Visual Art Exhibit: Systemic Contractions

RANEECE BUDDAN

ARTIST

Raneece Buddan is a Jamaican Artist residing in Edmonton, Alberta. She completed her BFA in Art and Design at the University of Alberta in 2020. Focusing on painting and sculpture, her work is centered on her cultural identity as a Jamaican woman of African and East Indian descent. She depicts the merging of both cultures with the use of fabric from each. The fabric is used as an additional identifier for who she is, rather than her skin tone as colorism is an issue she noticed within both communities. The importance of hair is also a commonality and a symbol you can find in her work as well.

Her process is based on her research on traditional and contemporary art from each culture. She explores different processes and artists from each as a foundation while doing her own experimentations with materials and mediums. She is interested in combining synthetic and natural materials in a colorful and unconventional way. She finds the figures within the grains of the wood and the mounds of clay where it is stuck between a phase of abstraction and realism; a state of uncertainty. The goal of each piece she creates is to learn more about herself throughout the process.

SHAWNEE DANIELLE

ARTIST

Shawnee Danielle is an Indigenous Cree artist who was raised on the Maskwacis Reserve and is currently based in Amiskwaciwâskahikan or so-called Edmonton. In 2018, she graduated from MacEwan University with a Diploma in Fine Arts and moved forward in her academic studies to complete her Bachelor in Fine Arts in Art and Design at the University of Alberta in 2020. In 2019, she received the Indigenous Careers Award and was continually awarded for her successes from Nipisihkopahk Iyinisiwin Trust Fund for the completion of her education throughout her academic career. She considers her practice to be a continuous exploration of her own Cree identity, both learning and exercising traditional practices, as she navigates her relationship with cultural identity through themes related around femininity, indigeneity, trauma, and body. While she works primarily as a painter, she also works with various mediums such as installation, video, digital media and photography.

KAILENE DILLON

ARTIST

Edmonton born and raised, Kailene is a seeker of growth, meaning and connection.  She is a homebody with a physical disability and an existential worldview. She studied addiction counselling in post-secondary and worked for eight years with folks facing addictions, poverty, child welfare issues and houselessness. Kailene is a writer of prose poetry; her poems are an intentional deep dive into the realities of grief, loss, boundaries, and self-preservation.

Outside of writing, Kailene is a harm-reduction advocate, a dog-mom to her best friend Penny, and she is passionate about sustainable, low-waste living. If you desire to live more simply or lower-waste, and want glimpses into her poetry, follow Kailene on Instagram at @thesustainablecurly.

STEPHANIE FLORENCE

CURATOR

Stephanie Florence is an emerging Canadian artist and curator working from Amiskwaciwâskahikan, colonially known as Edmonton, Alberta. Florence was greatly impacted in their formative years by their Grandmother’s creativity. Their artwork is primarily based in collage and collaboration, borrowing from sculptural objects, installations, performative gestures, explorative painting, and photographic means. Florence is planning to complete an MFA in the future, and is a graduate of the University of Lethbridge with a BFA and a Diploma in Fine Art from MacEwan University. Currently, Florence is conducting creative research on interspecies interactions, and living bodies as a commodity for capitalist culture with funding from the Edmonton Arts Council. Simultaneously, they are curating SkirtsAfire Festival for a second consecutive year and continually working on an art film focused on interspecies relations. As a non-binary artist, Florence acknowledges the use of pronouns such as they, their, them, she, her, he, him, and his.