Past Residents
Past Resident2013: Mondriaan Fund
Maaike Schoorel
Maaike Schoorel’s work inhabits a position on the edge of legibility. Her figurative paintings appear faded or bleached with brush strokes that suggest outlines and restrained marks. These outlines imply areas of color or shadow that allow the viewer to participate in the paintings. The works demand one’s perception to be slowed down to allow the images to unravel slowly over time. Schoorel uses photographs of family, friends and herself as sources of reference and inspiration for her work. She also depicts other familiar scenes and still lifes that allude to the history of her chosen medium. The various painting genres that she employs help to structure her practice. After selecting and cropping her photographs, Schoorel renders the subject matter almost invisible. Through an unevenly applied process of subtle and minimally painted layers, she wears away the original image to reveal something new. This complex reworking or withholding of her source material intensifies the process of looking, and reminds us that seeing is as much about what cannot be seen as what can.
Maaike Schoorel graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam and the Royal College of Art, London, 2001. She has worked and lived in both Amsterdam and London. Schoorel’s work is currently being shown as part of British Art Show 7 and Hayward Touring Exhibition, Hayward Gallery, Nottingham. Her work was also be included in Painting Between the Lines curated by Jens Hoffmann, Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, which will tour to Williams College of Art, Williamstown, MA in 2013. She will have solo exhibitions in 2012 at The Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem and Maureen Paley, London. Her work will be included in the group exhibitions this year at: Invisible Ink, Mendes Wood, Sao Paolo, curated by Carolyn Drake; Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff; and the Museum of Modern Art, Glasgow. This year her work has been included in the publications: Vitamin P2, Phaidon; Sanctuary, Thames&Hudson; and Painting between the Lines, Art Pub Inc. Recent solo exhibitions of her work include: Marc Foxx, Los Angeles, 2011; Galerie Diana Stigter, Amsterdam, 2011; Nudes and Garden, Marc Foxx, Los Angeles, 2009; Nudes, Maureen Paley, London, 2008; and Album, Museum de Hallen, Haarlem, 2008.
Maaike Schoorel, British Art Show 7: In the Days of the Comet, 2011. Courtesy of the artist, Hayward Gallery.
Maaike Schoorel, Album, 2008. Courtesy of the artist.
Maaike Schoorel, Emma-Louise on her Bed, 2008, Oil on canvas, 53 × 731/4 in. (134.62 × 186.05 cm). Courtesy of the artist.
Residents from The Netherlands
Past Resident2012: Ontario Arts Council
Vessna Perunovich
Vessna Perunovich’s practice encompasses drawing, performance, video, sculpture, painting and installation. Individual yet nonetheless interrelated, her work is defies a simple categorization. Perunovich’s subject matter grapples with issues of personal intimacy and societal constructs; her work is autobiographical and at the same time universal. It dwells, emotionally and philosophically, on the subject of boundaries, both physical and psychic, orchestrating a fine balance between confinement and content. Perunovich’s works are connotations of meanings, suggesting that they can wear the conceptual clothing necessary to expressing inexpressible feelings for things that are inexplicable.
Perunovich (born former Yugoslavia) is a Toronto-based visual artist and has exhibited at international biennales in Cuba, Albania, Portugal, UK, Montenegro and Greece. Her survey solo exhibition, Borderless, recently toured galleries and museums in countries of the former Yugoslavia, including the Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina in Serbia and Museum of Contemporary Art Republic of Srpska in Bosnia & Herzegovina. Her recent exhibitions include, Neither Here Nor There, at Tom Thomson Art Gallery, Borderline, at Angel Gallery in Toronto, Canada; performance project, The Web, at Grimmuseum in Berlin, Germany and video installation, Open Ended, as part of HT&B exhibition in Hamilton, Canada. Perunovich is the recipient of many grants and awards including the Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts award in 2005 and the Chalmers Development Grant in 2011.
Vessna Perunovich, I Hug the World and the World Hugs Me Back, 2003-ongoing, Performance. Courtesy of the artist and Tate Modern.
Vessna Perunovich, Infinite Wall, 2006, White elastic thread, 132 × 288 in. (335.28 × 731.52 cm). Courtesy of the artist.
Vessna Perunovich, Currency, 2007-2011, Sculptural and video projection, elastic bands, staples, and metal frame, 120 × 180 in. (304.8 × 457.2 cm). Courtesy of the artist.
Vessna Perunovich, Wounding, 2002-2011, Mixed media installation, Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist.
Vessna Perunovich, Homage to Mother, 2009, Graphite, 108 × 216 in. (274.32 × 548.64 cm). Courtesy of the artist.
Residents from Canada
Past Resident2012: Canada Council for the Arts
Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay
Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay’s artistic work articulates itself chiefly through videos that combine singing, song lyrics and self-reflexive performance to contemplate the singing voice and the history of song, the rendering of love and emotion into words and the ways emotional expression is influenced by technology and popular culture. In recent years, his work has shifted focus towards the exploration of wordless, vocal calls and the vast possibilities of what vocal sounds can signify. Ramsay has also focused a renewed approach to the use and reinterpretation of found sonic and visual material, moving away from the banal discourses of pop music to the visionary wisdom of elders.
Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay (born 1973, Montréal, Canada) is an artist and diarist. His work in video, sound, print and textile has exhibited across Canada, Europe and Asia, garnering prizes in festivals in Germany, Portugal, Poland and Canada. His work is represented in numerous private collections as well as the National Gallery of Canada.
Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, Mayday, 2007, Choreography for solo dancer and video projection, 5 min. Courtesy of the artist.
Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, The Burden, 2010, Sound with variable arrangement of mirrors, 7 min. Courtesy of the artist.
Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, How Dare You Speak To Me This Way, 2010, Silk Habotai, 6 ft.