Past Residents
Past Resident2015: McKay Finnigan and Associates
Wanda Koop
Wanda Koop is a visual language researcher. The inspiration for Koop’s work comes from lived experience and a keen observation of the world. Koop’s focused process begins with the making of videos, photographs and numerous drawings on post-it notes. These components are merged into larger bodies of work that then transition into multidisciplinary installations. References to popular culture, the natural world, visual media, robotics and nanotechnology are present in Koop’s work. She is also continually paying homage to the visible spectrum, expanding her knowledge of color and how it relates to her visual vocabulary.
Wanda Koop lives and works in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Koop’s career has spanned three decades and includes numerous solo exhibitions, most notably a major survey of her work at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, in 2010 and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, in 2011. She has been the recipient of numerous national and international honors, including the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal; the Japan Fund Award; and the Order of Canada. She is also the recipient of honorary doctorates from the University of Winnipeg; the Emily Carr University of Art and Design; and the University of Manitoba. In 1998, Koop founded Art City as a storefront art center, bringing contemporary visual artists and inner-city youth together to explore the creative process.
Wanda Koop, View from Here, 2014, Installation, Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist
Residents from Canada
Past Resident2015: Foundation for a Civil Society
Igor Ruf
Igor Ruf explores the relations between object and non-object as a starting point for a work of art. For him memory is the cognitive ability to reconstruct past experiences, whether autobiographical or experienced through media such as film and music. Ruf’s research ranges from unrecorded narratives spread by oral tradition to phantasmal images from childhood. His recent works address the somewhat absurd connection between his own personal fascinations and everyday objects or events. Also, he often deals with humorous self-positioning within society in general.
Igor Ruf (born 1984 in Virovitica, Croatia) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, Zagreb where he now works as an Assistant Lecturer. Recent solo shows include House of Tartzans Mom, Academia Moderna, Zagreb, Croatia; Exhibition of Hills, Furniture and Walking Spaces, MKC Split, Croatia; North, South, East, Jam and Boom, Plevnik-Kronkowska Gallery, Celje, Slovenia; and Bure Baruta, (with Vlatka Škoro and Ana Petrović), Kazamat Gallery, Osijek. His awards received include the Radoslav Putar Award, 2014; 31st Youth Salon Award, 2012; and Grand Prize at the XI Triennial of Croatian Sculpture, 2012.
Events & Exhibitions
Salon: Zoran Georgiev and Igor Ruf
April 14, 2015
Igor Ruf, The Factory is Following Me, 2013, Mixed media, 74 3/4 x 33 1/2 x 23 1/2 in. Courtesy of the artist
Past Resident2015: Foundation for a Civil Society
Zoran Georgiev
Zoran Georgiev’s works refer to the cultural policies of present-day Macedonia and Bulgaria, where the necessity of creating new (post-1989) identities and rethinking the past are leading to new forms of nationalism and visions of society and community. Georgiev underlines the hollowness, the competitiveness and the kitsch in state policies aimed at the construction or restoration of monuments and museums. As if the symbolism of the “new” past is nothing more than the expensive décor for a Bollywood (or rather, a Balkan-wood) production. With simplified form and direct appeal his works “unmask” the kitsch in the visual language of populist nationalism through a kind of authentic and raw objectivity.
Zoran Georgiev (born in 1985 in Macedonia) lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Georgiev graduated with an MA in Painting from the National Art Academy in Sofia, Bulgaria. His solo exhibitions include Vaska Emanouilova Gallery, Sofia; Sariev Contemporary, Plovdiv; and 0GMS Gallery in a Drawer, Sofia. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions including Art for Change, Sofia City Art Gallery, 2015; Prehod For Sale, ICA Gallery, Sofia, 2014; Transcending Cultures, Essl Museum, Viena 2013-2014; Never Ending Story, Rakursi Gallery, Sofia, 2013; and Love, Rayko Alexiev Gallery, 2012. He has received awards including the ESSL Art Award CEE 2013 and the Young Visual Artists Award (BAZA), 2014.
Events & Exhibitions
Salon: Zoran Georgiev and Igor Ruf
April 14, 2015
Zoran Georgiev, Invisible Skyscraper, 2014, Inkjet print, invisible ink drawing, UV flash light and text, 31 1/2 x 47 1/4 in. Courtesy of the artist
