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September 03 - September 25, 2010
Reception:
Friday, September 10, 7:00pm - 10:00pm
More information will be available soon. |
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August 05 - August 31, 2010
Opening Reception:
Thursday, August 05, 7:00pm - 10:00pm
More information is available in the exhibition page. |
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July 02 - July 31, 2010
Opening Reception:
Friday, July 02, 6:00pm - 8:00pm
The Bold and the Baffling
The "Bold and Baffling" series is inspired by the soap opera of a similar name and deals with the cycles of addiction (emotional) and it's biological underpinnings. I am fascinated by these cyclical patterns. Like sexual pornography, emotional pornography stimulates just enough to keep the addict interested but not enough to be satiated. Soap operas use emotion as their raw material just as porn uses the body. The defining quality of the soap opera form is its seriality.
I am intrigued by cyclical patterns and during the making of this work, found a connection to patterns of weather, recycling, plumbing, and human behaviour - it functions ad infinitum.
In this show, the people and gorillas are coded. The 'models' are the unattainable and unfeeling. And the gorillas are the love addicts, pining for their love objects. The landscape refers to Iceland but is the stage where the drama unfolds.
While as an artist in residency (Iceland), I discovered the yuletide lads of Icelandic culture. They are tricksters and children are warned to watch out for them especially at Christmas. In this work these... read more
More information is available in the exhibition page. |
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May 25 - June 26, 2010
* Opening reception will not be held
More information is available in the exhibition page. |
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November 13 - December 17, 2009
Opening Reception:
Friday, November 13 2009, 7:30pm - 10:00pm
New World Aristocracy
With every meeting of two cultures, there is a struggle. There is a desire to make sense of ones identity and the identity of ones home. The colonization of our country was callous and forceful and I cannot bring myself to be proud of those origins. However, even though I feel false to claim a genuine belonging here, this is my home.
New World Aristocracy is a series of drawings that explore the connections between European leaders and the land they conquered. The struggle to choreograph an image that will make sense of the figure's place in this land is apparent. Tactile pieces of imagery, shallowly assimilated from their surroundings, offer the figure symbolic elements. They adorn themselves with expropriated visuals that hold bond to the new land. Yet, however the two elements combine, the juxtapositions always appear surreal. The figures are unnatural and erratic.
The attempt to fabricate a new history representative of ones mixed feelings of belonging, in the end only solidifies and documents the original struggle.
Artist Biography
Born 1985, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
BFA honours. University of Manitoba, 2007
More information is available in the exhibition page. |
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October 13 - 27 November 7, 2009
--- Duration extended ---
(As a part of Send + Receive:
a Festival of Sound [Version 11])
Opening Reception:
Tuesday, October 13 2009, Time to be announced
4'33 Minutes of Stolen Silence
An obvious reference to Cage's classic "4:33", this piece is entirely composed of pauses within recorded compositions of rock, jazz, and classical music. This silence, when enhanced by Blom, proves to be far from silent. Unintentional noises, lingering notes or perhaps even voices are all uncovered and teased out from the gaps between tracks.
Artist Biography
Conny Blom (1974) is a Swedish visual artist based in Gothenburg, Sweden and Bukovje, Slovenia. He took his MFA at the Valand School of Fine Art in Gothenburg 2007, and has already had a long row of relevant exhibitions. During 2007 he participated in the 2nd Moscow Biennale (Matter & Memory Show), and in 2008 he has for example exhibited at Casino Luxembourg, (in Luxembourg) in the exhibition P2P together with amongst others Jonathan Monk, Rodney Graham and Nedko Solakov, and at Centre d'Art Contemporain La Synagogue de Delme in France, with Daniel Buren, Simon Starling, Elmgreen & Dragset, and more, in the show La Marge d'Erreur. In 2009 several solo exhibitions are planned in Sweden as well as in Slovenia.
In his work Conny Blom deals with defining issues of our modern society, our living conditions and the rights of the individual versus the society and the economical forces. Balancing between the poetic and the subversive, Blom uses material from pop culture as well as iconic pieces of contemporary art to comment, question and subvert established hierarchies. By focusing on the otherwise overlooked, the in-between, and the unseen, reediting it into new aesthetic experiences, Blom provides new perspectives and brings into light previously untold stories.
Download the official poster/brochure on .pdf format (includes other send + receive events, installations and thier venues) (887.0KB, 2 pages)
Download the official press release of send + receive on .doc format (88.0KB, 8 pages)
The official website of Send + Receive:
http://sendandreceive.org/
More information is available in the exhibition page. |
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May 22 - June 24, 2009
Opening Reception:
Friday, May 22, 2009, 7:30pm - 10:00pm
Artist Statement:
The Goal is a single work, or several pieces of work, which stem from my recent obsession with the story of Don Giovanni and Soren Kierkegaard's salient essay on the subject from his book Either/Or. The series exists as aphorisms, like cells in a battery; a synecdoche.
The drawings are absurd and pataphysical, they are humorous and also sometimes deeply troubling. Statues that drag our anti-heroes to hell permeate squares where there is no landscape, no context, no consequence, only what is immediately perceived. The Goal exists as a record of an attempt to quantify the lifestyle of the amoral with no intention of judgement. I hope to have created a pictorial record of both myself, as an animal, and a concise study of the aesthetic sphere of existence.
My other drawings act as aphorisms as well, without a perceived theme. Whether they be the humorous images of deer as humans, or small episodes of Franz Kafka as an unlikely forest ranger, these drawings draw on our ability to create a narrative or to ignore the absurdity of them.
More information and some images from the exhibition are available in the exhibition page. |
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March 27 - May 9, 2009
Curated by Przemek Pyszczek
Opening Reception:
Friday, March 27, 2009, 7:30pm - 10:00pm
Raised in La Salle, Manitoba, Natalie Ferguson has always had an awareness of the human interference in a process that seems so natural to most.
The conflict between artifice and natural process in agricultural production is reflected in her series Pom-pom Grow Op. The camera lens distorts reality,
but by imbuing foreign objects into a natural setting, Ferguson celebrates the tension of multiple perceptions by creating installation works that tell stories
about the people that have inhabited spaces and environments that would not otherwise exist.
Although pom-poms are harmless, inviting, and recognizable objects, their appearance in nature and photography is unsettling. In Weightless, the emergence
of pom-poms suggests that they have been born out of some sort of agricultural intervention. The cultivation of these objects then continues in Hay bales,
where the pom-poms are being harvested for whatever properties they possess. Trickling down the food chain, the pom-poms eventually wreak havoc on the
animal world. Are these pom-poms mere objects, are they foodstuffs, or are they intoxicants?
--- Przemek Pyszczek, curator
More information and some images from the exhibition are available in the exhibition page. |
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February 12 - March 21, 2009
More information and some images from the exhibition are available in the exhibition page. |
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December 12, 2008 - Jaunary 24, 2009
More information and some images from the exhibition are available in the exhibition page. |
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October 24 - November 29, 2008
More information and some images from the exhibition are available in the exhibition page. |
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September 10 - October 11, 2008
More information and some images from the exhibition are available in the exhibition page. |
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July 18 - August 16, 2008
The Swag Bag Project looks at gift economy and its role in contemporary art and life. In order to connect the Regina art community in its inflated Open Engagement form with the art community in her hometown, Reeves gathered together a group of Winnipeg artists that made Swag Bags to be gifted to the conference participants.
The nature of a gift is to create social bonds by solidifying connections between giver and recipient. A community, instant or gradual, temporary or lasting, is created through the gifts inherent ability to create such bonds. Just as the gift acknowledges and celebrates the recipient, the giver of the gift must automatically be considered in order to avoid a diminishment of spirit of the individuals and the community.
In this project, the communities in Winnipeg and Regina became bonded through the gifting of the Swag Bags, which are in essence mini retrospective exhibitions of Winnipeg art. As gifts demand to be paid forward through direct reciprocity or gifting to others, a site has been created where this reciprocation can be recognized. This website is the place in which the gift can keep on giving. While some pieces in the Swag Bags have specific instructions on how to reciprocate or use the gift; others...
read more >>
More information and some images from the exhibition are available in the exhibition page. |
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May 16 - June 28, 2008
Artist statement:
The title of this show is based on a series of drawings I have been making for the last year or so. There are a couple of different series that encompass this theme and title, the most prevalent being my compressed series, also known as "Hi-Lited 4 x 4's". It was this series that lead me towards the body of work I am doing now.
The Hi-Lited 4 x 4's began at my desk at work, during one of my coffee breaks. I felt the need to make some art, and had plenty of paper to work on, but could only find a black pen, pencil, and four Hi-Liter markers at my disposal. I decided to make the best with what I had, and started making art (for what ever reason) in a compressed four inch square area on my paper. When ever I had free time at work, I would do another, and eventually I started making them at my studio, and at home. Feeling the itch to work larger, I took the same materials and inspiration, and began expanding the themes and dimensions of these works. The bigger the works have become, the more diverse my materials have also become. You can only push Hi-Liter markers so far (and I have), so I began incorporating pencil crayons, gouache, and acrylics...
read more >>
More information and some images from the exhibition are available in the exhibition page. |
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March 7 - April 25, 2008
RELEASE METAPHORS: Mythos and Messiahs is a two-person exhibition featuring works by Winnipeg-based artist Patrick Treacy and New York City-based artist Jenny Arenson (b. in Winnipeg). Both artists consider escape metaphors that reverberate throughout everyday thought and practice.
Treacy explores escape scenarios involving dogs, wolves and manikins to give form to everyday hopes and anxieties culturally experienced and expressed through myths (Mythos), origin stories, dramas and fictions. The scenarios possess the performative and hypnotic aspects reminiscent of Houdini's stunts. In some of Treacy's works, there also exist subtle references to the story of the founders of Rome, brothers Romulus and Remus, who in their infancy fled from a threat by a resentful patriarch. The twins survived in a wolf den, nursed by an alpha female. These stories point to a more general preoccupation with the highlights in the anthropological history of Western Civilisation.
Arenson paints various individuals (Jewish and non-Jewish) as Hassidic Jews by bestowing on them the identifying marks and accessories such as... read more >>
More information and some images from the exhibition are available in the exhibition page. |
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February 14 - March 5, 2008
More information and some images from the exhibition are available in the exhibition page. |
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December 14, 2007 - January 26, 2008
Opening Reception: Friday, December 14
7:00PM - 10:00PM
Artists in attendance
Winnipeg artist Michael Benjamin Brown's latest series of works consists of sequential ink drawings on paper that aim to capture the essence and the hubs of transatlantic jaunts between Winnipeg and London. Whether these travels are imaginary or actual, Brown fights to give form to the intangible universal core that unites all city-dwelling experiences, sidestepping that which differentiates them. However, it is a particular sort of city that Brown explores; not a vinyl and glass metropolis of today, but a turn-of-the-century capital with a rich heritage of modernity. Brown's illustrations are of London and Winnipeg, but for a fleeting moment the cities in the images could be mistaken for 19th century Chicago, Paris or Berlin. We are given very few visual referents to be able to tell immediately. Brown positions the viewer as looking up at an immense sky, that almost as an afterthought, is populated with building rooftops, exterior siding, trimwork, cornice molding, stone and concrete walls, fire escapes, and grounding antennas. These all-pervasive details suggest a milieu rather than a specific location. read more >>
More information and some images from the exhibition are available in the exhibition page. |
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October 26 - November 30, 2007
Opening Reception: Friday, October 26, 7:00 - 10:30PM
Artists in attendance
Grimhaven
A place unlike and like any other
The vision of Grimhaven is one of beautiful desperation, fascinating decrepitude and inadvertent jocularity. Nestled lovingly between
desolate concrete vistas and the tenuous dreams of urban family mythology, this is a world where irony and transient flotsam collide within the familiar
context of the everyday.
Gordon Arthur is a traveller through this parallel world. Through his captured visions we are witness to the crossing over points in which our
known world and that of Grimhaven merge. He has adroitly captured the essence of his surroundings via a medium that is germane to the subject matter.
More information and some images from the exhibition are available in the exhibition page. |
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September 20 - October 20, 2007
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 20, 5 PM
Artists in attendance
More information and some images from the exhibition are available in the exhibition page. |
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August 15 - September 18, 2007
A two-person exhibition
Opening Reception: Wednesday, August 15, 8 PM
Artists in attendance
More information and some images from the exhibition are available in the exhibition page. |
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July 24 - August 14, 2007
Curated by Aldona Dziedziejko
Opening Reception: Thursday, July 26, 7 PM
Artist in attendance
Winnipegfs visual artist Leslie Supnet seems fascinated with what Susan Sontag, speaking about literature, called the gcreation of inwardness.h
Introspection is the necessary ingredient in all of art making; however, some artists including Supnet seek to a greater degree all that is personal and lyrical.
In her own words, Supnet deals with gvarious subject matter and themes, such as identity, isolation, longing and despair all with a touch of whimsy and the surrealc
h and is subsequently interested in using drawing gas a mechanism to cope with the little tragedies we all face day to day.h A sizeable portion of her still growing oeuvre
is represented at Semai Gallery with the hope of nurturing her artistic production.
Pale Shelter - Drawings by Leslie Supnet at Semai is showing concurrently with the Royal Art Lodge exhibition Where is Here? at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.
But rather than engaging the question of location Pale Shelter considers nostalgia and its subtle range of emotional hues. Supnet shares with the Winnipeg
artist collective their signature affection for fantastic characters, living at an angle to society but nonetheless beguiling, rendered with faux naivete which tempers
their menace. read more >>
More information and some images from the exhibition are available in the exhibition page. |
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June 22 - July 22, 2007
Opening Reception: Friday, June 22, 7:30 - until late
Artist in attendance
Also meet the artist in the afternoon of July 7, 2007 (07.07.07)
The poster advertising Robert Pasternakfs current exhibition of small-scale drawings depicts the artist conjuring up fiery breath,
charming its snake-like coils towards his Solar Plexus - an energy centre of the body that resonates with emotional vitality and awareness.
This dramatic composition signals that in this latest series of pen drawings Pasternak moves towards the presentation of his farsighted
purpose with a magicianfs flare and a prophetfs insight. The forms present in the business-card sized drawings shown here have
preoccupied this Winnipeg artist since the early nineties; and over the years he has been distilling the curvilinear figures down
to their essence, something that he has achieved here. The drawings first began as doodles on napkins in coffee shops, and
they continue here in a similar spirit as a series of framed works done over a period of one month plus a collage of sketches
on bus transfers... read more >>
More information and some images from the exhibition are available in the exhibition page. |
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May 15, 2007
Semai Gallery is proud to distribute MAGNUM OPUS MAGAZINE (a Vancouver-based ART MAGAZINE).
Even better, they are FREE.
We have just received 84 copies of the PREMIRE ISSUE on May 15th. They are beautiful magazines! Drop by to take a copy to enrich your life with art!
For more information about Magnum Opus Magazine and PDF version of the magazine, visit their website http://magnopus.com |
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May 18 - June 15, 2007
Opening Reception: Friday, May 18, 8pm - 9:30pm
cnot a mirror, but a hammerc is a touring exhibition of artist trading cards from around the world exploring the theme
of artist as worker/ worker as artist. Curated from a trade-off held in Parksville, BC in 2006. Co-sponsored by the Parksville MayWorks Festival and the Semai Gallery.
More information and some images from the exhibition are available in the exhibition page. |
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April 13 - May 11, 2007
Digitally altered photographs of Winnipeg
Opening Reception: Friday, April 13, 8 - 11PM
Artist in attendance
More information and some images from the exhibition are available in the exhibition page. |
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March 02 - April 10, 2007
Original watercolor paintings
Opening Reception: Friday, March 02, 8 - 11PM
Artist in attendance
More information and some images from the exhibition are available in the exhibition page. |
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January 26 - February 16, 2007
Original watercolor and ink paintings
Opening Reception: January 26, 7 - 10PM
Artist in attendance
More information and some images from the exhibition are available in the exhibition page. |
January, 2007
Newest GalleriesWest Magazine, Page 43
Semai's up-coming exhibition, drawings by a Japanese artist Natsuko Yoshino, is previewed by an art critique Lorne Roberts in the newest editions of GalleriesWest Magazine.
For details, read the page 43 of the current issue! |
From January 20, 2007
Semai Gallery will appear on Bravo!TV from January 20, 2007, so please keep your eye on TV! |
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December 28, 2006 - January 20, 2007
Reception: December 28, 5 - 8PM
Artist in attendance
More information and some images from the exhibition are available in the exhibition page. |
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December 02 - 16, 2006
Find the best Xmas gifts ever!
Opening Reception: December 02, 7PM - Late
Artists in attendance
Works (available for sale) by
Jennifer Arenson
Derek Brueckner
Paul Butler
Daphne Enns
Cliff Eyland
Adrian Gorea
Takashi Iwasaki
Kazu
Craig Love
Shaun Morin
Paul Robles
Don Ritson
Cyrus Smith
Leslie Supnet
Seth Woodyard
More information and some images from the exhibition are available in the exhibition page.
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November 23 - 30, 2006
Reproductions of original works
and documentation
Opening Reception: November 25, 8 - 10 PM
Artist in attendance
Gorea, originally from Romania, age 27, is presenting numerous duplications of his own drawings,
which he has been collecting since he was very little. The horizontal presentation of his drawings not only fits the narrow space of the gallery,
but it was a necessity to complete his documentation project called "Owninig Winnipeg."
He somehow claims that he owns various parts
of Winnipeg by his act of documentation. What has he done? Find it out in Semai Gallery.
More information and some images from the exhibition are available in the exhibition page. |
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November 02 - 21, 2006
Opening Reception: November 02, 8 - 10 PM
Artist in attendance
Free your creative thoughts and imagination
thatfsneighbour, an installation (assemblage) piece by Kazu is the result of his spontaneous and intuitive response to the objects he has acquired,
responding to the narrow space of the gallery.
As Kazu says, gwhat you see is what it is, and how you feel is what you feel,h interpretation of his work is all up to the viewerfs personal feelings and imagination.
Things in the world are not always about black and white: the gray area in between possesses immense flexibility and potential.
So free your creative thoughts and imagination, and find what his installation piece means to you!
More information and some images from the exhibition are available in the exhibition page. |
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September 26 - October 29, 2006
One of the most prominent young filmmakers in Canada, Noam Gonick has presented films at the Venice International Film Festival,
the Berlin Film Festival, TIFF, Sundance and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Semai Gallery is currently showcasing 135 pieces of his location scouting photographs, photos taken for selecting locations for his films. Take a look at the
film locations (all in Winnipeg) of Hey, Happy! (2001) and Stryker (2004) from a
filmmaker's point of view!
More information and some images from the exhibition are available in the exhibition page.
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July 28, 2006
Semai Gallery's official opening day - 11:00am
(No special reception will be held for the opening.)
Semai Gallery is currently showcasing Iwasaki's own works as a pilot exhibition to examine the function of the gallery space. |
| Copyright © 2006 - 2009 Semai Gallery, Takashi Iwasaki |
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