OPEN STUDIO - WEEK 4
Reception: open house: Saturday, July 16, 2-4PM
July 11 - July 16
The fourth week of OPEN STUDIO welcomes Amanda May, Carol Wylie, Jessica Morgun, JingLu Zhao, Kaleb Whittingstall, and Rowen Dinsmore into the space to make work.

Amanda May is a mature student currently pursuing her BFA at the University of Saskatchewan. She enjoys exploring a range of mediums, with a primary focus on painting in oil and acrylic and drawing in graphite and charcoal. At this stage in her development, she is enjoying experimenting with different styles and formats, with a strong interest in colour.

Carol Wylie has maintained an active art practice for more than thirty years, with an exclusive focus on portraiture and the figure. She holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, a BFA in studio art and BA in psychology from the University of Saskatchewan. She resides in Saskatoon, dividing her time between her personal painting practice and her role as an art educator .

Jessica Morgun explores the potency of objects and materiality though drawing, digital art, and ceramic sculpture. She is interested in the nature and meaning of the objects that populate our lives, their human and non-human atmospheres, and the role that memory and perception play in one's construction of the real. Meaningful public engagement is also central to her practice -- no matter the project, there is always an invitation to others to create their own work.

JingLu Zhao makes art that explores personal and collective identity and familial relationships. She works primarily in painting and drawing in a variety of media, including acrylics and oils. Her paintings and drawings often combine figuration and landscape, to consider and reflect upon her children's First Nations and Chinese heritage. SHe is interested in depicting a range of ideas and emotions through her work, and in being an active, professional artist in her community.

Kaleb Whittingstall is an emerging artist who is mostly self taught. He has explored drawing in both traditional and digital forms, but now focuses primarily on painting in oils. Despite being relatively new to art making, he has found himself to be intensely passionate about self expression through visual art. His style is still evolving, but portraiture is emerging as a dominant subject, touching on themes of identity, societal roles, and mental health.

Rowen Dinsmore is a recent graduate of the BFA Honours program at the University of Saskatchewan. Influenced by social media and art history, her self-portraiture considers her own subjectivity as a woman in the current cultural moment, often approaching topics of spectatorship and the gaze, and the feminine form. She is interested in critiquing while also embracing these aspects of the female experience in a post-internet world. Each work is a conceptual or representational self-portrait.

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.