Worthington concerns himself with painting as being a serious investigation into beauty, as well as a timeless medium able to withstand cultural and technological trends. His earlier practice delved into the complex narratives, drama, and techniques of the Northern, Italian, and Spanish Renaissance. For several years he explored Christian themes and portraiture, seeking to understand Caravaggio and his contemporaries. Upon seeing an exhibition of Rothko abstracts at the Tate Modern, Worthington began drawing parallels between those ancient paintings and what the Modernists were doing, believing that the two generations of artists approached art with the same integrity and conviction. His work began to take on a new hybridism of ancient and modern techniques, a continuous exploration of oils, with endless experimentations in glazing, layering, and non-conventional methods of paint application. 

Dee Barsy is a painter and Visual Arts Facilitator who is based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. In 2013, she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Manitoba. In 2014, she graduated with an Educational Assistant Diploma from the University of Winnipeg. In 2016, she completed the Indigenous Women in Leadership course from the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. From September 2017 through September 2018, Dee is participating in the Foundation Mentorship Program with Mentoring Artists for Women's Art. From October 2017 through November 2017, Dee is participating in an In-School Creative Residency for Professional Artists with Mikw Chiyâm, a youth-serving organization based out of Montreal, Quebec.

Brad Phillips appears courtesy of Galarie Division Toronto/Montreal.

Phillips is known for photorealist paintings that integrate literary references and texts. His canvases, which have become more autobiographical over the course of his career, tend to take a melancholic tone and address some of the darker undercurrents of domestic life; he has cited the confessional poetry of Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath as influences.  _Canadian Art

“Andrew Valko, a painter living and working in Winnipeg and Vancouver, is known for his intense scenes of neon-lit motels, parking lots, drive-in theatres and lonely women in rooms—sitting, standing, lying, lost in a dreamy, often disappointed, state of mind” - On Art and Aesthetics magazine.  

Andrew Valko, originally from Prague, Czechoslovakia, has had numerous solo exhibitions across Canada and internationally. Valko’s work has been published and reviewed in publications such as Border Crossings, A Magazine of the Arts, The New Yorker Magazine, Elm Street Magazine, Asian Art News, and Canadian Art

Tim Gardner appears courtesy of 303 Gallery, New York

Tim Gardner graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1995 with a BFA (Hons.) degree and had his first solo show at Plug-In Gallery, Winnipeg in 1996. Soon after that he moved to New York City where he completed his MFA at Columbia University in 1999. Since then his work has been shown internationally. He currently lives and works on Vancouver Island.

Gardner is well known for his realistic watercolour landscapes and pastel portraits which often focus on the most immediate subject matter - family, friends and places of personal significance. In this new body of work Gardner presents a series of twelve still-life based watercolour paintings of Canadian rye whisky bottles.

Working on thin, unstretched watercolour paper, Gardner renders the bottles with painstaking detail. In contrast, the backgrounds verge on abstraction, a result of the wash technique in which the soaking of the thin paper causes severe buckling, distorting the flow of pigment. The result is a study of opposites, at once precise and nearly out of control.

Mike Bayne received an MFA from Concordia University and a BAH and BFA from Queen’s University. He has worked with MULHERIN in Toronto and New York since 2004 and has participated in a number of group exhibitions in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Vancouver, and Toronto. His work is in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario, The Nerman Museum, The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, the Wieland Collection and numerous prestigious private collections around the world. Mike was the recipient of the Kingston Prize for Portraiture in 2011, and had his work in a solo presentation at The Armory Show, 2012 in New York. He appears courtesy of MULHERIN, Toronto & New York. 

Sylvia Matas is a Winnipeg-based interdisciplinary artist whose drawings, texts and videos explore psychological landscapes, natural phenomena and individual experience. Matas received her BFA from the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg and her MFA from the Chelsea College of Art and Design, London. Her work has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions, including A Certain Distance, Lisa Kehler Art + Projects, Winnipeg; vast, constant, irreversible, MKG127, Toronto; Red Shift, Mercer Union, Toronto. Matas’ work has been included in various collective exhibitions, including Looking Up: Contemporary Connections with Inuit Art, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg; Resonant Field, TRUCK Contemporary Art, Calgary; and Condensation, Decima Gallery, London, among others. 

A self-taught multidisciplinary artist from Outaouais, Québec, Monnet uses cinema, painting, sculpture and installation to demonstrate a keen interest in communicating complex ideas around Indigenous identity and bicultural living through the examination of cultural histories. Her work is often minimalistic while emotionally charged and speaks to the beautifully intricate limbo of indigenous peoples today. Monnet has made a signature for working with industrial materials, combining the vocabulary of popular and traditional visual-cultures with the tropes of modernist abstraction to create unique hybrid forms. Monnet is always in the stage on experimentation and invention, both for herself and for the work.

About the Work

The patterns I’ve created were made in honour of the life and passing of my good friend and mother in law June Spence. She was a strong and inspiring indigenous women who at a young age delved into art-making but never pursued her talent. She made one painting using a similar pattern at a young age and later gave it to me years ago. I felt compelled to explore her pattern as a way to deal with grief but also honour her legacy and support she showed me in my artistic career. 

Each panel is named after her. They represent the unknown territories between worlds and transitions. Grey zones between borders, between different states/stages. 

Materials and technique are in line with my practice, influenced by architecture and geometry, constantly exploring industrial materials within my indigenous reality. 

Adrian Williams (b.1974) is a Canadian visual artist from Winnipeg, Manitoba, and holds a B.F.A. Hon. from the University of Manitoba. He was a founding member of Winnipeg's collaborative artist collective The Royal Art Lodge (1996–2008). The majority of the work produced by The Royal Art Lodge were small-scale drawings and paintings which often incorporated text. Generally, at least three of the members contributed to each piece of work in a spontaneous response to the previous artist's work on the page before stamp-dating the work. The group's work has been exhibited internationally including in England, Spain, Italy and France. Williams has since spent time producing work in Montreal, Toronto, Los Angeles, Winnipeg and Berlin. His work is drawing based, usually on paper or wood, and often uses collage, paint, varnish and other miscellaneous material. Subject matter drifts between the philosophical, the despondent and the humorous. The artist conceives of his work as, essentially, failed poetry. Other creative forays include screen printing and music recordings of invented, generally ill-fated, musical instruments. 

Rocío Sáenz lives and works in Guadalajara, Mexico.  

This project was one year in the making.  LANTERN made studio visits in Guadalajara March of 2016. Among the many artists we saw (and we liked everything that we did see), Rocio’s work stood out both in the raw energy of her work and in the feasibility of the project.   It is a big step for us to bring international artists in and Sáenz is our first. 

Sáenz is a prolific, internationally renowned artist. Her stream of conscious drawing-based artworks approach the subject of life in Mexico in both its extreme hardships and its exuberance, with a surrealistic sense of humour and an unflappable belief in the healing power of art.

So Far So Good

So Far So Good

So Far

Sarah Anne Johnson was born in 1976 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She received her BFA from the University of Manitoba and completed her MFA at The Yale School of Art. Johnson’s work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions internationally. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards and is included in several distinguished collections. Currently, she lives in Winnipeg. She is represented by Julie Saul Gallery in New York, Stephen Bulger in Toronto, and Division Gallery in Montreal.

Simon Hughes is a visual artist based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He is a graduate of the U of M Fine Arts program in 1996 and later, the Masters degree program at the University of California, Irvine, in 2010.  His practice encompasses drawing, painting, video, and public art works. His art has been exhibited in galleries, museums, film festivals, and other venues. Hughes has had solo exhibitions with Division Gallery in Montreal and Toronto, and with Julie Saul Gallery in New York.  Over the last two years he has also participated in multiple group exhibitions in museums, including the Art Gallery of Alberta, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and the Winnipeg Art Gallery.  In 2012, Hughes realized a public art commission for Seven Oaks Hospital in Winnipeg using vitreous glass mosaic tile.  Earlier this year, he was awarded a commission to create a two-dimensional public artwork for the new Windsor Park Library in Winnipeg.  A recent video of his, ( Homage to Charles Schulz ), premiered at the Winnipeg New Music festival this winter.

Simon’s recent work explores concerns around landscape painting, abstraction and the environment through a series of large oil paintings, multimedia watercolour drawings, and videos.  With an ever-present sense of wry humour and crisp lines holding a brilliant fan of color, Simon’s art is as iconic as it is diverse.

Galerie Division in Toronto and Montreal currently represents Simon Hughes.

1982: born in Hokkaido, Japan. Iwasaki moved to Winnipeg to study fine arts at the University of Manitoba in 2002, where he earned Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Attracted to the Winnipeg's vibrant and supportive arts community, he gained the permanent resident status in Canada and now lives and works in Winnipeg and calls it his new hometown.

Iwasaki's art practice diverges into many mediums from embroidery, paintings, collages, to sculptures; inspired by things and events which surround his daily life as sources of his creation.

Most of his recent works are either visual recording of his daily life or visualization of his imaginary worlds or landscapes that no one would see unless otherwise depicted. Most shapes and colors have meanings and origins that are very significant to him in the way he feels them, therefore they represent and reflect his state of mind.

In his words “things that I feel are never the same in the next moment because I keep changing. Capturing moments and sharing my visions with others have been my recent obsession and pleasure.”

“Joy and positive feelings:

I want viewers, including me, to feel joy and positive feelings when they look at my work. Often the media reports negative things and tragedies partly because happy stories aren’t as sensational; and it is true that there are those things out there in the world. It’s easy to be trapped in negative thoughts and worry about things especially when we’re exposed to those things so often. Thinking about problems is a good way to solve them and to make the world a better place, but I think thinking positively and realizing that there is also joy in the world helps that, too, and is very essential. I want my work to present a more joyous side of the world for this reason.”

Raised on the banks of the creek, as a fifth generation farmer, and living in the South Peace Country, Karl Mattson is a self-taught, multi-media artist.  Karl’s work has been fueled by his compulsion to create and speak through art, which has always played a central role in his life.  Karl has been recognized for his talent with various awards as early as 19 years old.  Karl’s current explorations include large metal sculpture, and in particular, scavenging scraps and materials that surround his farm and community, an area currently being enveloped by oil and gas industry.  In using the creative process, Karl has been able to use his artistic talent to protest against the environmental issues that plague his farm, his community, and his personal psyche.

Kevin Ei-ichi deForest's work is involved with the representation of hybrid identity, namely with a focus on his cultural heritage as a suburban Canadian mid-westerner of Japanese and European descent.  He asserts that it is still relevant to address the context of race and difference in contemporary art. The central challenge of working in a post-identity politics age is to reformulate and question those very categories. 

Is a visual artist who lives and works in Winnipeg, MB. A graduate of the Honors University of Manitoba Honors BFA (2007), he specializes in drawings using colored pencils on hand-cut paper in a variety of styles and sizes.

            Bohemier’s work is labor-intensive and ranges from figurative, nudes, realism, abstract and decorative.   Multiple mini series link together in the spirit of conceptual continuity. He approaches drawings like someone making a mixed CD for a friend: adding elements of things that he finds interesting, personal or funny.  A visual diary of his life. 

            Matt’s influences range from music and TV, like Frank Zappa, and South Park, to a wide variety of visual artists such as Neo Rauch and Hans Holbein the Younger.

Gabrielle Funk is a Winnipeg based visual artist, muralist and community art facilitator. 

She works primarily in two dimensional format using combinations of ink and acrylics to render densely detailed characters imbedded in sparse, abstract environments. Gabrielle creates realist portraits that walk the line between the awkward and graceful, the familiar and foreign. Through her work she grapples with the complex subtleties of both human and animal nature, comparing, contrasting or combining the two. Her current series of paintings and drawings depict a range of compromised and revealing self portraits, representing various stages of personal exploration and her struggle as a woman to uncover a genuine sense of self despite the complex pressure of cultural and religious expectations placed upon her. She invites viewers into a world laced with quiet tension and subtle admission, seeking to find and represent the face of vulnerability and the essence of authenticity using subject matter and symbolism that is as hostile and wild as it is familiar.

Awaiting artist statement

Matea Radic was born in Sarajevo. She currently lives and works in Winnipeg. 
She is inspired by her subconscious and the fleeting moments that exist in her periphery and the way in which those moments influence the everyday. Her drawings are candid, of the moment, and not pre-conceived. She uses humour in her work as a means of understanding herself and in an effort to connect with others. 
 

If you spend enough time in one small city it turns into a backdrop—an infrastructure for our experiences. As I wander around town, I seek intriguing subjects to photograph in a light that is authentic to their character.

My hometown provides this backdrop and offers an endless resource of diversity to capture. Winnipeg’s isolation, extreme climate, and the tough and tender disposition of the city’s people create an impulsive undertone. The conflicts in my photographs are born of an ambiguity that reflects these unusual qualities I encounter. I am thrilled to be able to capture a surreal image from an ordinary moment.

The ridiculous also takes center stage, and an odd combination of lavishness and minimalism often prevails. When I take regular subjects and capture them in a grandiose, heightened reality, it is as if their intrinsic self-worth has been confirmed. These moments are highly provocative. Aware of the camera, the subjects’ resulting vulnerability is brutally honest. Capturing this moment usually requires an equal balance of comfort and tension.

It is the awkward imbalances and perplexities that I try to capture throughout my work.

What is fascinating to me, are people who have the strength to live a fearless authentic life to the fullest extent. Their life lines read like a map, every crease enkindles an image of their essence of who they are now, or once were. Through sculpture and stipple drawing I share my perspective of these souls that have passed us their knowledge. My art allows me to communicate the stories of the subjects I chose to portray, connecting emotion through posture, position and character.  

                                     Mackenzie Fedoruk

Oliver Chard is an artist based in Winnipeg, Manitoba who has also lived and practiced in the UK and Denmark. He divides his time between his practice as a sculptor and artistic production in the film industry. He studied sculpture at Emily Carr University where his interest shifted towards the literal and the figurative. After making a tour of the European wax anatomical collections, especially those at La Specola in Florence and the Josephinum in Vienna, he has experimented with wax as a medium that allows him to work between realism and the surreal. 

                                      Oliver Chard

Process and materials, 

The original model was made of clay and cast, using a silicone mold, into wax. One wax cast for each sculpture. The wax casts were then altered to the form of each unique sculpture and then re cast into concrete or cement. The concrete/cement was thoroughly mixed before pouring and then thoroughly vibrated using a vibrating table after being poured, to reach maximum strength and detail. Each concrete/cement cast was wet cured for a week before being broken out of their Molds, then treated with a curing/hardening agent to increase strength and then finally treated with two coats of boiled linseed oil. The wooden base for the sculptures is cut from reclaimed fir that is roughly 100 years old. All three sculptures are reinforced with ½” rebar and 1/8” steel rods. All three sculptures have been curing for a year