Welcome to What the Plus (+) LGBTQ2S+ Festival 2021
PRESS RELEASE
Find out more about our 13 participating art exhibition artists – here they are in no particular order.
If you would like to contact any of these artists, please email whattheplusart@gmail.com and I will forward your message.
Alfred Bolster
Bio
Alfred bolster is a faggot who lives in Powell river with his husband Kevin and his bear Rufus . He is passionate about lgbt2qia? Community, right, and space.
Description of work
The work is a 3 by 5 feet work consisting of 50 mounted photographs of myself representing different roles and aspects of who I am.
Earle Thompson
Bio
Earle Thompson (they/them) works with restored cameras, expired film and modified processing to express personal explorations of conflict within the mind and body. Gender ambiguity, disappearing in a blur of misperceptions, and seeking a balance to industrialized rigidity are common themes in Earle’s work.
Previously seen at Gallery 49 (Victoria, BC) in 2017 and WTP (Powell River,BC) in 2020, Earle has studied photography since 1976, holds two Bachelor’s degrees from UVIC, and worked in broadcast media.
Influenced by Alfred Stieglitz, Francesca Woodman, and Ansel Adams, Earle lives in Powell River, BC. using photography to explore gender and cope with brain injuries.
Description of work
The basic idea with these self portraits is that being Queer is partly about being undefined, blurred, and becoming the question itself, and that it is both challenging and enlightening. Either way, it’s OK. Being seen but also being difficult to clearly gender is a struggle between what one can safely show, and what one can’t hide. Having no clear definition brings questions. It’s OK to be a blur.
Kate Parkinson
Bio
Kate Parkinson (she/her) is a Toronto Illustrator who holds an MFA in Illustration (University of Hartford), and is a graduate of the University of Guelph and OCAD University.
Kate’s illustrations have appeared in magazines, newspapers, advertising, and is both author and illustrator of a children’s book, ‘Grace’ (Holiday House, 2015). She also draws in support of freedom of expression and human rights and her cartoons have been shared across social media and have appeared in the Washington Post, The Guardian and other publications.
kateparkinson.com and on Instagram
Giovanni Spezzacatena- Rabideye
Bio
Rabideye, aka Giovanni Spezzacatena (MFA- Concordia University, Montreal) is a multidimensional human artist living in the qathet region. His background is in experimental/ mixed media animation, and his art ranges from abstract encaustics on wood panel, to graphic design and illustration, to motion graphics and animation. He is curator of the 2020 and 2021 What the Plus Festival. www.rabideye.com and linktree
Description of work
Various pieces – one digital animation compilation and 2 large 6’ x 3’ panels. Giovanni was curator and participant in the 2020 WTP show too.
Erika Gail
Bio
My name is Erika Gail. I am a local designer and textile artist. My work is a reflection of my personality and my dreams. Using imagination and colour, I bring form to the formless and art that you can not just see, but touch and feel as well. My style represents me, a duality of contrasts with an intellectual sensibility. I like to work in bold colours, textures and concepts to engage my viewers. My work has been called unique and charming and I look forward to presenting it at the exhibition.
Description of work
There will be two-three small, round embroidered pieces that are about 12″ in diameter, and one larger tapestry that is about 3’x4′.
Makaila Wenezenki
Bio
Makaila Wenezenki (they/she) is a filmmaker, poet, and multi-disciplinary artist. As a critical human geographer, and settler of British-Scottish-Slovak ancestry, she is interested in anti-racist, anti-colonial, queer, activist, and feminist themes. They view art and geography to be inherently linked and uses both of these fields to influence their work.
Description of work
Makaila’s artwork investigates the relationship between queer identities and bodies, and particularly how queer bodies are produced and interpreted. The pieces for the What The Plus (+) exhibit include a watercolour work and a video work.
Jenny Taves
Bio
Jenny Allen Taves is a diverse artist and illustrator working in acrylic, watercolour, gouache, and pencil crayon, and loves experimenting with other mediums. She is inspired by patterns and colours and uses her art to document and celebrate memories. My pronouns are she/her and I identify as a straight ally.
Description of work
My self portrait piece will be approximately 36″x30″ acrylic painting on canvas or panel (haven’t decided yet, but may be mixed media as well).
Kathryn Neun
Bio
Kathryn Neun (Kath, lesbian)
Resides in qathet
Member of Malaspina Printmakers Society on Granville Island, Vancouver
Printing methods include Wood Engraving, Relief, Mezzotint, Intaglio
Experiment with local organic infusions and mineral pigments
Ink medium: painting and drawing
Description of work
The image will not be digitally altered, rather changed via mixed medium. I expect the size (framed) will be 28 x 35 cm or smaller. One 2D work. Theoretically, through geological metamorphoses; silt and clay provided a fertile environment for DNA. My self perspective emerges from mud, underlying life force. Mud dimensional juxtaposes resemblant motifs of opposite signification: the tree of life and the atomic bomb explosion. The visual interchange communicates creation and destruction within the Anthropocene. mud dimensional (Title ) digital, mixed medium 28 x 35 cm 2021
Kath was a participant in the 2020 What the Plus Exhibition too!
The Noise
Bio
I am the Noise. I am a conceptual and visual artist. I am at my core a cultural provocateur. I believe in the free and uncensored nature of art and artistic expression in the larger scope of a free and just society. I work anonymously for objectivity, privacy, and artistic freedom, independence. By pointing a mirror back at the art establishment and its influence both good and bad on creativity I hope to use the lens of culture to focus my viewers on the subtlety and grandiose nature of life. I use any medium at my disposal to try to disrupt the common understanding and spark a dialogue for open and honest conversation. I am THE NOISE, and welcome to the show.
Chris Roberts
Bio
I am an oyster farmer and lifelong lover of art. Last summer I took a couple of workshops on drawing and watercolour sketchbook keeping from Prashant Miranda. Early in these times of isolation, I took it as a challenge to draw something every day. I began with a wide range of subjects, landscapes, family photos, birds, animals, and flowers. Lately, I’ve been focusing on portraits, mostly of men. My audience has consisted of my partner, a few locals in my bubble, and friends on instagram , who have encouraged my efforts. I am engaged in developing my own style and expression. I look forward to further exploration, and trying other mediums as I really have just begun.
Chris was a participant in the 2020 What the Plus Exhibition too!
Angelica Hamilton
Bio
I am Angelica Hamilton. I am a 13-year-old queer artist, interested in mixed media and basically, any art form I can get my hands on and experiment. I’ve lived in Powell River for three years in a tiny forest cabin looking out to the ocean. Nature has fuelled my art since I was young and my days are mostly spent looking outside for interesting rocks or strange mushrooms.
I have been homeschooled for the past two years, but between January and May, I was in a Grade Ten Media class at the high school, which introduced me to digital design. In the future, I hope to help people through art and speak and create pieces that represent how it feels to be a human.
Description of work
Angie created two beautiful pieces. One is a multimedia collage, based on a year’s worth of sketches. Interestingly, Angie found it overwhelming to create a one off creative self portrait and decided to make a piece from existing sketches, paintings and drawings she has created throughout the year. Looking through her sketches, she saw that they were all connected. She is making art all the time, everyday. Her identity and her understanding of the world is a work in progress, just like her sketchbook.
The Second is a small homemade model of a Victorian style bedroom, with two tiny chairs – which she describes as a depiction of her gender identity.
Angelica was a participant in the 2020 What the Plus Exhibition too!
Brian Baxter
Bio
1952/he/b. Nova Scotia/NS College of Art & Design (graphic design)/acceptance of queer/partnered at 20 for 33 years in open relationship/moved to Vancouver 1977/commissioned architectural glass artist/life drawing/photography/body electric/radical faeries/yoga/relocated to Sechelt, 2019.
Description of work
My main piece would be a 3D kinetic piece that would approximate my size and would have ‘pages’ of images describing my life. I’m planning on it having 3 sections that can be turned separately to make connections with other parts of my life. Ambitious perhaps but I’d like to try. It would stand separately….6’ x 2.5’ approx. I also have an earlier 2D full-size selfie nude drawing that is a patchwork of different styles of drawing if interested.
Prashant Miranda
Bio
Prashant Miranda grew up in Bangalore, studied at the National Institute of Design, India, and moved to Canada in1999. He designed children’s animated shows for TV in Toronto before moving on to pursue his passions as an artist. He spends time in the coastal rainforests on the west coast of Canada now, where he travels and documents his life through his watercolour journals, animates films, teaches visual art, illustrates children’s books and paints murals. Prashant was a participant in the 2020 WTP Exhibition too!
www.prashart.blogspot.com
Instagram: prashola FB: Prashant Miranda
Description of work
‘Where’s my forest?’. 43″x33″. Watercolour on an old nautical chart. 2020.
NOTE: Prash will be giving a presentation at the show’s opening too! Here is a description of that talk tentatively set for 5:30pm on Thursday, July 22, 2021 at The Art Centre~qathet Public Gallery. Details here.
