Artist in Residence Artist Talk: Singithi Kandage

  • Wednesday, May 27, 2015
  • 7:00pm – 8:00pm
  • MAWA, 611 Main Street

Singithi Kandage’s most recent body of work, Picturae, consists of a series of freeform canvases which bend the material- and medium-specificity of painting. During her residency at MAWA, she plans on incorporating quotidian found objects as a raw material in the place of traditional painting supplies. These objects may include umbrellas, wooden cooking utensils, Persian rugs and pattern textiles, and even the claw‐and‐ball feet of ornately‐carved antique sofas. In each case, the objects will be chosen for their emphasis on the rich languages of ornament, elements that are both absent from modern Anglo‐American culture and ubiquitous within immigrant households.

Kandage hopes to explore ornament as a simultaneously lost, derided, and exoticized visual language in conjunction with the complex psychological nature of immigrant homes adapting to new contexts. While in Winnipeg she will be working in the Auxillary Space at aceartinc.

Presented in partnership with South Asian Visual Arts Centre (SAVAC), Toronto, and aceartinc.

  • Singithi Kandage is an emerging artist, who received her BFA with Distinction from OCAD University (2013), and who has participated in residencies at the Banff Centre and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Her painting practice relies on pattern, ornament and natural imagery to engage with a range of discourses, from environmental history to diasporic identity to urban development. She has exhibited at XPACE, Gallery 1313 and the White House Studio Project in Toronto. Her work has also appeared in Canadian Art, The Hart House Review, and various independent publications. Visit her website at singithikandage.com.