Tag Archives: emergingartist

By Graham Wiebe

I’m sitting outside what used to be my studio drinking a terribly sweet, one dollar iced coffee. I’m trying to comprehend that all the artwork I’ve ever made is gone; burnt and lost in the fire. As the ice cubes disappear into the milky, shit water, I imagine myself standing inside my third story studio as the fire is happening. I watch as a decade’s worth of work and the objects I cherished most become a collaborative pile of ash with the twenty-five other artists who also had studios within the space. Continue Reading →

By Rebecca Casalino

Before entering Arezu Salamzadeh’s Fortune Flavors the Bold you must take off your shoes. Sock-footed, you are greeted by glittering red foam installed over the floor of Xpace Cultural Centre’s Project Space. Dark teal walls enclose the gallery, framing crates and shelves of items for sale. Fresh mandarin oranges are available to purchase as snacks, there’s also ginger and colourful ceramic casts of salty fish inside large glass jars. Salamzadeh stands by the cash register (a children’s toy brightly coloured with large cartoonish buttons) tattooed with lucky cats, selling art and chatting with visitors. She wears gold which compliments the New Years pouches decorating the walls and plinths in large blocks of red. Behind her, a gold sign with small red lights reading FORTUNE hangs above a gumball machine. On the other side, a large lucky cat about the same size as the viewer squats beside, as if to snap a picture. Continue Reading →