Melanie Colosimo

CFAT Blog can now be found here: http://www.melanieatcfat.wordpress.com

Keep checking for updates!

I was just accepted as the Local Artist In Residence at the Centre for Art Tapes (CFAT) here in Halifax! I’ll be keeping a blog page, tracking her progress here… Until I get started, check out the PR below:

2012 Local Artist in Residence
Thursday, March 08, 2012 9:00 AM – Wednesday, March 14, 2012 5:00 PM
1657 Barrington St. suite 220, Halifax NS
The Centre for Art Tapes is pleased to announce Melanie Colosimoas 2012 Local Artist in Residence. The Local Artist in Residence Program provides an opportunity to a local media artist for the development and experimentation of new works involving audio, video or new media. The residency takes place at the Centre for Art Tapes for a period of 7 months during which the artist will be available to meet with the public upon appointment. Former Local Artists in Residence at CFAT include: Eryn Foster, Sym Corrigan, Léola Leblanc, Sebastian Harder and Roberto Santaguida.

During her time as resident, Melanie will be creating two short films that will explore themes of reflective nostalgia and displacement through stop motion animation. Using miniatures and paper cutouts, the first animation will address the changing nature of public spaces and how it is reflected by society’s anxieties. For her second work, she will be investigating the properties of using mobile technology (iPads/iPhones) to create a stop motion animation about the impossible journey to one’s idea of a nostalgic utopia.

Melanie Colosimo is an interdisciplinary artist, originally from Southeast New Brunswick, but has lived the last several years between Halifax, Nova Scotia and Windsor, Ontario. Her work employs drawings, miniatures and stop-motion video to negotiate the space around construction/ creation and themes of nostalgia and dislocation. She received a BFA from Mount Allison University in Sackville, NB and an MFA from the University of Windsor, in Windsor, ON. Her work has been exhibited and screened in galleries and festivals across Canada such as the Art Gallery of Windsor, the Atlantic Film Festival and most recently Eastern Edge Gallery. Currently she is the Exhibitions Coordinator at the Anna Leonowens Gallery.

For more information please contact: Kristen Atkins, Communications Coordinator at 422-6822 or cfat.communication@ns.sympatico.ca

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Eastern Edge Gallery. January 14th – February 25th

Opening reception and talk – Jan 14th, 3 – 5pm

One more month and I’ll be at Eastern Edge Gallery in Newfoundland installing a variation of my series of drawings from Stay as you were when you had left.  My friend, roommate and carpenter extraordinaire Shaun Raymakers built me gorgeous new frames for these works so I can’t wait to get them up. This is also the first time I’ve ever been to St. John’s which is also very exciting.

There will be an essay to go along with this exhibition that I’ll post shortly by Mike Landry, arts editor of the Telegraph Journal in New Brunswick.

See you in the New Year St. John’s!

So I curated this show for my friend Amanda. I hope you can come by for the performances this evening!

CANADIAN POETRY, DAPOPO-STYLE

DaPoPo Theatre invites the public to join them for the launch of two new books: Groundwork: poems (by Amanda Jernigan, with wood engravings by John Haney) and The Essential Richard Outram (poems by Richard Outram, selected by Amanda Jernigan; with wood engravings by Barbara Howard). The launch will take place Monday, October 17th at 8:30 p.m., at the TNS Living Room (2353 Agricola Street, Halifax, NS). Admission is free or by donation to DaPoPo theatre. (Proceeds from book sales will likewise be donated to DaPoPo, to support their ongoing work.)

Jernigan is a long-time friend of DaPoPo, having co-created and performed in their first production, Four Actors in Search of A Nation (2004). Groundwork, her first book, is at once mythological and deeply personal. Its three sections take us from an archaeological dig in modern-day Tunisia, to an unorthodox Garden of Eden, to the seascapes of a re-envisioned Odyssey, in which traveller and maker converse across the distances of sea and tapestry. For fellow-poet George Murray, Jernigan’s poems are distinguished by ‘preternatural craft, heart, and mind’: ‘With Groundwork, Jernigan arrives not as a wide-eyed first-timer, but as a wide-eyed master,’ he writes.

In The Essential Richard Outram, Jernigan collects work by her poetic predecessor alongside wood engravings by Outram’s wife, the artist Barbara Howard, in an elegant selection designed to introduce Outram’s work to a new readership, and at the same time to present long-time Outram-followers with a fuller sense of the arc of this poet’s career than has heretofore been visible. Outram’s poems will be brought to life, at the launch, in readings by veteran DaPoPo actors Kim Parkhill and Hugo Dann. Listeners will have a chance to see some of the poems in their original publications, as well, in an on-site exhibition of Outram’s and Howard’s collaborative work, curated by Melanie Colosimo.

This event is part of DaPoPo’s Live-in Festival. It is being master-minded by DaPoPo Artistic Director GaRRy Williams, and is co-sponsored by DaPoPo Theatre, Biblioasis, Porcupine’s Quill, and the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia. For more information about the book launch and about the festival at large, please see DaPoPo’s web site: http://dapopolivein2011.blogspot.com/

The summer has been ram jammed with activity since I’ve been back in Halifax. Amongst many things I moved into a new studio in August and recently into a new apartment. I was invited to join the Manual Training Collective Artist Studios so I jumped on the chance immediately. The space is gorgeous. An old school-house, or maybe a town hall… I’m not 100% sure. But what I do know is that I’ve got high ceilings and huge windows. I’ve just finished moving in, save a few items, and already getting down to business. I received a grant this summer for my Eastern Edge show in NFLD so I’m working on some presentation methods.

Also news-worthy, I was offered an exhibition at AKA Gallery in Saskatoon in 2012 . Dates are yet to be confirmed. In addition to all this busy work, I’ve started a new job at NSCAD university at the Anna Leonowens Gallery as Exhibitions Coordinator. I am very excited to be there, working alongside the Anna Gallery Gals.

Other news: I’ve started doing some freelance work for a new Bank in the USA; banksimple.com. I contribute to their blog section on a regular basis. Thanks to Katie Beaton for the link on her site that led them to me!

I’ve also started a new scaffolding series. More on that next time…

I just spent the last two days in Sackville, NB experimenting with taking the drawings from Stay as you were when you had left into 3D space, at Struts Gallery. There’s an after work beer and popsicle reception at Struts next Friday, July 8th. If you’re around, I hope to see you there! (Click on the photo on the left to see more images…)

In other news: I’m very happy to say I’ve found a studio in Halifax at the old Cunard St. school-house. I’ll be moving in    August.

Animation w/Love was a fun and fantastic event. Sold out show and a lot of clever and gorgeous animations from all over North America! 

Next I’ll be heading to Struts Gallery to participate in the Living is Easy members exhibition series. I think this is the 4th year that I’ve took advantage this two-week show at Struts to test new work and installation ideas. This year I’ll be there June 27- 30th to use the gallery as a studio for a few days to create a new animation and installation. The show is up from June 26th- July 9th.