Visiting Artist series set to launch at VIU

Connie Watts will the be the first artist to visit Vancouver Island University as part of the Fall 2008 Visiting Artist Series.

Watts is a mixed media artist of Nuu-Cha-Nulth, Kwakwaka’wakwa and Gitxsan ancestry from the West Coast of Vancouver Island.

“Having the opportunity to showcase an important, emerging aboriginal artist from British Columbia will be of great interest to VIU’s significant First Nations student body, campus population and surrounding community,” said Ellen McCluskey, coordinator of the series and professor in the art and design department at VIU. “We are excited to have her visit our campus.”

Watts’ body of work includes free standing sculptural, wall and hanging constructions, and functional art composed of metal, wood, glass and fabric. She also works with animated films, Nuu-Chah-Nulth language books and clothing design.

Her imaginatively conceived and superbly executed art images and objects are populated with animal protectors and other indigenous iconography, forms, and symbols, incorporating aspects of space, time, mythology, and elements of play. The work is deeply informed by personal experience, familial relationship, issues of identity and language, the tension between modernity and cultural connection, and the search for authenticity.

“I view my artwork as an essence of life that connects all together,” said Watts. “I like to work towards a complex purity of form that frees the work from a singular perspective. It becomes more evident, as I explore work that resembles my most inner self.  I like to feel that each individual work has its own life.”

The visiting artists talks are free of charge and open to the public. The Visiting Artist Series is a wonderful opportunity to view the work of contemporary artists working in a variety of media - from drawing and painting, sculpture and installation, to video and stop-motion animation - and whose art practices address a broad range of interests and issues.

Watts will speak at VIU on October 24 from 7:00-8:30 pm in bldg. 200, room 203. The second visiting artist will be metal lace artist Cal Lane, who will speak November 20 from 4:30 – 6:30 pm. For further information about the Fall 2008 Visiting Artist Series at Vancouver Island University, please contact Ellen McCluskey at ellen.mccluskey@viu.ca or 250-753-3245 (local 2397). For more detailed information about Connie Watts or to view images of her artwork, visit her website at www.conniewatts.com

The Fall 2008 Visiting Artist Series at Vancouver Island University is made possible through the generosity of our sponsors:  Vancouver Island University’s Office of Aboriginal Education, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, and the Department of Art and Design.