OCAD U Photography Program

News about events, our community & opportunites

Month: April 2015 (page 1 of 3)

Free Pizza: April 30 at OCAD U

MAGNET_workshop poster_113 McCaul

Photo Print Sale at Grad Ex

GradExPoster

Join us from April 29-May 3 at OCAD U to celebrate the 100th year of Grad Ex!  

More than 900 promising young artists and designers are exhibiting at the biggest GradEx ever–OCAD University’s 100th! This year, GradEx expands to a five-day exhibition spread across four buildings on campus including the iconic Sharp Centre for Design. The university will throw open its doors, inviting the community to see works by the creative minds of OCAD U’s Class of 2015.

In addition to seeing tons of great artwork, the Photography students will also be selling prints priced from $15 to $200.  The sales table can be found in room 415 of 100 McCaul (4th floor) on opening night and in Central Hall the following days!
 
 

Venue and Address: OCAD University
100 McCaul St.
60 McCaul St.
52 McCaul St.
49 McCaul St.

 

GradEx Schedule
Opening Night: Wednesday, April 29, 6:30 to 11 p.m.
Thursday, April 30, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Friday, May 1, 9:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Saturday, May 2, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sunday, May 3, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Cost: Free

 

 

Congratulations Mara Gajic!

Mara Gajic, Small Talk, 2014,  39″x16″, Digital Inkjet Print

Mara Gajic, Small Talk, 2014, 39″x16″, Digital Inkjet Print

The OCAD U Photography Program  is pleased to announce that Mara Gajic has been selected as the OCAD U representative for the AIMIA | AGO Photography Prize Scholarship Program.  Mara’s portfolio of work will be evaluated alongside the other 15 finalists by the Scholarship Program jury, consisting of two representatives from the Art Gallery of Ontario and a previous winner of the Aimia | AGO Photography Prize. The jury will select three winners, who will each receive $7000 CAD. Additionally, the home institutions of the winning students will each receive $1000 CAD honorariums.

Thank you to the AIMIA | AGO Photography Prize for this amazing opportunity!

AIMIA AGO main_logo

Bio: Mara Gajic is a third-year student at OCAD University pursuing a BFA in photography. Her work is driven by elements of performance and costume to explore open narratives of self-construct and personal psychology and the quiet space between imagination and reality. Often using herself to stage her images, she imposes new realities on both herself and the photographs through the embodiment of a performative role to communicate underlying personal states in the form of colourful visual narratives and to initiate an unspoken dialogue between the viewer and artist, which is mediated through the photograph.

Nicholas Pye Exhibition & Book Release at Birch Contemporary

Nicholas Pye, "To Weather The Storm", 2014, Archival Pigment Print, 40"x60", Image Courtesy Birch Contemporary

Nicholas Pye, “To Weather The Storm”, 2014, Archival Pigment Print, 40″x60″, Image Courtesy Birch Contemporary

Nicholas Pye: Rise and Fall at Birch Contemporary
Opening: Thursday, April 30, 6-8pm
Exhibition continues to May 30, 2015

In addition to the exhibition, Professor Nicholas Pye’s new artist’s book, published by Sebatian Frye’s Simmers Group Publishing, will be launched .  This 350  limited edition book includes imagery from Rise and Fall and texts by Sky Goodden and Faye Mullen.

Artist Statement: Patience, observation, performance; In Rise and Fall I study and intervene with light, architecture, and lens.  Through occupying these spaces, my intention was to create still photographs rooted in duration.  These works manifest themselves through both the performativity of light and the performativity of the figure – each treated as equal subjects.  The selection process for the environments photographed was done after spending much time in each physical space, watching and experiencing distinctive change to the quality of light at various periods of the day and night.  Within these considered spaces, performances where enacted as a response with the intention to echo the type of affect and physical charge each space conjured.  By embodying these spaces for the lens, I create works that reflect the psychological nature between presence and absence. This is realized through the representation of what the light reveals in the frame, what darkness obscures, and by how much the figure wittingly divulges for us.   – Nicholas Pye

Birch Contemporary
129 Tecumseth Street, Toronto, ON, M6J 2H2
Hours: Wednesday to Friday 10am-6pm, Saturday 11am-5pm

Barbara Astman at the AGO

Barbara Astman, Florida detail

Imagery by: OCAD U Professor Barbara Astman, “Florida detail”

Look Again: Colour Xerography
Art Meets Technology at the AGO

April 25, 2015 – April 17, 2016

In the mid-1970s several young Canadian artists embraced the cutting-edge technology of the colour Xerox machine. Six of them – Robert Arn, Barbara Astman, Flavio Belli, Michael Bidner, Michael Hayden and Jaan Poldaas – joined forces with curator Karyn Allen during an exciting two-week exhibition at the AGO in the fall of 1976. As an art medium, xerography made it possible to produce inexpensive copies of virtually any image or object. It allowed artists to play with images from the mass media, recombining or altering them for their own use. Visitors today will recognize this art form as a precursor to the pervasive circulation of digital images today.

This installation draws upon our rich archival holdings of Astman and Bidner from the 1976 exhibition.

 Organized by Art Gallery of Ontario
317 Dundas Street West
Toronto Ontario Canada M5T 1G4

This exhibition is included with general admission.

“We, The Heartland” by Kate Schneider

Kate Schneider, A completed puzzle in the Senior Centre in Atkinson, Nebraska. May 2013

Kate Schneider, A completed puzzle in the Senior Centre in Atkinson, Nebraska. May 2013

Congratulations to OCAD U Photo faculty Kate Schneider for the recent reviews of her series We, The Heartlands.  To find out what Kate has been up to, check out  AINT-BAD MAGAZINE and feature shoot!

Bio:  Kate Schneider is a Toronto-based photographer and educator. Her work is based in the traditions of documentary storytelling and ethnography, and her most recent works focus on the impact that land – and the socialized landscape – have on individual and cultural identity in North America. 

Kate was recognized by the Magenta Foundation’s 2013 Flash Forward competitionand was published in The National Film Board of Canada’s Highrise project, The National PostPhoto District News, and The Advocate. She received her MFA in Documentary Media from Ryerson University (2009) and her BS in Photojournalism from Ohio University (2004). She is an Instructor of Photography at OCAD University and the University of Guelph-Humber.

Nicholas & Sheila Pye Artwork Acquisition

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Nicholas & Sheila Pye, “The Coronation”, 2008

We have wonderful news to share about Assistant Professor Nicholas Pye and alumni Sheila Pye!

The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC (America’s first museum of modern art) has acquired Nicholas Pye  & Sheila Pye’s 3-channel video work, “The Coronation”.  The work will be presented  at the “Intersections” exhibition, opening on May 28th, curated by Vesela Sretenovic, The Phillips Collection, Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.

Artist Statement: “The Coronation” is an installation project incorporating a blend of experimental and narrative techniques to shape a cinematic perspective that employs visual language commonly used in painting. The installation is composed of three parts, with all three cinematic ‘panels’ playing simultaneously. The concept for the installation was inspired by altarpiece triptychs from the Renaissance and Medieval periods in art history. Our aim was to create a modern allegorical interpretation of the triptych using video, and sound. The center component became a conceptual performance based work on a loop, and projected in the portrait format.  The centerpiece is flanked on either side by two life sized figures of a man and a woman also projected in portrait format.  This work is not a narrative in the typical sense, but rather a series of constructed tableaus existing in a theatrical world.

NEWHEADSHOTSMALL
NICHOLAS PYE was born in Torquay, England in 1976. He lives and works in Toronto Canada. As a musician, Nicholas released and toured with four albums in the mid 90’s. Moving from music to visual art, Nicholas completed his undergraduate degree at OCAD in 2002 followed by his MFA degree at Concordia University in Cinema production in 2005.  In 2011, Nicholas began working on his doctoral degree in Visual Art at York University.  He maintains an active art practice both independently and collaboratively.  His interests integrate performance, cinema, installation and large format still photography.

Get ahead in your course work and take a May class!

summer
Course Descriptions: 

Introductory Photography: Black & White with John Jones
This course offers an introduction to the technical and visual tools of photography, including camera functions, film exposure and black-and-white darkroom procedures. In class demonstration, lecture and critiques support hands-on practice.
 
Concept and Process with Esther Choi
Students are further introduced to the technical and visual tools of photography. Emphasis is on acquiring a creative vocabulary and greater awareness of photographic and photo-based practice. Presentations, lectures and hands-on experience assist in the development of conceptual skills and working methods.
Photo/Installation with Nicholas Pye
Students explore the potential for expanding the use and understanding of photography through installation. Through ongoing presentations and discussions students are provided with a contemporary and historical overview of site, installation, performance and guerrilla based photo practises. Students are required to complete several projects including a major final project.
Time & Stillness with Nicholas Pye
In this class, the emphasis will be on multi-disciplinary approaches to photography that use both time and stillness. By reflecting the current state of hybridity within DSLR lens–based practice, this course will engage the necessary theoretical and practical investigations needed to fully immerse oneself in this new field of discourse and practice for photographers. Weekly discussions, slide lectures and assignments will facilitate the development of skills within critical and theoretical contexts relevant to a contemporary hybrid approach to photography.
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