Part of all art making is not only a labour of love but is, partially, a search for love (of all types) – maybe even a bit of affection. Passive Affections is the group exhibition and mid-way point for these five artists attending the University of Manitoba’s Master’s in Fine Arts Program.

BIOGRAPHIES

Ryan Amadore is an installation artist working primarily with photography, audio/video and sculpture. His work questions, “How the experience of looking informs our perceptions of the cultural landscape and how these concepts contribute to the construction of designed or natural environments?” Originally based in Vancouver, BC, he now lives, works, and studies in Winnipeg, MB. Amadore will be exhibiting Portage (Vacant Space) a large-scaled digital image of window reflections from a vacant retail space on Portage Ave in Winnipeg. The image expresses a tension between the two-dimensionality of the glass surface and the three-dimensional space beyond. It’s the artists’ intention that in the layering of these spatial and temporal realities, one might ask their self how it feels to be in such a place or “non-place”?

Hassaan Ashraf is from Lahore, Pakistan. Asharf has worked as a commercial filmmaker for five years in Lahore making music videos, documentaries, television commercials and videos for artists. His interest in fine arts brought him to Winnipeg. Ashraf’s artwork revolves around displacement and the clash of cultures. “How can the experience of being culturally displaced be communicated through my art?” The artist will be showing four pieces: Ricky 1 is a point of view video of a local Lahori rickshaw traveling through urban Winnipeg, Ricky 2 is a small scale model of the rickshaw. The remaining two pieces are Untitled and are digitally manipulated prints of Winnipeg with some Lahori cultural elements.

Andrew Harwood is a Winnipeg-based artist. His works examine the intersections of formalist aesthetics, queer identities, class, humour and spirituality. Harwood currently runs Zsa Zsa West, a DIY commercial gallery, in Winnipeg’s Chinatown. His works are in the collections of the University of Guelph, Queen’s University, The Bank of Montréal, The Toronto Dominion Bank and private collections at home and internationally. As early works for his MFA thesis exhibition, Harwood will present new glitter mono prints and grave marker rubbings on paper that will comprise part of his graduating show Funeral Camp, in the spring of 2014.

Lindsay Joy combines labor-intensive, fibre-based work with photographs, drawings and texts that tell stories about her anxieties. Joy is obsessed with the quirky, awkward and vernacular. In 2011, she received her BFA in Fibre at the Alberta College of Art + Design in Calgary. Joy will be presenting, Bunting, Hiding Place and Misgivings #1. “Some days I wonder whether hiding or just confessing my fears will take some of the pressure off when it comes to trying to feel like a grown up. If I can’t see you, you can’t see me.”

Corrie Peters is a relational artist whose practice includes installation, sewing and cooking. For years before (and alongside) art making she has had the privilege to learn about power, value and change from those who find themselves marginalized due to poverty and some of its contributing factors. These relationships influence her understanding of herself, art and the world. Peters is currently based in Winnipeg and has lived a number of places in Canada, most recently in Montréal where she received her BFA from Concordia University. Peters will be presenting textile and food works that trace histories of interpersonal interaction and the ways in which objects and the language of art can come together to present these.