxicity.

7 – 15. Exoskeleton, 2020, clear packing tape, magazine, white glue.

“I am she. She is me…” Nature connectedness: nature as part of one’s identity; characteristics are similar to those of a personality trait, being stable over time and across various situations.

16 – 25. Exoskeleton, 2020, clear packing tape, scavenged items, magazine, white glue.

“The Earth will be safe when we feel safe in ourselves…” Consciousness: awareness of internal or external existence; familiar yet mysterious.

26. Exoskeleton, 2020, video (still). Click HERE for the video.

“Day in the life of A Breath of Fresh Air…”

Emma Tynan

Emma Tynan is a Vancouver based artist who mainly works in photography, graphic design and spray painting. She is intrigued by how places in the world can be presented and misrepresented, altering people’s perception based on changed perspectives.

1. Perspective on Time, 2020, 30 x 40” digital photographic print.

Displays four photographs of the Bloedel Conservatory taken at different times of the day over the course of several weeks. These images were merged to create a new image that explores how light, colour, weather, and time affect the interpretation and aesthetics of the building’s architecture. This work, along with previous works, deals with how grids interact with photography, and how the grids can bring attention to the details and overall subject of the image. Tynan’s art practice allows her to address different views and beliefs by combining light, colour, perspective, and time.

2. Perspective on Time, 2020, 30 x 40” digital photographic print.

This photo shows the top left quadrant of the overall photograph. The image in this quadrant was taken in the evening on a sunny, cloudless day just as the sun was setting.

3. Perspective on Time, 2020, 30 x 40” digital photographic print.

This photo shows the top right quadrant of the overall photograph.This part of the photo was taken in the late afternoon just after a heavy rainfall when it was still dark and cloudy.

4. Perspective on Time, 2020, 30 x 40” digital photographic print.

This photo shows the bottom left quadrant of the overall photograph. This part of the photo was taken in the early afternoon on a grey, cloudy and somewhat rainy day.

5. Perspective on Time, 2020, 30 x 40” digital photographic print.

This photo shows the bottom right quadrant of the overall photograph. This part of the photo was taken in the morning, on a sunny day. These quadrants portray how places can be presented and misrepresented in the world. The artist is intrigued by how people’s perceptions change based on perspective..

Aaron Lampitoc

Aaron Lampitoc is a process-based artist, currently focused on sculptural and installation-based practices. He was born and raised in BC and continues to work in the Lower Mainland.

1. The Adventures of the Delusional Alchemist (Digital Sample), 2020, digital graphic design.

A snippet of the digital graphic transcription and design of Xelamar's journal.

2. The Adventures of the Delusional Alchemist (Digital Sample), 2020, digital photograph.

An in-depth look of Xelamar's notes. The featured content includes spontaneous drafts and the journal entry for the organism Creature.

3. The Adventures of the Delusional Alchemist (Digital Sample), 2020, digital photograph.

Due to his light budget, he was only able to export small samples back to his homeland for his experiments. Even so, he was simply content with going on adventures and sharing his discoveries.

4. The Adventures of the Delusional Alchemist (Digital Sample), 2020, digital photograph.

An unknown species that was recently discovered in their own so-called world or dimension. Their bodies and landscape seem to be similar to clay: any contact with moisture allows their bodies / architecture to be easily manipulated. This allows the possibilities to create many items (such as bowls, chinaware, and so forth), depending on the quantity used.

5. The Adventures of the Delusional Alchemist (Digital Sample), 2020, digital photograph.

The Adventures of the Delusional Alchemist (Digital Sample) is a digital transcription of a novice alchemist's recent research from his journey of collecting strange materials. Upon his return, a request was sent to showcase his current research. He was unsure if his work as a novice had any significant merit. Nevertheless, this was a great opportunity to share his enthusiasm in hope that people could learn more about extraordinary worlds. After transcribing his work into a digital graphic design to be shared, he decided to take a well-earned vacation and hopes that his audience will enjoy his research.

Download a PDF version of the The Adventures of the Delusional Alchemist (Digital Sample).

Alexis Johnston

Alexis Johnston is a Vancouver based painter. Conceptual interests that inform her practice include affect, repetition, routine, motivation, and purpose. Johnston hopes to continue her studies in education, ultimately working towards a career in teaching.

1. Indulge, 2020, video (still). Click HERE for the video.

2 – 4. Random dancing, detail, 2020, acrylic on canvas.

5 – 7. The tourist, detail, 2020, acrylic on canvas.

8. Something tasty, 2020, video (still). Click HERE for the video.

9 – 11. Cozy situation, detail, 2020, acrylic on canvas.

Shelby Lu

Shelby Lu is a sculptor, born and raised in Vancouver, BC. Lu works with materials that require fast-pace movements, such as wax and expanding foam. In using quick-drying materials, Lu has a limited amount of time to shape them and less control over the final outcome of the works, which requires her to work responsively with the material.

1. please be curious with me 1.1, 2020, insulating foam, chalk paint, shovel, shoes.

2. please be safe with me, 2020, insulation foam, chalk paint, plastic box.

3. please be curious with me 1.2, 2020, insulation foam, chalk paint, shovel, shoes.

4. please be stuck with me, 2020, insulation foam, chalk paint, plastic bucket, shoes.

5. please be careful with me, 2020, insulation foam, chalk paint, ladder, shoes.

Kim Grewal

Kim Grewal is an artist whose work is influenced by theories of social psychology. Working primarily in sculpture and drawing, she explores emotions, memories, language, and gestures to create works that can be understood through multiple perspectives.

1. Asymptotic Touch, 2020, wire sculpture.

Two lines that approach each other but never meet.

2. Asymptotic Touch, 2020, wire sculpture.

Shadows create their own forms, occupying space as a drawing would.

3. Asymptotic Touch, 2020, wire sculpture.

Lines exist in multiple forms, interacting with each other through space and light.

4. Asymptotic Touch, 2020, wire sculpture.

Boundaries dictate relations between physical objects, but those lines connect the shadows.

5. Asymptotic Touch, 2020, wire sculpture.

These lines leave traces on my skin.

Haylee Marx

Haylee Marx is an interdisciplinary artist, born and raised in southern Alberta. Their varied interests and multimedia practice has led to a well-rounded technical skill set. Recurring themes within their work include an interest in ontology of mind, material function and adaptability, as well as interests in the abstraction of space, body and voice.

1. shifting scapes series (looking outside), 2020, pencil crayon on paper.

all of my plants are dying.

2. shifting scapes series (my corner of the couch), 2020, pencil crayon on paper.

i was never one for sharing.

3. shifting scapes series (from the window to the wall), 2020, pencil crayon on paper.

will i put away my laundry? unclear.

4 – 9. shifting scapes series (details), 2020, pencil crayon on paper.

10. shifting scapes series, 2020, pencil crayon on paper, video (still). Click HERE for the video

Having lost access to their studio due to the pandemic, Marx had to abandon their original work and restart. In isolation with only a sketchbook and pencil crayons, they depict the spaces within their home using shadow to create form, in an attempt to defamiliarize and abstract what they see.

Carmen Wong

Carmen Wong is a multidisciplinary artist working and living in Vancouver, BC. Her installation works utilize media such as sculptures and paintings. She is largely influenced by stories from folklore and fairy tales, and also creates her own visual narratives inspired by the environment around her.

1. Village in the Sky, 2020, block print and pen on paper.

I climb through the clouds
Cloud to cloud to sun to sun
Ladder to ladder

2. Strawberry Pie Clouds, 2020, block print on paper.

I might be hungry
Strawberry pie baking clouds
The sugar cubes fly

3. Skyberries, 2020, block print on paper.

Vines tangled about
Skyberries swirling around
Become knotted mess

4. Star Pollen in the Lavender Sky, 2020, block print on paper.

Stars floating around
Tulips producing pollen
Lavender night sky

5. Peony in the Watersky, 2020, block print on paper.

I’m going insane
Water floating in the sky
With flowers throughout

Elisha Wang

Elisha Wang is an interdisciplinary visual artist. Her works explore topics including identity, perception and self-expression. Her current practice focuses on text-based works, but also utilizes media such as video installation, photography and painting. Wang was born and raised in China and emigrated to Vancouver, BC at the age of 17.

1. Guided Walks, 2020, digital images.

“Polychoral: A style in which an ensemble is divided into groups that may perform individually, alternately or together.” — Austin Symphony

2. Field recording, 2020-03-03, 13:15, 49.282366, -123.107913, 2020, audio with still image, 1 minute 7 seconds (still). Click HERE for video.

“Overture: An orchestral composition forming the prelude or introduction to an opera, oratorio, et cetera.” — Wikipedia

3. An Invitation, 2020, digital images.

“Key Signature: The flats and sharps at the beginning of each staff line indicating the key of music the piece is to be played.” — Classical Works

4. How To Forget About Time, 2020, page 16 from digital guide book.

“Cadence: A sequence of chords that brings an end to a phrase, either in the middle or the end of a composition.” — Classical Works

5. How To Get Outside II, 2020, page 12 from digital guide book.

“Impromptu: Composed or uttered without previous preparation.” — Austin Symphony

Download a PDF version of Guided Walks: Awake or in Dreams.

Victoria Tai

Victoria Tai is an interdisciplinary artist with a focus on drawing and painting. She was born and raised in Vancouver, BC and continues her practice in the city. Tai is interested in representative image making and her work has been focused on the idealization of the human body and face. Through loose mark-making, Tai focuses on the ways in which she can consciously construct alluring depictions of female forms.

1. Allure, fragment, 2020, acrylic on canvas.

Mark making.

2. Allure, fragment, 2020, acrylic on canvas.

Question perceptions of colour.

3. Allure, fragment, 2020, acrylic on canvas.

Explore interest in the depiction of the female human face.

4. Allure, fragment, 2020, acrylic on canvas.

Portray a female in a socially idealized form.

5. Allure, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 48" x 36”.

Aidan Branch

Aidan Branch is a text- and textile-based artist. His practice is deeply influenced by the writings of Jacques Derrida, as well as the artist’s explorations of the unsayable, hesitant or inarticulate qualities of texts.

1 – 4. 18 letters 18 windows (for Mallarmé), 2020, paper, hands, stickers, tape, plastic bag, eight windows.

(----- -- --- together)

5 – 6. 18 letters 18 windows (for Mallarmé), 2020, tape, paper, sticker, three windows.

(----- -- are --------)

7. 18 letters 18 windows (for Mallarmé), 2020, paper, cotton, tape, two windows.

(----- we --- --------)

8 – 10. 18 letters 18 windows (for Mallarmé), 2020, paper, tape, five windows.

(apart -- --- --------)

11. Stéphane Mallarmé’s poem The White Water Lily

séparés on est ensemble (apart we are together)
take one letter each and put it in a window.
these windows — so far from each other — we cannot walk that distance.
together: a dispersed poem whose parts are only legible by social mediation.

1 – 4. I’ll Come Meet You on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 I, 2020, pen and pencil on paper.
1 – 4. I’ll Come Meet You on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 I, 2020, pen and pencil on paper.
1 – 4. I’ll Come Meet You on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 I, 2020, pen and pencil on paper.
1 – 4. I’ll Come Meet You on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 I, 2020, pen and pencil on paper.
5 – 8. I’ll Come Meet You on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 II, 2020, pen and pencil on paper.
5 – 8. I’ll Come Meet You on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 II, 2020, pen and pencil on paper.
5 – 8. I’ll Come Meet You on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 II, 2020, pen and pencil on paper.
5 – 8. I’ll Come Meet You on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 II, 2020, pen and pencil on paper.
9 – 12. I’ll Come Meet You on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 III, 2020, pen and pencil on paper.
9 – 12. I’ll Come Meet You on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 III, 2020, pen and pencil on paper.
9 – 12. I’ll Come Meet You on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 III, 2020, pen and pencil on paper.
9 – 12. I’ll Come Meet You on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 III, 2020, pen and pencil on paper.
13 – 16. I’ll Come Meet You on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 IV, 2020, pen on paper.
13 – 16. I’ll Come Meet You on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 IV, 2020, pen on paper.
13 – 16. I’ll Come Meet You on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 IV, 2020, pen on paper.
13 – 16. I’ll Come Meet You on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 IV, 2020, pen on paper.
17 – 20. I’ll Come Meet You on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 V, 2020, pen on paper.
17 – 20. I’ll Come Meet You on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 V, 2020, pen on paper.
17 – 20. I’ll Come Meet You on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 V, 2020, pen on paper.
17 – 20. I’ll Come Meet You on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 V, 2020, pen on paper.
Drawing (detail), 2020.

Vernice Tse

Vernice Tse is an artist currently based in Vancouver, BC. Tse’s interest in cartoons and graphic design greatly influences her art practice. Utilizing drawing as her medium of choice, Tse explores ideas of observation, documentation and storytelling.

1 – 4. I’ll Come Meet You on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 I, 2020, pen and pencil on paper.

Drawing is a medium that is immersed in the present, where one’s focus is wholly aimed at capturing what is seen before them, before it shifts and fades into the past.

5 – 8. I’ll Come Meet You on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 II, 2020, pen and pencil on paper.

Her classmates have been recorded on paper. Gestures of the past have now turned into documents that preserve the unseen processes of the 4th year students as they worked on their final projects.

9 – 12. I’ll Come Meet You on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 III, 2020, pen and pencil on paper.

Some drawings are rendered with more details, while others just barely capture the image. That’s okay. Preserving the gesture is enough to convey one’s actions within a point in time. Just as the subject shifts and moves as she watches, the artist too continually moves onto the next drawing of her classmates.

13 – 16. I’ll Come Meet You on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 IV, 2020, pen on paper.

Circumstances no longer allow us to meet in person. The images have shifted from drawings of her classmates in person, to drawings of live videos of her classmates. Rather than the gesture of a whole figure, the face boxed within the limits of the webcam becomes the subject of documentation.

17 – 20. I’ll Come Meet You on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 V, 2020, pen on paper.

Classmates without a webcam are asked to provide a snapshot of a room or a pet, something that they constantly observe around them just as she constantly observes her classmates at the studio. These drawings become a record of those the artist would never otherwise see during a time of physical distancing.

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May 07, 2020