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March 21, 2013
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Vancouver Island School of Art Newsletter
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Dear Students and Friends of VISA,
I was very pleased to hear an interview last Saturday morning on CBC about how visual arts can help medical professionals. After years of teaching and running an art school, I have much anecdotal evidence that people who take art courses learn much more than how to draw or paint. They learn how to think differently and how to see the world in a new way. Recently I have noticed many studies out there that prove what I know already to be true. The guest on the show was Sarah de Leeuw from Prince George. Dr. de Leeuw, graduated with a BFA from UVic and later went on to do a PhD in Cultural Geography at Queens and she now works in the Department of Medicine at University of Northern BC. She has recently received an award for creativity in medicine and discussed how she brings medical students to the Prince George Art Gallery to look at art work in order to improve their abstract thinking. Medical diagnosis involves much more than statistical rational analysis. Doctors need to develop abstract thinking skills. They base their diagnosis on what the patient tells them, what symptoms they physically can detect on the patient's body and diagnostic tests. The abstract thinking comes into play when they combine all these factors to come up with a solution. There is a new branch of medicine called Narrative Medicine and art is used as part of the course methodology; an example of this is a course being offered at the University of Liverpol called Gaining Medical Insight Using the Visual Arts. Its interesting that up until the 20th century, medicine was always referred to as the art of medicine. It seems what is old always becomes new again.
I was thinking about how art changes the way we think when I was looking at the painting below called 'Frost' with a group of students. We saw this painting at Macauley Fine Art in Vancouver and the general consensus among the students was that this was a very bad painting. So we started to ask some questions about what we were looking at. Why did the artist put the blue mask around the eyes? What do we think of when we see someone wearing a mask? The paradox of this mask is that rather than hide the face, it actually brings extreme attention to eyes. The eyes are an incredible unreal blue, so even though we can see them we don't know what we are looking at. We talked about the way it was painted, loose but very confident. Check out that strong line around the chin. The skin is transparent which gives a feeling of fragility. The background draws more attention to the face. We discussed the work for another 20 minutes. While discussing this painting many other ideas relating to psychology and philosophy came up. The artist who painted this is twenty-two years old and his name is Brian Kokoska. There is an in-depth write up of Kokaska's work in the publication by former Victoria artist, Noah Becker who now lives in New York: White Hot Magazine. How about you, what do you see in this painting? What kind of things does it make you think of? Take yourself beyond whether you think it is a good or bad painting and think about what this painting is telling you about the artist, about yourself, about painting today, about being twenty-two years old in today's world.
Frost, 2012, Brian Kokoska
Art Courses at the Vancouver Island School of Art
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Artist Talk TONIGHT:
JENIFER PAPARARO
Thursday, March 21 at 7pm
Jenifer Papararo is Curator at the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver. She recently presented the first solo exhibition in North America of Nairy Baghramian's work and will present the first exhibition in Canada of work by Monika Sosnowska. Currently she is working with Mike Nelson to co-commission an installation for CAG and The Power Plant. From 2002 to 2004 Jenifer was Director of Programming at Mercer Union, Toronto. There she curated Mark Leckey's Soundsystem, which included an extensive weekly program of events. She is a founding member of the curatorial and artist collective Instant Coffee.
Talk is in Slide Room Gallery
2549 Quadra
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Check out our amazing line-up of six week courses starting May 14
This spring we are offering a range of drawing, painting, sculpture and photography courses. The courses are all six-weeks long for the low rate of $225 per course. We have plenty of courses for beginners as well as courses for artists with some experience.
The Spring semester with its shorter courses is a great way to try out an art course without having to make the full commitment of a regular 12-week course. All these courses can be applied for credit to a Certificate of Diploma program. Check out Xane St Phillip's course, Painting: Bauhaus Method & Style
Summer Workshops are also on-line. There is something for everyone: 1 day, 2 day, 3, day, 4, day and 5 day. Plan your creative summer now.
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BOOK LAUNCH
Thursday, March 28 at 7pm, Slide Room Gallery
VISA student Shirley Grosser will read from her self-published book entitled RESILIENCE: Women's Stories of WWII. RESILIENCE is a collection of images and anecdotes documenting the memories of twenty-three women who came of age during World War II. Through naturalistic portraiture, and intimate face-to-face conversations, the women present their experiences and impressions. Impacted civilians, military service personnel, and prisoners of war revisit this time in their lives, more than sixty years ago, and offer compelling cameos of lived history. This limited edition is numbered and signed, and attention has been given to the selection of papers and font which will reflect and evoke, in texture and tone, some qualities of life as it was lived in the 1940's. The hidden-coil binding is intended to assist in the acts of handling and viewing, with each page opening in a flat position. Hemlock Printers, a prestigious, privately owned and family run publication house was chosen to complete the work because of their reputation for the reproduction of fine art photography (this printer publishes Lenswork). |
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STUDIO SPACE AVAILABLE 
Artist looking for people to share floor of studio building in Rock Bay area. Rent is negotiable depending on how many individuals involved.
or phone: 250-891-2464 |
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Call for entries and other information:
Island Artisans Association: Craft Fair
VANCITY CREDIT UNION: Site Specific Public Art
Check out the following websites for in-depth information about Victoria artists and art openings: Art Openings and Exhibit-V
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For more information about our courses or events contact
Linda or Jen at the office: 250-380-3500 or info@vancouverislandschoolart.com
Website
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