Current Residents

List Grid

Current Resident: Mar 1, 2024–May 31, 2024

Studio #203

Alper Aydin

In his practice, Alper Aydın strives for his works to be understood within their geographical context, aiming for an interpretation that incorporates the spatial presence of living beings, notably humans, within ecological processes. Aydın’s diverse practice, which includes sculpture, installation, performance, architecture, and video, allows the energy of each venue to guide his creative process. Through this approach, he intends to explore and reflect upon humanity’s existence in nature from a multitude of perspectives.

Alper Aydın has exhibited work at Istanbul Biennial, Turkey; Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India; and Changwon Sculpture Biennale, South Korea, among others.

alperaydin.art

Events & Exhibitions

2024 Spring Open Studios

April 12–April 13, 2024

Throughout history, domes—the components of buildings pointing to the sky—have been identified as the source of spirituality and able to deliver the images, narratives, and messages of the skies. In this work, two large-sized satellite dishes whirling around their axes stand level with the audience and, with their controlled rotation, get in a loop akin to the movement of the planet, the sun, and the moon, formation of months and years. One of the dishes of these two technical systems holds the ornaments and the Arabic calligraphy of the dome of Hagia Sophia. The other one carries the dome of parecclesion of Chora Monastery depicting the Virgin and Child and the angels. The forms and the ornaments of these small representations of the vault of heaven have been adapted to the antenna systems used to communicate, observe, and receive signals. The micro vaults of heaven are placed next to people instead of above. They unite with the sky in the open air. This work directs people’s gaze to outer space, the unknown, and the infinitude of imagination and reflects hope about the future.

Alper Aydin, Face to Face, 2023, aluminum, iron, oil acrylic, gold-leaf and concrete, 151 × 130 × 169 in. (383.54 × 330.2 × 429.26 cm)

Acclaimed Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch depicted heaven on the left panel of the triptych, The Garden of Earthly Delights, painted circa 1490–1500. In this composition, every figure is around the small lake in the center of the painting, and in the center of this lake stands so naturally, an imaginary pink fountain made of plants and shells of crabs, oysters, and sea urchins. Alper Aydın was touched to see that almost everything occurs around this fountain. He builds a similar one in the center of an antique quarry filled with seawater on Cape Sülü to create a space for conversing and discussing the world's state of mind. By concretizing Bosch’s fountain design by upcycling the plastics drifted to the shore with storms, a faithful adaptation from two dimensions to three, the artist opens the way for nature, animals, and human beings to perceive the fountain.

Alper Aydin, The Source of Life, 2023, upcycled plastic, polyester resin, iron and obsidian, 275 × 102 × 39 in. (698.5 × 259.08 × 99.06 cm)

The city of Ordu has been subject to excessive and sudden rains and floods in recent years due to the emergence of the potent effects of global warming, wrong environmental policies, and unplanned urbanization. Humans, animals, and plants lost their lives, and habitats disappeared. “Post-Apocalyptic Narrative” derives from an archive of the traces of loss that Alper Aydın has composed in Cape Jason, where he also lives, by collecting the objects and remains washed ashore after disasters. Referring to the deteriorating dynamics of nature, the installation is composed of two sculptures: in the first one, a snake that doesn’t know where to go enwinds the trunk of a tree without roots and branches. On another collapsed trunk hanging from the ceiling are a man and a wolf in such a setting that whoever moves, the balance will be disturbed inevitably. We are left alone with the last remaining traces of a forest in a post-apocalyptic time.

Alper Aydin, Post-Apocalyptic Narrative, 2023, polyester, 80x46x204 (wolf and man), 165x27x27 (snake)

In the first movie of the Matrix trilogy, the protagonist Neo must choose between red and blue pills. The blue pill will return him to the fictional order in which he has always existed, and the red pill will allow him to see what is happening outside that fictional order. Taking its name from this movie scene, Alper Aydın’s Red Pill (2023), produced for the WE BELONG exhibition, is a sailboat turned upside down. He is ready to set out for all the discoveries his imagination can take, floating in the air on a plane limited neither by land nor by the boundaries of the ocean. It is an invitation to look at the world we live in, our lives, from different perspectives and to make us think about what is real.

Alper Aydin, Red Pill, 2023, metal and fibre, 307 × 161 × 35 in. (779.78 × 408.94 × 88.9 cm)

In this piece of art, rocks from nature touched with a statistical thinking.Place that is choosed consciously has an esthtatical view and convenient for statistical research inside it. The each interferes on the place was made with discount and was written with white water-based paint and with a big amount of care for not damaging the rocks.The numbers that was created by humans choosed in the daily life to calculate the human’s value.While the this numbers that was created by human transfered to the amorf things in nature, dialog between nature and human was expected to seen. This situation creates a paradoxical view to the people who go over that beach during their whole life and audience. Again, meaningless things were weighned and named exactly same with the values, it represent the image of people’s inside thinking which is human creates themselves limits to judge the situations and classified them. This is a reaction to public’s meta perception with measuring the natural objects.

Alper Aydin, Real Weight of Stones, 2011, water based paint on stones, dimensions varied

Residents from Turkey

Eda Gecikmez

Turkey

SAHA Association

2023

Sümer Sayin

Stone found on a beach, its photograph and stone made of ceramic. The handmade stone is sculpted by hand with clay looking at the photo as a reference, then fired to a stoneware temperature.

Turkey, Germany

SAHA Association

2022

Baris Gokturk

Monument III is based on a photograph I saw on the wall of a working-class restaurant in Ankara, Turkey. The photograph shows an equestrian statue of Ataturk, the founder of republic, right before it left the foundry.

Turkey, United States

SAHA Association

2021

Canada

Current Resident: Apr 1, 2024–Jun 30, 2024

Alberta Foundation for the Arts

Studio #204

Artist

Alma Visscher

Alma Louise Visscher creates fabric-based installations, jewelry and drawings that consider resources and material culture and the poetic possibilities and problems within these. Through process and materials, she explores the intersection of materiality and the unknowable, the ecology of places, and the things that hold us, care for us, and comfort us. These motivations have led her to explore materials such as working with natural dyes and inks sourced from her immediate environments and repurposed textiles and materials.

Alma Louise Visscher has exhibited work at Art Gallery of Alberta, Alberta; Idea Exchange. Ontario; Kimura Gallery, Alaska, among others.

almalouisevisscher.com

Events & Exhibitions

2024 Spring Open Studios

April 12–April 13, 2024

A drawing on white paper made with black ink. The drawing is made up of small brush strokes and depicts a fabric-like form.

Alma Visscher, Odradek, 2021, handmade ink on paper, 14 × 10 in. (35.56 × 25.4 cm)

A white page with overlapping abstract forms in the centre. The marks are made with ink, fabric, and paper.

Alma Visscher, Hedge Study, 2023, cedar ink, handmade paper and fabric on paper, 12 × 17 in. (30.48 × 43.18 cm)

A painting made up up pleated fabric in a variety of colours.

Alma Visscher, holding it together, 2021, machine pleated and dyed and airbrushed found fabric, 36 × 24 in. (91.44 × 60.96 cm)

Two panels of fabric connected by sheer draped fabric. Left panel is predominantly grey and white with some pink. Right panel is more pink and peach with some yellow.

Alma Visscher, The waiting, 2019, hand painted and airbrushed cotton and linen fabric, grommets and draping, 108 × 35 in. (274.32 × 88.9 cm)

Seven fabric tote bag like forms are installed in a triangle shape on a white wall. The fabric is painted a range of pinks and pastel colours.

Alma Visscher, Portable Paintings, 2018, hand dyed and sewnfabric, dimensions variable

Residents from Canada

Insoon Ha

South Korea, Canada

Canada Council for the Arts

Studio #306

Ella den Elzen

A backlit image of a still-life composed of pineapple, aloe vera, sugar cane, coconut milk, mango, clementines, lemons, lime, and books on a neon green backdrop. The image, which appears to be computer generated, is created through a 3D scanning process.

Canada

Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec

2023

Sukaina Kubba

This is a line drawing of an intricate carpet design done in black plastic filament, with a white background.

Iraq, Canada

Canada Council for the Arts

2022

United States

Current Resident: Dec 1, 2023–May 31, 2024

Helen Frankenthaler Foundation Residency

Studio #205

Artist

Cullen Washington Jr.

Cullen Washington Jr.’s abstract paintings convey the feeling of the divine in nature through matter and light, which he calls TerraChroma. Washington doesn’t depict atmosphere and land but rather the primary properties that make them exist, thus, the paintings’ titles “Primers” refer the underlying beginning. He constructs the painting surface with raw pigments, earth minerals, and acrylic, and he represents color as the quality of light with an atomized mixture of pigment and water.

Cullen Washington Jr. has exhibited work at The University of Michigan Museum of Art, Michigan; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; and Saatchi Gallery, London, among others.

cwashingtonstudio.com