OPEN STUDIO - WEEK 3
Reception: open house: Saturday, July 9, 2-4PM
July 4 - July 9
The third week of OPEN STUDIO welcomes Alison Norlen, Breanne Bandur, Emily Zdunich, Fiji Robinson, Kelsey Ford, Lauren Warrington, and Leanne Munchinsky into the space to make work.

Alison Norlen is an artist widely respected, nationally and internationally, for her large-scale drawings and sculptural installations. Her work is set apart by its intricate detail and grand scale. She is fascinated by cultural artifice, often focusing her work around subjects like theme parks, circuses, carnival celebrations, roadside attractions and other sites of cultural spectacle. Her work is held in many private and public collections. She lives and works in Saskatoon, where she is a Professor of painting and drawing at the University of Saskatchewan.

Breanne Bandur is an artist rooted in drawing. Her approach to the practice and medium is experiential, embodied, and deeply tied to process. For Bandur, drawing takes place both within and outside of herself. Intuition is central to this engagement. She considers the act of mark making as it relates to inner thought and feeling, considering how marks on a surface give physical form to immaterial thoughts, feelings, and impulses. Drawing materialize the intangible, becoming a path to understanding, and ultimately, a way to make sense of the world.

Emily Zdunich is an interdisciplinary artist, and community art facilitator, of European settler descent with Ukrainian and Croatian ancestry. She has developed a figurative practice in painting, drawing and installation sculpture. She investigates the concept of the body in relationship to others and self. Her focus is on the human condition and exploring connections between the physical body and the emotional body.

Fiji Robinson is a Saskatoon artist with a background in communications and documentary, who now works primarily in photography and installation. She has a strong interest in social and environmental justice. Her current project, which she will be working on during OPEN STUDIO, imagines the River Souls, a community of mythical creatures that protect the river and river valley.

Kelsey Ford is a Canadian artist and printmaker working out of Saskatoon. She received her B.F.A. with a minor in French from the University of Saskatchewan in 2019. She works primarily in serigraphy, but also enjoys working with textiles to create mixed media pieces and larger installations. Her work often incorporates repurposed or used materials with more modern mediums through collage techniques. By combining traditional and modern structures, she hopes to draw new parallels and comparisons between past and present.

Lauren Warrington is a Saskatoon based artist who received her Bachelor of Fine Arts High Honours from the University of Saskatchewan in 2019. Her practice revolves around the interplay of physical and virtual environments, incorporating printmaking, sculpture, digital animation, and virtual reality. Through her work, Lauren explores conventions associated with race, femininity, and how identity develops in an era dependent on technology.

Leanne Munchinsky is a multi-disciplinary artist from Saskatoon. She holds a BFA and BEd from the University of Saskatchewan. With a deep-rooted curiosity, her art practice centres around learning, experimenting, and evolving. She enjoys facilitating workshops, creating art, volunteering in her community, and collaborating with other artists. Her subject matter is diverse, including portraiture, still-life, and landscape. The main theme in her current work centers around subject matter that inspires feeling during a time of general global distress.

OPEN STUDIO is one part of The Communtiy Project. The Community Project is a series of events, worshops, and activities to build connections among the artists of Saskatoon. The Community Project has been co-developed by Biofeedback Collective and art placement. We gratefully acknowledge funding from SK Arts through their Artists in Communities Grant Program.