Visual arts & new media

About the artwork

Creature from the Depths, is a mixed media ledger drawing made using a variety of media and paper ephemera as collage.

This artwork is included in the Here & Now exhibition at the Royal Alberta Museum until September 29, 2024. Learn more about the exhibition.

The AFA acquired this artwork through its Art Acquisition by Application program in 2023. This program is designed to acquire contemporary works of art by any eligible Alberta artist.

Artist statement

The following is an excerpt of Michael Leeb's artist statement. Read the full statement.

Creature from the Depths is a mythical storm creature conjured from an imaginative act of drawing and collage inspired by artistic pareidolia and the use of a vintage nautical map of the pacific Westcoast. This piece is intended to be a metaphorical allusion to colonialism and transformation as depicted by the storm creature devouring a tall ship.

About the artist

Michael J. Leeb is a métis visual artist, writer, and poet (Chippewa Cree/German). Michael is a printmaker (drypoint copper etchings), a papermaker, and creates mixed media drawings/ink paintings and artist books.

His work is included in the collections of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Bruce Peel Special Collections Library of the University of Alberta, Medalta Potteries, and the Ino-Cho Paper Museum (Japan).

About the artwork

Like Me is a series of spray-painted portraits on wooden assemblages made from construction materials that celebrates artists who practice their craft in Edmonton. The reference images for the portraits were sourced from each artist’s social media feed and the materials are "purposely scrappy, as if they pulled off the street."

This artwork is part of a larger series of portraits by AJA Louden entitled Like Me.

This artwork is included in the Here & Now exhibition at the Royal Alberta Museum until September 29, 2024. Learn more about the exhibition.

The AFA acquired this artwork through its Art Acquisition by Application program in 2023. This program is designed to acquire contemporary works of art by any eligible Alberta artist.

Artist statement:

The following is an excerpt of AJA Louden's artist statement. Read the full statement.

Elsa Robinson is a multifaceted artist and the matriarch of a family of important Edmonton artists. Elsa’s sculptural textile works, paintings and collages exploring representations of Black families are particularly inspiring.

As an educator and workshop facilitator, much of Elsa’s life work has involved making art and artistic practices accessible to communities in a way I wish I’d felt as a youth. Two of her children, Shima and Judah, are prolific artists in their own rights, and seeing Elsa’s expanding legacy imbued in her own lineage helped me understand the undeniable value of nurturing and nourishing emerging talent.

Artist profile

AJA Louden  (AJA sounds like 'Ajay', short for Adrian Joseph Alexander) is an artist based in amiskwaciwâskahikan (Treaty 6, Edmonton, Alberta). Born to a family tree with roots split between Jamaica and Canada, Louden is a child of contrast.

Bold and arresting freehand spray-painted portraits of pop culture figures from Jimi Hendrix and Richard Nixon to local heroes like Rollie Miles often alternate with hand-lettered designs and vibrant patterns borne of a background in graffiti. Louden looks to bring a multifaceted, collaborative, and multi-narrative approach to contemporary urban muralism.  

About the artwork

This Dama Charra represents the typical attire known as “Gran Gala” (Grand Gala), characterized by the fine and ornate traditional garments. In the competitive Charreria events, there are nine activities for men and just one for women.

This artwork is included in the Here & Now exhibition at the Royal Alberta Museum until September 29, 2024. Learn more about the exhibition.

The AFA acquired this artwork through its Art Acquisition by Application program in 2023. This program is designed to acquire contemporary works of art by any eligible Alberta artist.

Artist statement

The following is an excerpt of Claudia Jimenez Chagoya's artist statement. Read the full statement. 

Damas Charras is a body of work that represents the cow folk culture in Mexico called Charrería and focuses specifically on women horse riders. The sculptures explore the rich traditions and guidelines that the Damas Charras need to follow for official social events, as well as executing tricks on horses during competitions. This series aims to showcase and elevate the role of these female figures in a male dominated environment.

About the artist

Claudia Chagoya is a Mexican interdisciplinary artist born in Zacatecas, Mexico, and based in Calgary, Canada. She holds an MFA degree from the University of Calgary, and a BFA from Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.  

About the artworks

Wei Li's artworks, Chilli Sauce and Spout Cup are part of a digital series, Vessels which explores the complex intersectionality of hybrid identity. (Click arrows above on either side of the image to see each work.)

These artworks are included in the Here & Now exhibition at the Royal Alberta Museum until September 29, 2024. Learn more about the exhibition.

The AFA acquired these two artworks through its Art Acquisition by Application program in 2023. This program is designed to acquire contemporary works of art by any eligible Alberta artist.

Artist statement

The following is an excerpt of Wei Li's artist statement Read the full statement.

In my digital series, I look for a representational possibility that combines digital aesthetics with traditional art-making sensibilities. By replacing parts of ordinary objects with the human body/skin, I create grotesque anthropomorphic hybrid containers which trigger the viewer’s visceral and emotional responses. The gestures in my works are symbolic and metaphoric. I use the body/skin as material to activate social commentary on identity, diaspora, femininity, motherhood, and popular culture.

Artist profile

Get to know Wei as she shares the stories behind her new digital series, Vessels, and a bit about herself in her AFA Artist Spotlight.

Wei Li is a Calgary-based emerging Chinese Canadian visual artist, whose experience of being a new immigrant to Canada, provides her with crucial inspiration in her artistic practice. Her dual cultural background challenges her to integrate different cultural perspectives in her works and creates tensions through the contradictions inherent in forming a new hybrid cultural identity.

Li graduated in 2017 with BFA in Painting (with Distinction) from the University of Alberta and has participated in several exhibitions and artistic residencies across Canada and the United States of America, including the Sam and Adele Golden Foundation Artist Residency in 2021. Her first major solo exhibition, Curious Things was featured in August of 2017 in the Art Incubator Gallery at Harcourt House Artist Run Centre in Edmonton.

Li was a finalist in the 2017 RBC Canadian Painting Competition with her works showcased at the National Art Gallery in Ottawa. Recently, Wei has expanded her practice to the digital medium. She was the recipient of the prestigious Emerging Digital Artist Award in 2022, and her digital works were acquired as part of the EQ Bank’s digital art collection and were presented at the Trinity Square Video in Toronto.

About the artworks

The three artworks are carved and painted woodcuts on curved oak chair backs salvaged from the renovation of the Martha Cohen Theatre in Calgary. (Click arrows above on either side of the image to see each work.)

These artworks are included in the Here & Now exhibition at the Royal Alberta Museum until September 29, 2024. Learn more about the exhibition.

The AFA acquired these three artworks through its Art Acquisition by Application program in 2023. This program is designed to acquire contemporary works of art by any eligible Alberta artist.

Artist statement

Lisa Brawn is represented in the exhibition by three works. Excerpts from the artist statement for each work are below. 

Black Lagoon P.R. Reputation Laundering

Read the full statement

Black Lagoon P.R. pays homage to bottom feeder opportunists who are able to spin outrageously heinous actions into victimization and even saintliness. We can buy a team of lawyers and communications specialists to re-characterize our ruthless pillaging and carpet bombing as innocuous oatmeal cookies and daisy garlands. Maximalist Public Relation absurdities are an integral component of a dystopian mediascape, and low hanging fruit for parody. 

HELLO, my name is: Fact-based Reality

Read the full statement.

With each of us in our bespoke algorithm-funnelled information silos, the concept of fact-based reality feels like a quaint relic. So elusive yet plausible, it could only be represented as a mythical beast. Is it real? Was it ever real? Once upon a time? Only in Paradise? 

Risk Management for Introverts

Read the full statement.

Here is a viable coping mechanism as demonstrated by The Invisible Man ca. 1933. This one is personal. I have to devise elaborate workarounds to present myself non-anonymously in public. I am predisposed to introversion, and the world is particularly unsafe for LGBTQ2, which I discovered personally by coming out in high school in the 80s. 

About the artist

Lisa Brawn is a Calgary based artist specializing in painted woodcut blocks. Her work is in public collections such as The Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Calgary Civic Art Collection, and The University of Lethbridge collection, as well as in private collections across Canada, Europe, and the United States. Her work has been featured on banners for Calgary Bridges, Calgary Parks, and Fort Calgary, and there is a large scale permanent installation of her woodblocks at Inglewood’s Festival Hall.

A major component of Lisa’s art practice has been exploring the possibilities for alternative art venues and project spaces. Starting in 2001, her artmobile in a 1935 vintage travel trailer was followed by an art salon in Calgary’s Grain Exchange building. Lisa then collaborated with Milo Dlouhy and Angela Inglis to transform a downtown warehouse into an artist-run gallery and Museum of Oddities.

In 2007, Brawn, Dlouhy, and Inglis collaborated on a storefront museum in Art Central, and in 2009 and 2010, Brawn and Inglis collaborated with Jane Grace on an interdisciplinary project space in a hundred year old cottage. In 2009 Brawn transformed a 1962 Airstream into a second mobile gallery, The Bambi Media Machine, which was featured in the film “I Liked You Better Before” directed by Michal Lavi. From 2007 to 2012, Lisa curated a window gallery with Inglis and Grace, known as La Fenêtre.

In her twenty year career as a professional artist, Lisa has been featured in 25 solo exhibitions and participated in more than 40 group exhibitions from Victoria, Seattle and Los Angeles, to Halifax, Chicago and New Orleans. She received international attention for her large scale interactive, solar-powered sculptural installation, Helios, at the Leighton Art Centre, which was featured on CBC’s As It Happens, and picked up by media outlets from Canada to Brazil.

About the artwork

If We Could Meet Again is an appropriation consisting of three exposures onto one medium-format frame. The resulting silver gelatin print was subsequently painted with yellow water colour.

This artwork is included in the Here & Now exhibition at the Royal Alberta Museum until September 29, 2024. Learn more about the exhibition.

The AFA acquired this artwork through its Art Acquisition by Application program in 2023. This program is designed to acquire contemporary works of art by any eligible Alberta artist.

Artist statement

The following is an excerpt of Raeann Kit-Yee Cheung's artist statement. Read the full statement.

The people in the image are Mr. Wong Quai Lun and his wife in the centre, their son, Calvin, and their daughter, Debbie. When Mr. Wong first arrived in Canada in 1921, he worked in the CPR camps. He also worked as a bus boy before he opened his own general store in Royalties, Alberta. The notion of the yellow steam on the image illustrates Mr. Wong's involvement with the CPR and how he never revealed his early immigrant experiences to his children. The recreation of the family portrait is a way to imagine what Mr. Wong might say to his children today, now that they are both adults.

About the artist

Born in Hong Kong and raised in Canada, Raeann Kit-Yee Cheung is a photographer who leans on a dual heritage to create work that is both personal and universal. Having immigrated almost five decades ago, Raeann has come to accept she is neither Chinese nor Canadian, but rather someone who embodies a rich ambiguity that helps her confront melded identities to resolve inner complexities.

Raeann holds a MA in contemporary photography (2021) and resides in the traditional territories of the Treaty 7 region in Southern Alberta, which includes the Blackfoot Confederacy as well as the Tsuut’ina First Nation, and the Stoney Nakoda.