Building thisandthat into Thus
KELLYANN MARIE & ERNIE RENNICK
2022-2023 MFA
The School of Fine Arts offers a studio-based Master of Fine Arts (MFA). This degree supports student working in all genres and forms of visual arts practice including (but not limited to) photography, drawing, fibre, painting, print media, ceramics, time-based practices, and sculpture, all within a framework of critical theory and discourse.
Building thisandthat into Thus presents the work of Kellyann Marie and Ernie Rennick in collaboration with Elmastukwek-based artist David Dyck. Their work explores themes of collaboration, experimental use of material, and community. The artists invite you to touch and interact with their work.
Please be aware that the exhibition includes some nudity and explicit language.
KELLYANN MARIE
Kellyann Marie is an SSHRC-funded student of the Master of Fine Arts program at Grenfell Campus in traditional Mi’kmaw territory known to settlers as Corner Brook, Newfoundland. She is the recipient of the A.G Hatcher Memorial Scholarship recognizes academic excellence, the Dean’s Excellence award, and the director of the bicycle cooperative Corner Broken Spoke. As a long-distance self-supported bicycle tourist, she investigates her roots in southern fringe society as it relates to a Newfoundland birth as a critique of the caste structure and an inspiration for community building. Her body focuses on sustainable works made with ephemeraera at the centre
ERNIE RENNICK
Ernie Rennick is a multidisciplinary, neurodivergent artist. She was raised in Baden, Ontario, within the traditional territories of the Neutral, Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee and Mississauga peoples, protected by the Dish With One Spoon wampum. Ernie now resides in Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador, in traditional Mi’kmaw territory.
Ernie’s optically illusive paintings replicate states of chaos, fleeting thoughts, movement, and connection. Her sculptures use light, colour, and circular forms to create an interactive site. These works are assembled to allow for spinning, facilitating a hypnotizing movement through the use of bolts, gears, and bearings. Created with highly organized methods, the work is intended to offer a safe space that is controlled but also chaotic. Asserting a disruption in the everyday by pulling the viewers into a hypnotized state; an intrigue of the senses.
Diving deeper into the psychology of neurological disabilities has shown Ernie the importance of making spaces that are welcoming, mesmerizing, and inclusive for all ages, abilities, and brain types. Works that permit participants to become entranced, lost in a metaphorical space, and empower them to be distracted provide a window into her own personal experiences
