Anishinaabe artist Michael Belmore has created a unique work specifically for OCAD University’s Project 31: New Futures, which is raising funds through live and silent virtual auctions to support Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) students.
Water is Blood is among the 50 pieces being featured in the world-class collection, designed to showcase the tremendous talent and creativity of OCAD U’s BIPOC community. Belmore’s work and processes speak about the environment, about land, about water, and what it is to be Anishinaabe. The OCAD U graduate has exhibited nationally and internationally and is represented in the permanent collections of various institutions and numerous private collections.
His current exhibition is at the AGO until November 2021 and previous exhibitions include Every. Now. Then: Reframing Nationhood at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Shapeshifting: Transformations in Native American Art at the Peabody Essex in Salem, Massachusetts and HIDE: Skin as Material and Metaphor at the National Museum of the American Indian, George Gustav Heye Centre in New York City.
About the artwork
Water is Blood (2021) is a copper and steel work valued at $9,000. Size: 43.3" x 20" x 8.3".
Artist statement
Water is part of a circulatory or vascular system, a cycle that flows outwards, eventually finding its way back. Carrying with it nutrients or resources that allow for the creation of life. There is this island we call continent, there is an island of the Anishinaabe (Manitoulin), there is an island of the Lenape (Manhattan), from these points water flows, now and in the past, trade routes, bringing wealth, bleeding resources, offering life and taking life. This work is a remnant of Lost Bridal Veil (collection of the National Gallery of Canada), a work that I created while participating in the inaugural Nigig Visiting Artist Residency hosted by the Indigenous Visual Culture Program at OCAD University.
MEET MORE ARTISTS FEATURED AS PART OF PROJECT 31: NEW FUTURES
JJ Lee is an associate professor in the Faculty of Art whose paintings connect and re-interpret Western and Chinese painting traditions. She appropriates colonial, scientific, historical and medical images from textiles, botanical illustrations, advertising and acupuncture charts to create undefined environments. Lee, who has exhibited at the Vancouver Art Gallery, is the recipient of several awards, including the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, RBC New Canadian Painting Competition and the Asian Canadian Artists Fund for Visual Arts. She is represented by Magenta Foundation’s Carte Blanche.
About the artwork
Sparrow Flying is mixed media (oil, encaustic, charcoal, collage) on canvas and is valued at $1,900 (2016). Size: 19” in diameter.
Artist statement
Having been born and raised in Canada to Chinese immigrants, this piece is my take on a genre of Chinese painting is called "Bird and Flower" through my Western-raised lens.
Artist and educator Sanaz Mazinani is a graduate of OCAD U and is based between San Francisco and Toronto. Her work explores how repetitions and patterns make information legible, transform seeing into knowing, with the possibility of altering people’s worldview. Working across the disciplines of photography, social sculpture and large-scale multimedia, she creates informational objectives that invite a rethinking of how we see, suspending the viewer between observation and knowledge. Her work has appeared in solo exhibitions at institutions, including the Stephen Bulger Gallery, Triton Museum of Art (Santa Clara), San Francisco Camerawork, West Vancouver Museum, Ab/Anbar (Tehran, Iran), and Asian Art Museum (San Francisco). She is also the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships.
About the artwork
Forever in the Sky is a pigment print on archival paper and is valued at $2,500 (edition 2/5, 2012/2019). Size: 20” x 20”.
Artist statement
Forever in the Sky is an intimate photo-based montage that takes as its subject clouds over San Francisco. The photographs of San Francisco’s skies are captured and later processed to create symmetrical kaleidoscopic patterns that intermingle and overlap to make a complex portrait of the city’s sky-scape.
Forever in the Sky, is a result of my fascination with the cartography of borders, how they affect migration and the flow of tourists and immigrants. This photograph is from a larger project that imagines the paths of these ever changing clouds on their visit to San Francisco and as they continue to travel elsewhere. The geometric patterns are created through a process of sequentially pairing, repeating, and layering that triggers a larger awareness of our mediated relationship to the natural world and brings attention to the transitory.
Dr. Kathy Moscou’s background is eclectic and unique, merging visual arts and health. Her lived experience, born as an African American, informs her art, with a focus on Black cultural aesthetics, contemporary design for social justice, commitment to the Black community and choice of research, which focuses on equity and empowerment of Black and Indigenous youth in Canada, the United States and across the African diaspora. She is currently an assistant professor in OCAD U’s Faculty of Design. Her work has been exhibited at the Royal Ontario Museum, the M. Rosetta Hunter Gallery in Seattle, the Art Gallery of Southwest Manitoba and the Bellevue Art Museum in Washington State.
About the artwork
Strong Black Woman #1 is a mixed media work (wood, glass, oil and cowrie shell) and is valued at $1,500 (2021). Size: 24” x 24”.
Artist statement
My art is a visual commentary to motivate social change, and I hope that viewers of my body of work will think critically about contemporary issues such as anti-Black racism, equity, and gender identity. Mixed media, especially hair and shells, enables me to weave textures into the art to illustrate layered complexity and cultural context. “Strong Black Woman #1” is inspired by Denise Jones, a trailblazer and champion for Black and Caribbean arts and culture.
Gary Taxali is a Canadian contemporary fine artist and award-winning illustrator known for his iconic retro style pop art and illustrations and is recognized as one of the top 100 illustrators in the world in “100 Illustrators” by art book publisher Taschen (2017). A professor at OCAD U in the Faculty of Design, Taxali’s work intersects fine art, pop culture, design and 1930s style iconography, graphics and typography. He has worked with media outlets and publications, including Rolling Stone, GQ, Newsweek, the New York Times and MTV. Other clients include Time, Fortune, The New Yorker, Entertainment Weekly, Fast Company, Reader’s Digest, Business Week, Warner Bros., LA Times, Paramount Pictures, The Gap, Harry Rosen, Chapters Indigo, Converse, Levi’s, Sony, McSweeny’s, MTV, Coca-Cola. He has had exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Jonathan LeVine Gallery, La Luz de Jesus Gallery, The Antonio Colombo Gallery, Steve Lazarides/The Outsiders, The Andy Warhol Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England, Matthew Namour Gallery, Outre Gallery, Iquapop Gallery, Yves LaRoche Gallery, Narwhal Gallery (Magic Pony), C-POP GalleryWanrooij Gallery and Corey Helford Gallery. He is the recipient of numerous awards.
About the artwork
Love Songs is a hand-signed and numbered edition of 95 giclée print with a value of $1,000. Size: 33” x 22.4”
Artist statement
Love Songs was created for the group exhibition, Hindi Love Songs, held at The Jonathan LeVine Gallery in New York, NY in 2009. This piece takes the fun and whimsy elements in Taxali’s work, and pairs them with a sense of anxiety and apprehension. The existing flaws and markings on the found paper are used to amplify this duality, and combine them into a classic example of Taxali’s work.
“Gary Taxali is one of those rare artists whose work is immediately inviting and familiar, yet idiosyncratic and unmistakable. Gary has created a universe of characters, slogans, and motifs that is reminiscent of 1950’s advertising, comics, and painted signs, but rendered in a minimal, sort of goofy, but very sophisticated, style that could only be Gary Taxali. His fluid integration of both illustration and art, or illustration as art, is a testament to the strength of his vision.” – Shepard Fairey, Artist (Creator of the “Hope” Obama poster and OBEY Giant).
ABOUT PROJECT 31
Project 31: New Futures promises to be a unique experience that will transport guests into an immersive experience on June 24 at a live virtual auction, hosted on the ohyay platform. Pieces will also be sold at a silent auction being held from June 16 to 30.
Members of the Project 31: New Futures committee include: Jason Baerg, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Art; Dr. Andrea Fatona, Associate Professor, Faculty of Art and Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Canadian Black Diasporic Cultural Production, Dr. Nithikul Nimkulrat, Associate Professor and Acting Chair, Material Art & Design; Ryan Rice, Associate Professor and Associate Dean, Faculty of Arts and Science; and Lisa Deanne Smith, curator at the Onsite Gallery.
OCAD U would like to thank the following artists for participating in this year’s reimagined Project 31: Kevin Bae; Jason Baerg; Anthia Barboutsis; Michael Belmore; Nathan Eugene Carson; Shea Chang; Kestin Cornwall; Vanessa Dion Fletcher; Yining Fu; Sugandha Gaur; Astrid Ho; Andre Kan; Natalie King; Kotoba Jewellery; Surendra Lawoti; JJ Lee; Julius Poncelet Manapul; Ashok Mathur and Soleil Launière; Michael Lee Poy; Shevon J. Lewis; Aaron Li-Hill; Charmaine Lurch; Sanaz Mazinani; Anna Jane McIntyre; Peter Morin and Ayumi Goto; Kathy Moscou; Nithikul Nimkulrat; Emma Nishimura; Eugene Paunil; Abigail Permell; Lilian Sim; Dionne Simpson; Moraa Elizabeth Stump; Gary Taxali; Yaw Tony; Annie Tung; Natalie Majaba Waldburger; Alia Weston Jewellery; Amy Wong; X Height Media; and Shaheer Zazai.
All funds raised from both the silent virtual auction, being held from June 16 to 30 and live virtual auction on June 24 will support our BIPOC students through bursaries as well as programming by our Faculties.