Winnipeg gallery hosted exhibit by local artist
Comp grad Ela Wasney has just finished exhibiting her work at the La Maison des Artistes Visuels Francophones. Her exhibit, called Motorvangelism, was inspired by her life growing up in St. Clements and the signs along the roads of rural Manitoba.
“Primarily I use found object photography and typography, which is working with text. My work typically reflects my upbringing in the rural Canadian Prairies. I grew up about 15 minutes outside of Selkirk off of the gravel roads. So, my practice itself, examines the church, its connection to social class, the masculine underpinnings of the rural West, cultural typecast, and pastoral esthetics,” said Wasney.
She says that her work has been very influenced by roadside religious advertising, which stereotypically is found in the U.S., but can also be found in our rural landscape.
“Specifically, just the concurrent messages of threat and hope that they present. So, I manipulate a lot of those found texts in a more humorous way to kind of unveil the cultural underbelly of the rural communities around us,” she explained.
Wasney explained that the interpretation of his text is something that she’s very interested in particularly the text that can be interpreted in different ways.
“My pew that’s (part of) the show. It says, ‘God loves you and you can’t stop him.’ And, when I first saw that I thought it came off a little kind of threatening and almost scary, but at my grad shows some of the viewers, they loved it. They thought it was helpful and amazing. I think everyone’s lived experience goes into their interpretation of text,” said Wasney.
Wasney has a strong local connection having grown up in St. Clements. She was in the English-Ukrainian program during her time with the Lord Selkirk School Division and graduated from Lord Selkirk Regional Comprehensive Secondary School. She explained that her interest in art was present from a very young age spurred on by a creative family environment.
“The first time, actually, I had the choice to pursue art was in East Selkirk Middle School. We could choose between art and band which elective you wanted to do. So, I took all the art and drama classes there, and then once I got into the Comp, all my electives were visual arts,” said Wasney.
She attributes her confidence in her art to the teachers who supported her through her journey.
Though she was confident in her art, Wasney said that she decided to pursue a more stable path out of high school. After a year in a science program, she took an art history class and realized that was the direction that she wanted to take her education.
“I graduated this spring, and now I have my first solo exhibition in St. Boniface, which is really amazing,” said Wasney.
She said that her artistic process starts with her collecting words and text.
“Once I have a good chunk of (options) to choose from, I put them together, tweak them, edit them a little bit, and then, I can begin creating something with it. Since I use cross stitch as my primary medium, I have to work backwards and be really set on what I want to do before I even start because once I make my pattern, that’s it,” said Wasney.
Her advice to Comp students who might be in a position like herself where they want to pursue post-secondary education in art is to go for it.
“If you truly have the drive to be in the space and the art community, opportunities will present themselves to you. If you can volunteer at smaller artist run spaces in the city, there are plenty of internships available through the summer. I had an internship at Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, and I never knew about any of these opportunities while I was in high school,” explained Wasney.
She also said that art school itself is a great way to network and meet many wonderful, talented people who just want to see you succeed.
Wasney hopes to spread her work to more spaces in the city.
“I think it’s nice to see kind of like representation of rural people in academic spaces. I didn’t feel like I saw that a lot when I imagined being an artist,” said Wasney.
