Broken Column: The Monuments of Forgetting

The forced migration of the Partition of India displaced 20 million people in 1947 and 30 million people in the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. This anti-memorial seeks to memorialize this mass displacement of people.

Silent Waters: The Uncounted

This anti-memorial reframes maps and cartography, as the skin of the nation. It examines the partitions of countries from the 20th century – India, Ireland, Palestine, Cyprus, Vietnam, Korea, Germany, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Remembering the Crooked Line: The Skin of the Nation

Image Credits

All Images Are © Pritika Chowdhry

Guest Artist Bio
Pritika Chowdhry

Pritika Chowdhry is a socio-political, activist artist, curator, and writer. Born and brought up in India, Pritika is currently based in Chicago, IL, USA. She has an MFA in Studio Art, and an MA in Visual Culture and Gender Studies, both from the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Pritika’s works are featured in prestigious museum and corporate collections, such as the Weismann Museum, American Swedish Institute, the Target Corp, in Minneapolis, MN; in addition to several private collections.

Through her art projects, Pritika presents narratives elided from dominant cultural discourse to disrupt hegemonic collective memories. ​Her large-scale sculptures and site-sensitive installations reference the body to memorialize unbearable and difficult memories.

Pritika has also founded the Counter-Memory Project and the Partition Memorial Project as part of her research-based artistic praxis. Transnational in scope, her works comprise sculptural art installations that excavate counter-memories from traumatic geopolitical events, such as, partitions of countries, civil and military wars, riots, border violence, genocides, and terrorist attacks. Pritika makes anti-memorials, which flips the idea of traditional memorialization and nationalist monuments on its head. She seeks to connect seemingly disparate geopolitical contexts as she feels that it is important to bring bridges into being. Counter-memories of communities and nations provide the viscera with which she builds these bridges in her work.

​As an interdisciplinary artist, she migrates between fibers, latex, paper, clay, glass, metal, wood, poetry, and drawing. The maker in her enjoys the sensuality of different materials, and the scholar in her pursues the cultural references that different materials introduce into her work.

Pritika has shown her works nationally and internationally in group and solo exhibitions in the Weismann Museum in Minneapolis, Queens Museum in New York, the Hunterdon Museum in New Jersey, the Islip Art Museum in Long Island, Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, the DoVA Temporary in the University of Chicago, the Brodsky Center in Rutgers University, and the Cambridge Art Gallery in Massachusetts.

Moreover, Pritika is the recipient of a Vilas International Travel Fellowship, an Edith and Sinaiko Frank Fellowship for a Woman in the Arts, a Wisconsin Arts Board grant, and a Minnesota State Arts Board grant. Pritika has taught at Macalester College, and College of Visual Arts, both in St. Paul, Minnesota. Published scholarship about Pritika’s work has come out in peer-reviewed research publications and various exhibition catalogs.

Pritika has presented her studio research projects at various national conferences, such as the International Arts Symposium at NYU, The Contested Terrains of Globalization at UC-Irvine, and the South Asian Conference at UW-Madison. Pritika also participates in panels and gives lectures and artist talks about her work by invitation.

Please visit www.pritikachowdhry.com to learn more about Pritika Chowdhry’s art and curatorial projects.

Blog / Website: Pritika Chowdhry

Follow Pritika Chowdhry on: Twitter | Facebook | Linkedin

Is There Life on Mars?

Who owns the Earth?
Is it whoever is bigger and stronger?

Who owns the sky?
Is it whoever is smarter or more cunning?

Who owns the planets?
Is it whoever is there first?

The Mars Rover has landed.
Three hundred million miles from Earth—
The product of the finest minds of the modern age—
a new frontier christened with the burden of expectation.

Should we build a mall on Mars?
Only if it is assured that they will spend.

Should we strip the crust to the core?
Only if analysts guarantee the yield.

Should we displace the indigenous life?
Only if they’re squatting on the spoils.

Greed and destruction have landed.
Scars formed by years of indifference—
a new millennium to be shaped by the hand of illusion.

Boundaries

Since the first Mars Exploration Mission in 1964 the United States has spent 2.5 billion dollars on the venture and will spend an additional 2.4 billion by 2020. (source: Office of Inspector General—2017 audit of NASA’s Mars 2020 project).

• 1.7 trillion dollars a year are spent on the world’s militaries.
• Three billion people live on less than 2 dollars a day.
• Twenty-two thousand children a day die from conditions due to poverty.
(Statistics from UNICEF and Globalissues.org)

Mars with Phobos and Deimos

Image Credits

All Images Are © Jeff Key

Artist Bio
Jeff Key

Jeff Key is an artist living in Oakland, California. 

Although mainly sculptural, his work also incorporates digital printmaking and the written word. His work focuses on “theories of evolution” with allegorical and metaphorical references to the past, present and future. The work adheres to an underlying structure of anthropological investigation focusing on sociology, political and physical science as well as psychology.

In 2009 Jeff founded Media Enterprise Alliance (MEA/Youth Beat), a non-profit that provides low-income Oakland youth the opportunity to study digital media. 

Jeff served as Executive Director of MEA until 2016. He currently serves on the MEA/Youth Beat Advisory Board.

Blog / Website: https://jeffmkey-art.blogspot.com/

Follow Jeff Key on Facebook

Magnificent metal mermaid over 6 feet long entwined with kelp, jewellery and sea life

 Imagine you have a bucket of shiny metal parts, gadgets, and broken tools in your garage, you dump it out and see garbage ready for the metal scrap yard. Karen will see the lines, the form, and the essence of a fish or a bird, a cat or a dog, all these pieces and others in her massive collected and donated parts collection ‘speak’ to her.

lRusty metal salmon swim in their 3 Dimensional metal underwater environment

Karen knows exactly what found objects will make a believable bird in it’s own interactive cage, a school of fish swimming in their undersea environment, or a stunning trophy fish to hang on the wall. 

Rusty metal salmon swim in their metal environment

Image Credits

All Images Are © Karen Lancey

Karen Lancey Artist Bio

Karen Lancey, the artist behind Metal Mermaid Welding is one successful and inspired lady. Her ability to transfer the beauty of nature from new and found objects into amazing and wonderful pieces of art is uncanny, and to make a living out of it more profound yet.  Karen uses both new and recycled metal to form her realistic yet fanciful creations.

 Karen has spent a lifetime of being outside in nature and is constantly out there getting her inspiration to live her life exactly as it suits her, she laughs ‘I love what I do, how amazing is that?’ And the more she loves it the faster it sells. She heads off to walk the beach and looks across the water to the buildings of downtown Victoria planning her next fishing trip and her next adventure…

Blog / Website: Metal Mermaid Welding Blog

Follow Karen Lancey on:  Linkedin

Contact Karen:  1-250-658-0415

At seventeen I was offered the impressive sum of $35.00 for a spider man sculpture I twisted out of wire – the first money I had ever earned from sculpture.  That summer, I went to forest ranger camp deep in the northern Ontario bush and returned home with $200.00.  My mother suggested I use my well-earned money to pay for car insurance.  I said no – I’d rather have a welding torch than drive the family car.  My mom rolled her eyes and shook her head.  

Nova Albion: 31 inches,79cm. tall. Bronze on green marble. 2007

Since I bought that first welding torch I’ve never looked back.  I taught myself to weld and experimented with whatever materials I could get my hands on.  In 1974 I joined the Ottawa to Vancouver exodus,  and started refining my techniques utilizing copper, brass and steel while exploring my ‘brave new world’.  

I eventually moved to Victoria and began the labour-intensive process of creating bronzes.  After many years of working and journeying through Australia, I created Belle Poule (pretty hen} and Nova Albion (the name of all North America north of New Spain claimed by Sir Francis Drake in 1579). 

Belle Poule: 31 inches, 79cm. tall. Bronze and stainless steel on green marble. 2005

Belle Poule and Nova Albion are two very intricate sculptures that came to life with intensive research, a lot of tedious problem-solving, a vivid imagination and hours and hours of highly- skilled labour.  

Belle Poule and Nova Albion are both on green marble bases that swivel on turn tables.  It is vital that my complex sculptures are three-dimensional and visible from every angle.    

It’s time for a new adventure.  I have been doing complex bronzes for so long I have the techniques down pat.  I have recently been experimenting with large-scale sculptures made out of recycled industrial materials.  

My new challenge is figuring out how the recycled alloys will work technically.  I don’t always know what alloy it is and some alloys don’t take kindly to being welded.  Different alloys have different properties.

Windy Day: Brass,bronze,stainless steel and marble. 27 inches by 9 inches by 17.5 inches tall. 2012

If I had to give advice to any artist I’d say:  “Try to do your best with everything you do.  Don’t be influenced by what’s fashionable, because it will go out of style.  Don’t get too wrapped up in passing trends.”

Image Credits

All Images © Allen Edgar – All Videos © Efren Quiroz

Darcy Gould Artist Bio

Darcy Gould is an unassuming, internationally-renowned sculptor.  His style is distinctively art-Deco-ish.  Darcy has shown in Perth, Australia, and had numerous exhibits in several of Canada’s major galleries and city’s. 
Early in his career, Darcy connected with Toronto’s Pollack Gallery – at that time one of Canada’s top 3 influential galleries.  Jack Pollack, not to be confused with Jackson Pollack, realized Darcy was a very talented, adventurer living in his studio and ‘almost’ supporting himself with art.  Jack suggested Darcy move in the direction of signed bronzes for their intrinsic value. 

Darcy has reached the stage in his career where he can do what he wants, and so he spends his time creating large outdoor sculptures based on a vision he had almost a decade ago when he was making some bronze fittings for his sailboat – but that’s another story! 

Blog / Website: Darcy Gould Sculpture  

Visit Darcy at:

Darcy Gould Studio  
3022 Wascana St.
Victoria B.C.
V9A !V8 
Canada

250-386-3762 

Concepts, commissions and visitors are always welcome, but please phone in advance.  

Darcy may be drifting around on his sailboat photographing coastal cloud formations envisioning his next project.

This creation was one my earlier ones. I was so excited when I finished I started dancing around my shop.  It is still one of my favorites even today.  It makes me laugh!  This is the piece that encouraged me to press forward and dream up new ideas, now i can’t stop.  How fun is that, to dream up anything and craft it into reality.

The feeling of being able to cut bend and twist metal any way i need it to go is wonderful but making people smile and laugh is an even greater reward.

Image Credits

All Images Are © Dan Iocchelli

Dan Iocchelli Artist Bio

Dan Iocchelli is a Vancouver Island Artist who grew up in Pipestone, a small Alberta town where he helped run the family farm.  After graduating from high school he attended NAIT, the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, Edmonton, Alberta where he received his welding education.  He spent a few years working in the fields of Alberta before settling down in Victoria B.C.   Dan is still a ‘Welder by Day’ but now he’s also an ‘Artist by Night’.

Blog / Website:  Danzone Metal Art

I have always loved, sketched and painted shoes and wanted to see them come to life. Sculpting them in wax, which eventually became bronze was my answer. Working at the studio, and foundry, in one of San Miguel’s prestigious art institutes, I have amassed a collection of 70 one-of-a-kind pieces.

Each shoe represents a fantasy, and exotic place, and ancient time, a modern dream interpreted in bronze details that suggest fine beading, twisted horns, curling feathers, ribbons and bows, wings, sea creatures, the fur bootie of an Icelandic princess, a French court slipper, the giraffe sandal of an African queen.

Some of my sculptures have made it to collectors such as Jane Weitzman and are included in her recently published book “Art and Sole”.

Image Credits

All Images Are © Joan McClutchy de Vidargas

Joan McClutchy de Vidargas Artist Bio

Joan McClutchy de Vidargas couples 20 years in the fashion industry with her life-long obsession with shoes. The end product is an extraordinary collection of crafted bronze footwear.

Joan lives and works in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, sculpting in the lost wax method creating “one of a kind” pieces that marry this ancient art with fashion, style and wit.

Joan also designs and sells extraordinary one-of-a-kind necklaces using semi-precious stones.

Contact Joan at:  joanvidargas@gmail.com