Deer Lake Artist Residency Summer Series
On behalf of the Deer Lake Artist Residency, we are pleased to host open studios and artist talks this summer at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts.
Open Studios
Peek into the studios of current Deer Lake Artists in Residence on Saturday, August 24 from 12-5 pm at Mathers House and the Steam Plant.
- Free (no registration required)
- Participating artists: Michaela Bridgemohan, Karie Cardamone, Sun Forest, Mao Projects, Otani Workshop, Melodie Reay
- Please note that photography of artists and artworks is prohibited
Reading in Deer Lake Park
Join former creative writing Deer Lake Artists in Residence Hari Alluri, Adèle Barclay, and Elena Johnson for a reading on Monday, August 26 at 7 pm in Studio 103.
- Free (no registration required)
Artist Talks: Mao Projects and Melodie Reay
Join us for presentations by ceramic artists and current Deer Lake Artists in Residence, Mao Projects (Calgary) and Melodie Reay (Los Angeles) on Tuesday, September 10 from 7-9 pm in Studio 103.
- Free (no registration required)
- Space is limited. Seating is first come, first served
Otani Workshop: Ceramics Demonstration and Discussion
Join us for a ceramics demonstration and discussion with Japanese artist and current Deer Lake Artist in Residence, Otani Workshop on Thursday, September 12 from 7-9 pm in Studio 103. Hosted in partnership with the Vancouver Art Gallery.
- Free (no registration required)
- Space is limited. Seating is first come, first served.
Deer Lake Artists in Residence
Karie Cardamone has lived her entire life in beautiful Burnaby, British Columbia. She grew up respecting the environment and loving all of nature’s many creatures. Karie practices out of Shadbolt Center for the Arts and is a member of the Burnaby Potters’ Guild, where she has translated her wonder for nature into ceramic art. Her sculptures are all hand built and range in sizes from one inch to four feet tall. Karie continues to strive to evoke feelings of empathy and love for nature through her work, her main theme being that all of nature’s creatures need a place to call home.
Mao and Chris met while completing their Masters of Fine Arts Degrees at the University of Calgary in 2017. The artists and life partners began collaborating in their home studio in Calgary in 2020, shortly thereafter creating the collaborative studio, Mao Projects. Combining different cultural backgrounds, Mao being born and raised in China and Chris having grown up on the west coast of Canada, the artists look to create works that reflect upon their individual and shared perspectives. They have attended residencies together in Canada and have exhibited collaborative works within Canada, the US and Asia.
Image credit: Danny Luong
Born in 1980 in Shigaraki, Shiga Prefecture, Japan, Shigeru Otani (Otani Workshop) lives and works on Awaji Island, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. Otani graduated from Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts in 2004. Following his studies, he worked for Yoshitomo Nara and continued his own practice. In 2008, he began exhibiting as Otani Workshop. At this time, he was introduced to Takashi Murakami, who became his unfailing champion and advocate. In 2017, Otani left the city of Shigaraki, and moved his studio to a refurbished ceramic tile factory on Awaji Island in the Seto Inland Sea.
Image credit: Artist Otani Workshop at his solo exhibition Tanilla Tanilla Tanilla, held at Kaikai Kiki Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, from January 12 to February 24, 2024, Photo: Tomohiko Tagawa, © Otani Workshop/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Melodie Reay is an artist and educator living in Los Angeles. She received her BFA in ceramics and photography at Concordia University in Montreal, and her MFA in ceramics at Louisiana State University. Compelled by the indexical nature of clay, her work explores ideas of documentation and preservation based on impressions of her surroundings. Throughout her artistic career she has worked as a ceramics technician, university adjunct professor, instructor for community outreach programs for all ages, assistant gallery director, and small business owner. Her work has been shown internationally and she has been the recipient of several scholarships and awards. She was the artist in residence at AARK in Finland in 2016, MAWA in Winnipeg in 2019, and Vermont Studio Center in 2024.
Michaela Bridgemohan is an interdisciplinary artist of Jamaican and Australian descent who grew up in Calgary A.B., but now gratefully resides on Syilx territory, in Kelowna, B.C. She received her BFA in Drawing (with Distinction) from the Alberta University of the Arts, and holds a MFA in Visual Arts from the University of British Columbia Okanagan. Through her paternal Caribbean heritage, Bridgemohan’s artistic research is driven to reinscribe new notions of multiplicity and multi-dimensionality within Black identity in Canada. She includes cultural ways of making as a legitimate form of artistic expression and creative power.
Sun Forest is an interdisciplinary artist whose work is informed by a lifetime of movement through the United States, Canada, and South Korea. Working across sculptural materials, video, performance, and new media, Sun’s work engages with conditions of racial violence and social inequity, as well as our collective capacity to enact resilience and propose new orientations within our bodies and ecologies. Sun has participated in numerous residencies including BANFF, Belkin Art Gallery, Quantum Matter Institute, Diasporic Futurisms, Griffin Art Projects, Centrum, and the Arctic Circle. She currently works within the practice-based PhD in Contemporary Arts program at Simon Fraser University.