Emergence / Brace Grandjambe, Leo Derzaph, and Kendra Sleeman

11.10.2023 - 12.08.2023

01 - Exhibition Statement

Emergence is a showcase of multiple skills and ways of engaging with the world. We seek to bring understanding to the areas we focus on in our works and to bring questions that resonate deeply with our practices to the forefront. Our experiences inform how we create work and navigate the world around us. We invite you to engage with the questions asked and see what kind of conversation can emerge.

Brace Grandjambe
I am an Indigenous woman from Fort Mckay, a reserve in Northern Alberta. Being a post-conceptual artist, I use colors that speak to me, or what I associate the concept with. Identity, Indigeneity, and mental health are important to me. By discussing longstanding issues involving Indigenous people, I am allowing others to hear my voice, and encourage them to use their voice. Community has also been a focus in my recent ideas/work, and I enjoy creating art with the youth within my community. Generational trauma, MMIW, and racism continue to be issues to this day, and I discuss and work through my experiences of being a Native woman and living in a large city. I work with materials that reflect myself and what I am trying to convey. It is important to use materials specific to my culture and lifestyle so I can start Indigenizing the world around me. Floral patterned fabrics, ribbons, moose hide, and seed beads are some examples of materials that are often used when creating art in my culture. I am starting to work with materials that are tactile, as it is important that the viewer can touch the piece of art. By engaging with the piece through touch, one can appreciate the work in a new way, along with seeing the artwork in front of them. Organic shapes are important to me and are often found in my art when I create environments and natural objects. The curvy, flowy lines are reminiscent of wind and water, natural elements that are important in Indigenous culture. I have been more aware of myself as an Indigenous artist since moving to a large city, and the experimentation of various materials and processes is a large contribution for the deciding factor of finding my place as an Indigenous artist in the art world.

Leo Derzaph

My practice is based on personal experience, and the expression of pain one is meant to keep hidden. I make work from the perspective of a transmasculine artist facing transphobia daily, and the response my mental health has to these events. My work deals with dysphoria, dissociation, and how they can respond to each other. It is visceral to view, uncomfortable to engage with, and painful to create. My work is born from discomfort. It should invoke as much.

Kendra Sleeman
Kendra is a forth year ceramic student at the Alberta University of the Arts. Ceramics allowed Kendra to discover how to view art in a three-dimensional aspect, while combining two-dimensional features, like, illustrations onto the surface design of these forms. Ceramics provides a challenge, keeping Kendra on her toes, not to hold onto every piece, as it could break at any stage of the creating process. Kendra is currently exploring German folk art and the form of steins. Delving into the history of both and combing them, bringing her own message and story into the pieces.