art + objets d'arts + photography

Artist Statement:

My work addresses psychological and physical transformations, the resultant distortions of the coercive pressures while growing up as a girl, and the effects of being “othered.” Tropes of Western white girlhood and womanhood are explored, deconstructed, and parodied to reveal their fallacies. I am problematizing normative femininity, body policing, and the acculturation into desiring and being desirable. My practice is anchored in narrative and employs pictorial allegory to communicate realities such as birth, death, aging, sexuality, the performance of the body, grief, trauma, fear, joy, and jouissance. I do so through petit récits rather than grand narratives, in order to acknowledge the diversity and multiplicity of human experience, trusting that the personal is a means to making my work available to various identifications. With a feminist perspective informed by contemporary theories of identity, embodiment and subjectivity, I am incorporating the personal and the political; the emotional and the intellectual; the individual and the collective; through first-person narratives of the particular.

I introduce the female body in my work with frank representations of figures and postures that speak to the performance of embodiment, of gender, and of femininity (a situation in a specific socio-historical moment; it is a position women are encouraged, through discourses and categorization, to inhabit and use). In my figures there is a paradoxical coupling of apprehension and ambivalence with adroitness and empowerment, which is unsettling as the works provoke and question, rather than offer conclusions. The figures appear composed for viewing, sometimes self-consciously, however keenly aware that they are posing and performing. Frequently their bodies are strange and unruly, perhaps to compensate for the tasks they must complete. In this way the psychological becomes manifest in the representation of something physical: the body can produce foreign objects; parts become grossly enlarged or disconnected; hybridization or multiplicity are possible. 

I am interested in the accoutrements of the liminal spaces and times in the life of a woman; the transitions and rites of passage and the markers or signifiers of a new ontological or social status. Examples are tiaras, pearls, rituals related to bodies, changing physicality, and ceremonial clothes or uniforms. My work is blasphemous: I take symbols of proper, normative femininity and make them transgressive within contexts in which the female protagonists resist and reinvent their meanings. I am connecting my youth with contemporary girlhood and making narrative associations with a sympathetic Sister Gaze. Frequently in my work groups of girls and women are working together toward a shared enterprise, the ultimate goal is not explicitly clear but there are indications that their purpose is righteous even if their means at times appear pernicious. The girls and women I represent have gone rogue, selecting their own agendas and goals, but use the skills and knowledge they have accrued in their education as girls. I exploit Christian religious symbols and make sacrilegious conflations between miracles and magic in an attempt to make sense of the input from various bodies of authority, including the Christian church and Western culture at large, alongside specifically female embodiment and experience. It is important for me that the work conveys autonomy in its figures, but that this self-determination is precarious. 

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Educational Background

Master of Fine Arts, Visual Arts

University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, 2018

Master of Fine Arts, Studio Program

New York University, New York, New York, First semester completed, 2007

Honourary Bachelor of Fine Arts, Studio, Cum Laude,University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, 1997

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2018    Parables of the Daughters, Enriched Bread Gallery, Ottawa, ON

2015    The Debutantes, Wall Space Gallery, Ottawa, ON

2015    The Debutantes, Interntaional Gallery of Contemporary Art, Anchorage, Alaska, USA   

2012    Apis Regina, Arbor Gallery, Vankleek Hill, ON

2007    Girlhood Jag, Karsh Masson Gallery, Ottawa, ON

2007    Hope Chest, Centrepointe Theatre Gallery, Ottawa, ON

Selected Group Exhibitions

2018    Empty Aviary, Gallery 115, University of Ottawa, ON

2017    Working Space, Gallery 115, University of Ottawa, ON

2017    MFA Introduction, Gallery 115, University of Ottawa, ON

2016    Le pARTy, Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa, ON

2014    Flesh Garden, MILK AMSTERDAM, Amsterdam, NL

2014    Inspiring Change, Wall Space Gallery, Ottawa, ON

2013    Illustrated Worlds, Studio Sixty Six, Ottawa, ON

2012    National Geographic Goes Ghetto, La Petite Mort Gallery, Ottawa, ON
            
2012    Flesh Garden, La Petite Mort Gallery in collaboration with YESSR, Santiago (Chile), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Ottawa, ON
                        
2012    Exquisite Corpse, La Petite Mort Gallery, Ottawa, ON

2012    Moveable Feast, La Petite Mort Gallery, Ottawa, ON

2011    Shaken, But Not Stirred, Enriched Bread Gallery, Ottawa, ON

2011    Drawn: Contemporary Drawings, Enriched Bread Gallery, Ottawa, ON             
2011    A Common Beauty, Heartwood House Gallery, Ottawa, ON

2010    The Stables Annual Open Studio, Ottawa, ON

2010    Group Show, Gora Gallery, Montreal, QC

2009    New Year, New Work, Dale Smith Gallery, Ottawa, ON

2007    M.A. Student Group Exhibit, NYU, New York, NY

2007    Community Threads, Mississippi Valley Textile Museum, Almonte, ON                               
2007    Love Me Goodbye (with Meaghan Haughian), Pukka Gallery, Ottawa, ON                    

2006    New Works, Pukka Gallery, Ottawa, ON

2005    Portraits in Circumstance, Ottawa School of Art Gallery, juried annual contemporary group exhibit, Ottawa, ON                

Awards and Honours

·      René Payant Award, University of Ottawa, 2018

·      Charles Gagnon Master’s Fine Arts Award, 2018

·      University of Ottawa Graduate Research Travel Grant, 2017

·      Scholarship, University of Ottawa, MFA, 2016

·      City of Ottawa Professional Artist Funding Grant, 2015

·      Ontario Arts Council Exhibition Grant, 2015

·      Kama Pigments Award, Figureworks, 2014

·      City of Ottawa Professional Artist Funding Grant, 2006

·      First Prize, Visual Arts Prize, University of Ottawa, Juried by Olivier Asselin, Lynne Cohen, Philip Fry, Roland Poulin, Leslie Reid, and Michael Schreier, 1997                      

·      Deans Honour List, University of Ottawa, 1997

·      Cum Laude, University of Ottawa, 1997

·      Scholarship, University of Ottawa, Visual Arts Program, 1993

Lectures and Public Speaking 

·      Artist Talk, The Debutantes, Wall Space Gallery, 2015

·      Artist Talk, International Gallery of Contemporary Art, AK, USA, 2015                 
·      Interview, CHUO-FM, Click Here with Mitchell Caplan, 2013

·      Interview, CBC Ottawa Morning with Ashley Burke, 2009

·      Interview, CKCU-FM, Special Blend with Susan Johnston, 2005, 2006, 2007             

Bibliography

·      Andrea Fitzpatrick, Extensivity and Vulnerability in the Paintings of Sharon VanStarkenburg, Parables of the Daughters Catalogue, 2018     

·      Rose Ekins, Those Females Who Can Wreck the Infinite: Feminist Abjection in the Artwork of Sharon VanStarkenburg, Parables of the Daughters Catalogue, 2018
                       
·      Art Reveal Magazine, Artist Profile, February 15, 2017

·      Jake Pitre, Artist Profile, Antidote Magazine, September 24, 2016

·      Paul Gessell, “Talk of the Town”, Ottawa Magazine, 2016 edition

·      Fresh Paint Magazine, Featured Artist, USA & UK, issue 10, 2015

·      Peter Simpson, “Powerful Girls Will Not Be Sexualized”, The Ottawa Citizen, September 15, 2015         

·      Untitled Publications, Feature Artist, 2014

·      Claire Adas, “Body/Image”, artspan, 2014

·      Tony Lofaro, “Sharon VanStarkenburg: Queen Bee Rules”, The Ottawa Citizen, March 10, 2014                 

·      Artist Feature, Cu Van Ha, Preston Catalogue, No.8, Ottawa, ON, 2007             

·      Allison Collins, Artswatch, “Applauding Hintonburg’s Burgeoning Art Scene,” The Ottawa Express, September 21, 2006             

·      Jennifer Campbell, “Pukka Reprise,” The Ottawa Citizen, September 18, 2006                         

·      Erin Kelly, “Ottawa South Artist Busy on the Local Art Scene,” The News Huntclub-Riverside, September 22, 2005        

·      Susy Kendrick, “Unsung Heroes and Circumstance.” The Charlatan, September 8, 2005 (review)         

Career Related Experience

·      Residency: Chateau Orquevaux, Orquevaux, France, June 2019

·      Professor, Design Studies, Algonquin College, Ottawa, ON, September 2018 to present                     

·      Professor, Introduction to Fine Arts, Algonquin College, Ottawa, ON, January 2018 to present
            
·      Teaching Assistant in BFA program, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, 2016 to 2018         

·      Instructor, Ottawa School of Art Diploma Program, Ottawa, ON, 2016 to present
            

·      Cofounder/Host of Dr. Sketchy Life Drawing Sessions at The Mercury Lounge, Ottawa, ON, 2009-2014                     

·      Teacher, various art media/techniques, Wallack’s, Ottawa, ON 2012

·      Curator/Administrator of Exquisite Corpse, La Petite Mort Gallery, Ottawa, ON, 2012         

·      City of Ottawa Jury Member for City Hall and Karsh Masson Galleries, 2011/2012 Exhibition Season                    

·      Representation by Dale Smith Gallery 2008-2010

·      Guest Curator on behalf of The Royal Netherlands Embassy in Ottawa, ON, Dutch Courage: Images of Lineage, 2007                 

·      Founding member of Red Salon Artists, 2005-2010

·      Exhibition Assistant, Moving and Storage, Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa, ON, 1999                    

·      Apprenticeship with Catherine Richards, Charged Hearts, National Gallery of Canada, 1997           

·      Curatorial Assistantship, Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa, ON. Assistant to Sylvie Fortin, Curator of Contemporary Art, 1996-1997        

·      Gallery Administrator, Gallery 115, University of Ottawa, 1996-1997