GABBY COATES • SKYLAR EYRE • RAEWYN REID • UII SAVAGE
04 DECEMBER 2020 – 17 JANUARY 2021
HAND PIC’D 2020
VIVIANEART presents HAND PIC’D 2020. The 7th edition of our annual invitational exhibition, HAND PIC’D, continues a precedent of celebrating emerging artists and recent graduates within the local Calgary arts community. Presenting work by Gabby Coates, Skylar Eyre, Raewyn Reid, and Uii Savage, HAND PIC’D 2020 features four artists attempting to navigate and ultimately reject current social constructs through their distinctive practices.
Gabby Coates’ multidisciplinary practice explores female archetypes and pop-culture tropes, particularly in cowboy culture. Working in large-scale oil pastel drawings, found object sculpture, and photography, Coates explores topics of vice, shame, and hedonism and asks, “what does it mean to be a woman (in a hetero-patriarchal society)?” Coates is a recent graduate from the Alberta University of the Arts (2020) with a BFA in Drawing.
Skylar Eyre’s multidisciplinary drawing, sculpture and video practice explore ideas of queer resistance and subversion. Eyre’s work is informed by his rural upbringing and draws from both masculine and feminine iconography as a means to reconcile his own experiences as a queer, cis-gendered male. Eyre is a recent graduate from the Alberta University of the Arts (2020) with a BFA in Painting and has shown with Femme Wave and Five Art & Merchandise.
Raewyn Reid’s art practice exists as an ongoing survey of the pluralities of queer expression and gender identity. Their work investigates the politics of LGBTQ2SIA+ identities, and the complex historical narratives that continue to orient queer bodies as “other”. Reid graduated as valedictorian from the Alberta University of the Arts in 2020 with a BFA in Drawing and a minor in Ceramics.
Uii Savage is a digital media artist who works through video and animation to address virtual intimacy, parasocial relationships, and artificial existence. Their work seeks to uncover and propose an alternative reality of social media networks designed to polarize and disorient. They graduated from the Alberta University of the Arts with a BFA in Media Arts (2020) and were a recipient of the Board of Governors Graduating Student Award.
