Nicole Kelly Westman

Contemporary Art Practices: Visual Arts Summer Intensive is a three-week scholarship program for young artists aged 15 to 19. Hosted by [Arts Umbrella](https://www.artsumbrella.com/programs/art/scholarship-programs/visual-art-summer-intensive/) and the Contemporary Art Gallery, the course supports participants in developing an art practice that critically engages with the world around them.

In the midst of both a second year of the COVID-19 pandemic and human-caused climate change continuing to have observable effects on our daily lives, this year’s students were invited to explore relationships between nature and culture. Taking inspiration from contemporary art and artists investigating similar concerns, the students worked with guest artists Nicole Kelly Westman and Khan Lee over two workshops, providing them with opportunities to deepen their thematic explorations while expanding their engagement with professional arts contexts. Human Nature showcases the results, bringing together the projects of the program’s 2021 cohort across three platforms: here online; in an exhibition at Arts Umbrella; and in printed matter available for free in CAG’s bookshop and at Arts Umbrella.

### Participating Artists

Lily Jones, Maya Lazar Mulabdich, Kaitlyn Lu, Sean Mortenson, Simon Tanglao, Isabelle Trenton, Tatyanna Wilke, Wren Williams, Amy Si Yuan Wong, Mikaela Wong

### Facilitating Artists

Hyung-Min Yoon and Kit Liu

### Guest Artists

Khan Lee and Nicole Kelly Westman 

### Organized by

Roxanne Gagnon, Danielle Green, Jesse Wardell, Katty Wu




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Visual Arts Summer Intensive 2021

Human Nature

Each season, CAG releases a series of Video Visits that offer short takes on our exhibitions. Presented in five languages — Cantonese, English, French, Mandarin and Spanish — these videos present a variety of perspectives on the work of Nicole Kelly Westman and Christine Howard Sandoval.
 
### English Video Visits
[Nicole Kelly Westman: muddled mirage of memories escaping encapsulation](https://vimeo.com/519181266)
[Christine Howard Sandoval: A wall is a shadow on the land](https://vimeo.com/519180839)
 
### Visites vidéo en français
[Nicole Kelly Westman: muddled mirage of memories escaping encapsulation](https://vimeo.com/518298227)
[Christine Howard Sandoval: A wall is a shadow on the land](https://vimeo.com/518298159)
 
### Visitas de video en español
[Nicole Kelly Westman: muddled mirage of memories escaping encapsulation](https://vimeo.com/518246658)
[Christine Howard Sandoval: A wall is a shadow on the land](https://vimeo.com/518246403)
 
### 普通话视频之旅
[Nicole Kelly Westman: muddled mirage of memories escaping encapsulation](https://vimeo.com/518389750)
[Christine Howard Sandoval: A wall is a shadow on the land](https://vimeo.com/518389702)
 
### 粵語視頻參觀
[Nicole Kelly Westman: muddled mirage of memories escaping encapsulation](https://vimeo.com/518364153)
[Christine Howard Sandoval: A wall is a shadow on the land](https://vimeo.com/518364087)

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Spring 2021

Video Visits

Alongside Nicole Kelly Westman’s exhibition *muddled mirage of memories escaping encapsulation*, the artist invites two colleagues, friends and sisters—curators Peta Rake and Katarina Veljovic—to speak together about artistic practice and the fruitfulness and responsibility of centering care in arts communities. What does it mean to hold sustaining and porus relationships in an art community? Are there ways we can lean into vulnerability and intimacy in these relationships? What might it look like to witness the often invisible labour of garnering trust and respect?

### Biographies

Nicole Kelly Westman is a visual artist of Métis and Icelandic descent that recognizes with indebted gratitude the artists that came before her and strenuously forged space, the curators that place care at the fore of their labour, the communities that foster confidence in her practice, and the institutions and organizations that implement policies prefacing relations of trust. As an artist, she enjoys practices of listening, watching, hosting, poeticizing, foraging, and sharing.

Peta Rake currently lives and works in Meanjin, Brisbane and Cavanbah, Byron Bay. She is the Senior Curator at University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane. She has held various roles at CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco; Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane; and at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, including Co-Director of Creative Residencies, Visual + Digital Art Department and Curator of Walter Phillips Gallery/Banff International Curatorial Institute. Peta writes and edits regularly; she has most recently contributed poetry for artists Caroline Monnet, Maggie Groat and Morison Studio for their upcoming publications. Her writing has appeared in C Magazine, Canadian Art, Fillip, San Francisco Arts Quarterly, Rearviews, Institutions by Artists, On Apology and the literary compendium “She would roll petite cigarettes, petite like her” with Jordanian curator Ola El Khalidi. Rake holds a Masters in Curatorial Practice from California College of the Arts.

Katarina Veljovic is a Toronto/Tkaronto based arts organizer and occasional curator, currently working as an Exhibitions Project Manager at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Previous to this role she worked as the Curatorial Research Assistant at the AGO for the exhibitions *Hito Steyerl: This is the future and Haegue Yang: Emergence*. She was the Curatorial Research Associate at the Art Gallery of York University, for the production of Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca’s film *RISE* (2018). While working at the Walter Phillips Gallery at the Banff Centre, she co-curated with Peta Rake, Nicole Kelly Westman’s exhibition *Rose, Dear* (2016). In 2019, she curated and commissioned two new works from Westman for the group exhibition *On Pause* presented at York University’s Gales Gallery as part of her master’s degree in Art History.


A photograph of Nicole Kelly Westman, Peta Rake, and Katarina Veljovic sitting in a row in front of Nicole’s red curtain. 

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Nicole Kelly Westman with Peta Rake & Katarina Veljovic 

Talk 


We are pleased to announce our latest installment of CAG Reads, a book club where artists invite us to read alongside them. Each month an artist proposes a text for our collective reading pleasure, culminating in a virtual hangout where the artist leads a wide-ranging discussion grounded in their chosen reading material. 

This month, CAG Reads will be hosted by Nicole Kelly Westman. Nicole is a visual artist of Métis and Icelandic descent that recognizes with indebted gratitude the artists that came before her and strenuously forged space, the curators that place care at the fore of their labor, the communities that foster confidence in her practice, and the institutions and organizations that implement policies prefacing relations of trust. As an artist, she enjoys practices of listening, watching, hosting, poeticizing, foraging, and sharing. 

Nicole has chosen a series of short excerpts from Audre Lorde’s Poetry is Not a Luxury (1985), Maggie Nelson’s Jane: A Murder (2005), Maria Campbell’s Halfbreed (1973) and “A Gun for Every Girl (Prologue)” from Virginie Despente’s (back-in-print!) King Kong Theory (2006). 

Reading these texts in advance of the event is entirely optional—Nicole will read excerpts from each text as part of her session, so prior familiarity with them isn’t necessary to participate. For those who do wish to read the excerpts in advance, copies will be made available in PDF prior to the session.

### Getting the texts

Copies of Nicole’s selections will be made available to registrants in PDF. For those wishing to pick up complete copies of the texts, *Poetry is Not a Luxury* can be read [here](https://makinglearning.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/poetry-is-not-a-luxury-audre-lorde.pdf). *[Jane: A Murder](https://softskull.com/dd-product/jane/)*, *[Halfbreed](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/610927/halfbreed-by-maria-campbell/9780771024092)* and *[King Kong Theory](https://fitzcarraldoeditions.com/books/king-kong-theory)* can be found at the [Vancouver Public Library](https://www.vpl.ca/) or from [Pulp Fiction](http://pulpfictionbooksvancouver.com/) or [Massy Books](https://www.massybooks.com/). Please allow up to 3 weeks for shipping.


Three books are placed on a red flat surface. From the left to the right, Audre Lorde’s Poetry is Not a Luxury, Maggie Nelson’s Jane: A Murder, and Maria Campbell’s Halfbreed. 

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Nicole Kelly Westman presents Audre Lorde, Maggie Nelson, Maria Campbell, and Virginie Despentes

CAG Reads

The practice of Nicole Kelly Westman is anchored in an ongoing concern with the conditions of image-making. Although Westman only occasionally uses cameras or produces anything akin to a photograph, her work deftly engages the tools, techniques and principles of photography to question the objectivity of the recorded moment. 

Light, in particular, is an essential collaborator for Westman. The glow of a sunbeam filtered through treetops; a city street at night, awash in the haze of sodium vapour lamps; the chromatic brilliance of a sunset: light for Westman is an opportunity to index the energies and intimacies that constitute any given moment and the ways in which it is perceived, documented and assigned meaning.

In *muddled mirage of memories escaping encapsulation*, Westman presents a series of three works across CAG’s façade windows, each of which nods to the ways memory is shaped, staged and recalled. Referencing the backdrop, the mirror, the gel, and the cucoloris — each used in the photographic process to produce “ideal” images — these works offer a patient counterpoint to the fixity of the standalone photograph, drawing our attention to the felt structures found in light and shadow, sentiments that often elude being captured, shot, or taken. 

### Biography 

Nicole Kelly Westman is a visual artist of Métis and Icelandic descent that recognizes with indebted gratitude the artists that came before her and strenuously forged space, the curators that place care at the fore of their labour, the communities that foster confidence in her practice, and the institutions and organizations that implement policies prefacing relations of trust. As an artist, she enjoys practices of listening, watching, hosting, poeticizing, foraging, and sharing.


ProgramGuideWinter2021-small.pdf

ExhibitionGuideNicoleKellyWestman.pdf

A photograph showing diffuse orange light dappled with shadows against a reddish brown background. The warm light forms a loose rectangular shape with undefined borders in the centre of the image.

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Exterior image of the Contemporary Art Gallery displaying the work of Nicole Kelly Westman in the windows. The eight windows on the first floor are lit, highlighting various coloured backdrops.

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Exterior image of the Contemporary Art Gallery displaying the work of Nicole Kelly Westman in the windows. The eight windows on the first floor are lit, highlighting various coloured backdrops. 

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Exterior of the Contemporary Art Gallery displaying the work of Nicole Kelly Westman in the windows. The eight windows on the first floor are lit, highlighting various coloured backdrops.

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Detail shot of the exterior of the Contemporary Art Gallery displaying the work of Nicole Kelly Westman in a window. One window on the first floor is lit from the bottom displaying a red backdrop.

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muddled mirage of memories escaping encapsulation

Nicole Kelly Westman

Exhibitions

Talks & Events