Small Homes Bios and Statements
Angelina Turner
Angelina Turner is a Niagara-based artist who is never afraid to look deeper into her subject matter. A bed is not just a mattress and some fabric; it is where people dream, sleep, sometimes are born and, often, where they die. She examines her environment at face value, then reimagines it as the stories that it holds. Currently pursuing her B.A. and B.Ed. at Brock University, Turner hopes, one day, to be a professor of Fine Art and Visual Culture to help others learn there are more ways than one to view the world.
Artist Statement:
These two works are based on places in my home and others. They represent places where I do not feel judged. I can put my feet on the couch or preen in the washroom mirror. These are places where I feel safe. I wanted to do quick oil studies to show that the mundane and safe can be beautiful. Often, these places are nothing more than a background for where “real” events happen. Any author worth their salt will tell you the setting is always important, and I implore you, think about your backgrounds and how you feel in different spaces.
Caroline Sherwood Holroyd
My name is Sweet Caroline. I have been drawing one way or another all my life. There were no real art classes in elementary or secondary school. The only slight instruction I remember was my grade one teacher making a mark on a paper and saying to make a picture. I can’t remember what I drew but she was pleased. Life for me at home was challenging and paying attention in school became a challenge. Doodling was my only escape. I had to start somewhere and go with it. Since those days, I have been drawing for a living. I studied graphic design at Fanshawe College for one year. Then, I got a job as a retail advertising layout artist for Shoppers Drug Mart. This was before computers were used in graphic processes. After Shoppers Drug Mart I began drawing caricatures for a living. Now I am a part-time student at Brock University. I believe Emily Carr has some influence in my process. I remember watching a documentary about her and learned she at one time drew caricatures to help pay for her living expenses. Then, she continued painting. For now I am exploring and experimenting more with painting. I am enjoying being released from being bound in graphic precision and strictness. I started the last term with Daryia and Plaskette type paintings. I am thankful to Shawn Serfas for his motivation and am now enjoying a variety of new ways to express through painting.
Artist Statement:
I painted these images because they were required for a studio course with Shawn Serfas. I had no preconceived idea what I was going to paint. I believe the first painting asked for was a chair. I simply picked one from my house. Then Shawn asked for eggs and a toilet. As I have pets, I decided to use my pets on the minis. As you see, one of my cats is in the laundry basket and another on my bed.
Emma Mary Sked
Emma Mary Sked is an artist living and working in St. Catharine’s, Ontario, Canada. She has a Bachelor of Arts from Brock University and received the Marilyn I. Walker Textile Award in 2019. Emma works mainly with acrylic painting and drawing but has branched out in recent years to paint murals on gallery walls, bind her own books and zines, and create works with recycled fabric. Now, she will be working on furthering her career with textile arts by bringing her hobby of knitting into her artistic practice. The themes of her work have always been about mental health, and now she is moving into talking about environmental issues as well.
Artist Statement:
This collection represents the small items that mean the most to me within my tiny apartment. I am not one to put value or love into something inanimate, but each object represents something more. The stereo represents music, learning, listening; the controller represents my partner of four years; the shoes represent self care, exercise, walking instead of driving for the environment; and the plants represent life, love, and all the other people within my life. These small objects mean the world to me. Living in, what I call, a closet, has taught me that most material objects simply take up space and don’t have much use.
Kaitlyn Roberts
Originally from Ontario, Canada, Kaitlyn Roberts is a multi-disciplinary artist who has achieved her Honours B.A. in Visual Arts. Her artistic education birthed an attraction to explore autoethnography. Roberts’ studio practice surveys the complexity of mental illness translated through visual art while highlighting how it affects both the artist and the viewer. Roberts is currently using her practice to investigate the relationship between the mind and the body, through the artistic process of “mapping.” This includes research into the connections between mental illnesses and the physical sicknesses that follow, including trauma. Roberts has shown her work in juried shows around Ontario including, St. Catharines City Hall’s Transformations, Niagara Artist Centre’s Fortune Favours, and the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington’s The VAC 39th Annual Juried Show where she was the only student, and youngest person to be accepted. Roberts has also shown her work in exhibitions, including Niagara Artist Centre’s Small Feats, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts’ Art Block: BAC on the Block, as well as many exhibitions hosted by Mahtay Café. In February 2020, Roberts exhibited her first show, entitled Sacred Spaces at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts gallery, alongside co-artist Chardon Trimble-Kirk. Roberts has also shown her thesis work titled Dear Euodia at Rodman Hall in St. Catharines, Ontario. Roberts is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design.
Artist Statement:
2506 is the apartment of loneliness and despair, headaches and tears, medication and therapy. It was the place where my anxiety had become too overbearing to control. The white walls closed in on me and never had the colour white ever felt so dark before. The apartment is quiet, yet I hear screaming. The air grabs me by the throat, suffocating me with the strength to make me fall unconscious, but never strong enough to kill me as there I wake to those same demonic walls.
Quin McColgan
I am a professional pet care provider, photographer, and events coordinator. I have previously worked as a house painter, industrial painter, landscaper, in addition to many other jobs in arts and administration. I studied Visual Arts at Niagara College, Welland. After graduating I moved to Toronto for the First Night Artist Festival. I studied at the Print Shop, Central Technical Art School, and Toronto Image Works. Rosalie Belfontaine inspired my self-published calendar Zine: Dogmas. I am interested in exploring materials as a language. Visual and performing arts are necessary to everyday communication.
Artist Statement:
During my studies with Shawn Serfas, we created small works of detailed studies of everyday objects for the exhibition Geographies of Process. They were to be small, quick studies illustrating scale and detail of mundane things in interesting compositions or with specific colour palette and/or textures. It was suggested we use yupo paper which is slippery and hard to keep clean. I think these are cute and would be good to mail.
Shania Thompson
Shania Thompson is an artist based in St. Catharines, Ontario. She graduated from Brock University with her B.A. in Visual Studio Arts and a minor in psychology in Spring of 2020. Her passion for the therapeutic principles of artistic process began in early adolescence. She went on to develop technical and theoretical applications of artmaking across her undergraduate education. By using organic forms and life drawing in relationship with one another, her work begins a conversation about the first generation of child internet users, and the social implications it has on their psychology and sexuality. Thompson’s most recent work explores subconscious fears and desires during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Artist Statement:
Learning to create from life is the first step in becoming an honest artist. Developing this skill takes time and intimacy with the subject, as well as an understanding of size, perspective, light, and colour – an activity that requires devotion and relentless repetition. When working on small scale, details of the work become very important; what we leave out of our work can express just as much as what we include. In the accumulation of these miniature paintings, Shania Thompson explores various consistencies in her oil paint, as well as the effect of colour on mood. Several of her paintings focus on still life subjects, such as books, bottles, chairs, lamps, and pots. Her later, increasingly detailed work began to adopt a wider perspective, presenting her view of the places deeply woven into her routine. Her choice of what subjects to include and exclude from these places, illustrates her feelings of comfort and routine through the shift from the most hectic period in her life to the most stagnant, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Representing her environment allowed her to observe her surroundings and truly see them in their nuances for the first time.
Stephanie Dancer
I’m a mixed media artist from up on the hill... Fonthill that is. I take a cue from my home-girl Frida and I make art based on what I see and sometimes, well most of the time, I make art based on an experience. I’ve been known to use anything from traditional stuff like acrylic and oil paint to fabric, glitter and my favourite, food (specifically coffee and candy). You may also find me surfing the air waves on my podcast, Space Royalty. And just for brags, I’m also an osteopath and I play the cello. I hope you enjoy my work as much as I love food art… which is a lot.
Artist Statement:
At the height of the pandemic I was in California with my friends and their children. I enjoyed many mornings sitting in front of this bowl of fruit, playing games with their eldest child. Painting the reflection of the oranges on the glass table during my time spent in quarantine gave me so much joy to remember those happy moments and is a comment on reflecting on simple joys everyday, but especially during times of stress.
Terry Badgley
I am a local Niagara artist with a B.A. in Visual Arts from Brock University. An interdisciplinary artist, I work in photography, sculpture, drawing and painting.
Artist Statement:
During this pandemic, as the world stopped, I tried to put my focus somewhere else and learn something new. The new skill I attempted was keeping plants alive. The first drawing, Silvia, belongs to my small collection of succulents. She has been alive for a year, which is a success I am quite proud of. This success has led me to try having a garden. The second drawing Sleeping Beauties is one of my many, many, many attempts at growing herbs. These attempts did not work out for me unfortunately. This drawing of pots that contain parsley, basil, and chive seeds shows the hope I have that eventually I get things right. These drawings work together to show success and not failure, rather future potential success.
