Concordia University's Faculty of Fine Arts (FOFA) Gallery presents

 
Christopher Moore, Passive Passive Pink (Masks), 2007-2009

Christopher Moore
The Cuddle Commandos
York Corridor Vitrines

Jeanie Riddle
1 Restoration
Main Gallery

Maria Ezcurra
Abiertas (Open)
Ste. Catherine Street Vitrine

Sarah Gotowka
How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore
Black Box


Exhibition:
January 3 to February 3, 2012
Vernissage:
Thursday, January 12, 2012, 5 to 7 p.m.

Where:
FOFA Gallery, Faculty of Fine Arts, Concordia University
1515 Ste. Catherine Street W., EV 1.715
Montreal, Quebec (Metro Guy-Concordia)

Gallery hours:
Monday to Friday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Cost:
Free admission. Everyone welcome.

Information:
FOFA Gallery website or 514-848-2424 ext. 7962
(no voicemail, call during gallery hours)

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Christopher Moore: The Cuddle Commandos
Using humor and satire to address notions of hyper-masculinity, an army of "citizen anti-warriors" will recruit audience to the "Cuddle Commando." Pink flocking-covered "artillery" will fill the York Corridor vitrines. A series of performances in the vitrines will transform the space into a "recruitment office" where a squadron of approximately 15 Cuddle Commandos will enlist new troops. The public will be asked to fill out a recruitment form and sign a pledge, mocking military recruitment procedures. The new members of the Cuddle Commando will then be asked to spread the philosophy which this humour-infused performance is meant to evoke, using misdirection to draw attention to the male-driven world of military force we have become so accustomed to in today's culture.

Christopher Moore is a Montreal-based artist, designer and educator whose cross-disciplinary practice ranges from print publication to sculpture and media installation. His creative research currently focuses on satire as a progressive form of social critique, utilizing performance and absurdist humour to engage media-savvy public audiences. His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, and he has participated in artist residency projects throughout North America. Moore has presented his scholarly research at International Conference, including the College Art Association (CAA), Design Research Society (DRS), Association typographique international (ATYPI), The Society for Environmental Graphics Design (SEGD), and the Universities Art Association of Canada (UAAC).  For the part 12 years, he has taught at institutions across Canada and currently holds the position of assistant professor in Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University.  

Jeanie Riddle: 1 Restoration
The 1 Restoration project includes new paintings on canvas articulated and framed by a simple elongated form that extends the walls of the gallery into the role of painting. Minimal and excessive simultaneously, the project asserts a feminine critique of particular stylistic concerns while demonstrating a full participation and knowledge of them. 

Jeanie Riddle is a practicing artist working with ideas from the everyday in a dramatic and bold way. Riddle has a fixation with economy and exhausting potential in simple forms. She has a prolific installation and painting practice, and has shown widely and often across Canada. She currently resides in Montreal, Canada, holds a Master of Fine Arts from Concordia University and is the director of Parisian Laundry.

Maria Ezcurra: Abiertas (Open)
Abiertas (Open) is an ongoing project in the Ste. Catherine Street vitrine in which Maria Ezcurra will be creating a textile installation through a sequence of collaborative actions. Throughout the duration of the show various people from the Concordia community (graduate and undergraduate students, teachers, people working in the gallery, the library, counseling, security, etc.) will be invited to come to the vitrine wearing a garment specifically chosen to be transformed into a sculpture. Twice a week Ezcurra will add a person’s garment to the wall, gradually transforming the configuration and identity of the space until the end of the show.

Born in 1973, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Maria Ezcurra lives and works in Mexico City. Currently she is coursing a PhD in Art Education at Concordia University. Ezcurra creates whimsical sculptures, wall works and installations using materials such as women’s stockings and swimsuits that reference the human body and utilize outerwear as a representation of the inner self. She studied at the Visual Arts School (ENAP) in the National Autonomic University of Mexico, received a master’s degree in visual arts at the Chelsea School of Art in London and completed coursework at the San Francisco Art Institute. A recipient of the Fulbright scholarship and multiple FONCA programs, Ezcurra has participated in more than ten individual and 50 group exhibits in the Netherlands, Greece, Australia, the United States, England, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and Mexico. Additionally, she has installed her works as outdoor sculptures in Mexico City, London, Caracas and San Francisco. Currently, she is a member of the Creator’s National System (SNC) and she teaches at the Autonomic University of Morelos Sculpture Workshop.

Sarah Gotowka: How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore
Concordia University MFA student Sarah Gotowka will merge material craft and the language of cyberspace in the darkness of FOFA's black box, recreating the impression of virtual space through an encounter with handwoven glow-in-the-dark scoubidou. The image exhibited will be of a sad face emoticon, laboriously constructed by weaving boondoggle, a material originally marketed for use in children's craft.

In her work Gotowka acts as an anthropologist, approaching recent technological trends and their impact on the western community through new methods of interpersonal communication. Of particular interest in this piece are the condensed and impersonal format of the text message and the use of emoticons to convey intimate gestures. In this case we recognize the intensity of emotion relating to romance and heartbreak too often reduced to a symbolic blip. However, through an extensive workover in the medium of traditional craft, Gotowka expands and elaborates the temporal and spatial significance of these generally flat and immaterial messages. She re-contextualizes virtual emotional signifiers within the history of human relationship to cloth, where it is often embedded with symbolic and linguistic motifs that represent their cultural production

- Pam Mackenzie