01 - Main Space

Love Behind the Lens / Group Exhibition

09.08.2026 - 11.04.2026

Opening reception 09.10.2026

Exhibition Statement

Love Behind the Lens was conceived as a project meant to create a space of emotional freedom amidst increasingly pressurized creation. Responding to expectations placed on Artists and Individuals of Colour to represent entire cultures through the depiction of their pain, this project seeks to introduce some balance to the narratives surrounding racialized life by placing focus on joy and belonging. Participants were each given a disposable camera with the intention that they capture scenes from their everyday life that evoke happiness. 

Special thanks to artists Maria Christie Angelika Buenaventura, Jay Jama, Angelyn Emeanuo, Allam El-Dib, Behina Tabatabaei, MelVee X, Thea Galang, Efosa Afe, and presenter Ose Irete. This project belongs to you.

02 - LRT Space

Fragments / Sota Shinozawa

09.14.2026 - 10.26.2026

Exhibition Statement

Fragments is a series of drawings that I have been developing over the past year, since moving from Japan to Canada and beginning my studies at AUArts.

The series is composed of fragments collected from everyday life, including photographs, screenshots, text, and personal memories originating from different times and places. These fragments are gathered and reconfigured within a single image. Once placed outside their original environments and contexts, they begin to influence one another, opening up new relationships and associations.

While this method shares similarities with collage, this series explores it through drawing. Because each line and mark becomes part of the evolving composition, the work develops through a continual movement between planning and improvisation. At the same time, variations in line density, layering, and transparency allow the drawings to form complex visual relationships that differ from those of physical collage.

The series brings together images collected while living in Japan with experiences accumulated through life at AUArts. The meanings these works may generate remain fluid, staying open to multiple interpretations and changing understandings over time. Through this exhibition, I explore the coexistence of a materially fixed pictorial structure and conceptually shifting meanings. This exhibition also serves as a record of the series at this point in time, which may be revisited in the future as interpretations continue to change.

Artist Statement

Sota Shinozawa is a Calgary-based artist and international student from Japan studying Fine Arts at Alberta University of the Arts. Working primarily in painting and drawing, his practice explores how meaning emerges and shifts through viewers’ interpretations. Even after a work is completed, examining the decisions made during its creation and observing how its meaning may shift remain important parts of his practice.

Instagram: @sotashinozawa