PRESENCE: Corey Moraes | Brandon Gabriel | Sonny Assu
Corey Moraes
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Brandon Gabriel
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Sonny Assu
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PopUp Newton Gallery
September 24 - October 30, 2016
With generous support from City of Surrey, CAM, and the PopUp Newton Gallery, AgentC Projects worked with Kwakwaka'wakw artist Sonny Assu, and artists Brandon Gabriel and Corey W. Moraes, of Kwantlen and Tsimshian heritage respectively, to create a collaborative project at the Newton PopUp Gallery and creative space in central Surrey.
This exciting collaboration, entitled PRESENCE: Corey Moraes | Brandon Gabriel | Sonny Assu presented Gabriel and Moraes as artists in residence, with Assu mentoring and facilitating the project offsite from Vancouver Island.
In contrast to exhibiting their art in a conventional gallery format, AgentC Projects invited the artists to inhabit the PoUp Newton Gallery and Project Space as a dynamic creative open studio for generating ideas, experimental works and sharing their working processes through community engagement. The artists’ presence in, and appropriation of the white cube gallery, strived to create dialogue that goes beyond the residency.
Artist Talks
Creative City Summit Visit, October 18
Surrey Arts Center, October 18
Contemporary Art Society of Vancouver (CASV), October 22
Thank you to City of Surrey and the Surrey Arts Centre for including us in the Creative City Summit where conversations with Sonny Assu, Corey Moraes and Brandon Gabriel were enjoyed by a packed house at the Surrey Arts Centre, and by delegates who visited the PopUp Newton Gallery. These compelling discussions focussed on the influences of geographical, historical, and colonial narratives on the artist's residencies at the Surrey PopUP Newton Gallery, and how the open-ended format of the residency facilitated their creative response to these histories.
AgentC Projects and the artists also hosted an engaging artist talk and conversation with members of the Contemporary Art Society of Vancouver (CASV).
CURATION | Connie Sabo | Polly Gibbons | Debbie Westergaard Tuepah
September 24 - October 30, 2016
With generous support from City of Surrey, CAM, and the PopUp Newton Gallery, AgentC Projects worked with Kwakwaka'wakw artist Sonny Assu, and artists Brandon Gabriel and Corey W. Moraes, of Kwantlen and Tsimshian heritage respectively, to create a collaborative project at the Newton PopUp Gallery and creative space in central Surrey.
This exciting collaboration, entitled PRESENCE: Corey Moraes | Brandon Gabriel | Sonny Assu presented Gabriel and Moraes as artists in residence, with Assu mentoring and facilitating the project offsite from Vancouver Island.
In contrast to exhibiting their art in a conventional gallery format, AgentC Projects invited the artists to inhabit the PoUp Newton Gallery and Project Space as a dynamic creative open studio for generating ideas, experimental works and sharing their working processes through community engagement. The artists’ presence in, and appropriation of the white cube gallery, strived to create dialogue that goes beyond the residency.
Artist Talks
Creative City Summit Visit, October 18
Surrey Arts Center, October 18
Contemporary Art Society of Vancouver (CASV), October 22
Thank you to City of Surrey and the Surrey Arts Centre for including us in the Creative City Summit where conversations with Sonny Assu, Corey Moraes and Brandon Gabriel were enjoyed by a packed house at the Surrey Arts Centre, and by delegates who visited the PopUp Newton Gallery. These compelling discussions focussed on the influences of geographical, historical, and colonial narratives on the artist's residencies at the Surrey PopUP Newton Gallery, and how the open-ended format of the residency facilitated their creative response to these histories.
AgentC Projects and the artists also hosted an engaging artist talk and conversation with members of the Contemporary Art Society of Vancouver (CASV).
CURATION | Connie Sabo | Polly Gibbons | Debbie Westergaard Tuepah
Through museum interventions, large-scale installations, sculpture, photography, printmaking and paintings, Sonny Assu merges the aesthetics of Indigenous iconography with a pop art sensibility in an effort to address contemporary, political and ideological issues. His work often focuses on Indigenous issues and rights, and the ways in which the past has come to inform contemporary ideas and identities. Assu infuses his work with wry humour to open the dialogue towards the use of consumerism, branding and technology as totemic representation. Within this, his work deals with the loss of language and cultural resources, and the effects of colonization upon the Indigenous people of North America.
His work has been accepted into the National Gallery of Canada, Seattle Art Museum, Vancouver Art Gallery, Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Burke Museum at the University of Washington, Hydro Quebec, Lotto Quebec, The Audain Museum and in various other public and private collections across Canada, the United States and the UK.
Assu is Liǥwildaʼx̱w (We Wai Kai) of the Kwakwaka'wakw nations. He graduated from Emily Carr University (2002) and was the recipient of their distinguished alumni award in 2006. He received the BC Creative Achievement Award in First Nations art in 2011 and was long-listed for the Sobey Art Award in 2012, 2013 and 2015. Assu is an MFA candidate at Concordia University. www.sonnyassu.com
His work has been accepted into the National Gallery of Canada, Seattle Art Museum, Vancouver Art Gallery, Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Burke Museum at the University of Washington, Hydro Quebec, Lotto Quebec, The Audain Museum and in various other public and private collections across Canada, the United States and the UK.
Assu is Liǥwildaʼx̱w (We Wai Kai) of the Kwakwaka'wakw nations. He graduated from Emily Carr University (2002) and was the recipient of their distinguished alumni award in 2006. He received the BC Creative Achievement Award in First Nations art in 2011 and was long-listed for the Sobey Art Award in 2012, 2013 and 2015. Assu is an MFA candidate at Concordia University. www.sonnyassu.com
Corey W. Moraes is of Tsimshian heritage (Lax Kwa’ Laams Band) and belongs to the Raven Clan. His work can be seen in many publications, museums, galleries and private collections in North America, England and Japan. His designs have gained international recognition through the American Museum of Natural History travelling exhibition Totems to Turquoise (2004-2007) and 'Challenging Traditions' exhibition at Ontario's McMichael Gallery, a show that was dedicated to exploring innovative and experimental works from the Northwest Coast.
Additionally, Corey also participated in 'Continuum: Vision and Creativity on the Northwest Coast' at Vancouver's Bill Reid Gallery, which highlighted 23 established Aboriginal artists from BC, Washington State and Alaska. His most recent accomplishment was receiving the 2012 First Peoples' Cultural Council grant for individual artists, as well as the 2010 Aboriginal Traditional Visual Art Award and Grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. He is also featured on an Ornament Magazine (2004) cover story.
“As far as I know, there weren’t any artists in my family. When I was about twenty-five, I started to look back at my own culture, in an exploration of who I was. So I did research in museums, galleries, and books. And I had a moment of epiphany—the old pieces spoke to me in a certain way. I felt a connection between the design and me, and I felt compelled to research it. It’s my hope that every time I create a piece, it will live on long after I’m gone from this earth.” — excerpt from “Totems to Turquoise”, American Museum of Natural History, 2004. https://www.facebook.com/coreywmoraes.tsimshianfinearts
Additionally, Corey also participated in 'Continuum: Vision and Creativity on the Northwest Coast' at Vancouver's Bill Reid Gallery, which highlighted 23 established Aboriginal artists from BC, Washington State and Alaska. His most recent accomplishment was receiving the 2012 First Peoples' Cultural Council grant for individual artists, as well as the 2010 Aboriginal Traditional Visual Art Award and Grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. He is also featured on an Ornament Magazine (2004) cover story.
“As far as I know, there weren’t any artists in my family. When I was about twenty-five, I started to look back at my own culture, in an exploration of who I was. So I did research in museums, galleries, and books. And I had a moment of epiphany—the old pieces spoke to me in a certain way. I felt a connection between the design and me, and I felt compelled to research it. It’s my hope that every time I create a piece, it will live on long after I’m gone from this earth.” — excerpt from “Totems to Turquoise”, American Museum of Natural History, 2004. https://www.facebook.com/coreywmoraes.tsimshianfinearts
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Brandon Gabriel was born in the unceded Kwantlen Territory in the town of Murrayville BC in 1979. Brandon has spent his whole life living in the Kwantlen Nation village in Fort Langley BC.
Brandon was recognized as an artistic prodigy at the age of 12, and has continued his passion and love for art into his adulthood. Having been educated in Cultural Anthropology and Visual Arts at Kwantlen Polytechnic University and Emily Carr University of Art and Design (BFA 2006). Brandon Gabriel has had a successful career as a visual artist, and has exhibited in Hong Kong, England, Scotland, South America, the US, and across Canada. He has won awards of distinction, including a special honour by the Governor-General of Canada (1999), and TD Canada Trust’s Ambassador of Diversity Award for outstanding achievement in Visual Arts. Brandon Gabriel is continuing his practice as an artist, activist, and guest lecturer at many of Greater Vancouver’s esteemed universities, and in local school districts.
Brandon just completed his first solo exhibition in the Spring of 2016 at Centre 64 in Kimberley BC. Brandon has a wife named Melinda who is a Dene/Cree scholar who is completing her MA at University of Victoria in the Indigenous Governance Program. They take part in similar and overlapping artistic, social justice, and activism roles in their respective communities. They share the same visions of healthy and thriving First Nations communities, and have a beautiful daughter named Jamie who was born in March 2016
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