Tear down documentation for Insulator (tent), 2023. Jarrah Csunyoscka.
‘23
Artist Statement
This practice is an approach to reconfiguration. Of pathways and components, of environments and spaces. The joining of pieces to form new wholes, to process experience and information, to learn and unlearn. In corroborating notions and hunches, truths take shape in objects where purpose is informed by context. This work is a means of establishing—and a tool for maintaining—relation to all sorts of surroundings: Historical surroundings through research and material, human surroundings through participation, political surroundings through utility, personal surroundings through the hand. I search for image and form which allow for continuation not only in their content but in their very construction, which will not stagnate because they will not cease to be worked. I follow these parameters to make art objects that aren’t place holders of meaning but function as companions to producing it.
This intent takes forms which lie ambivalently between the realm of commodity and the realm of ‘Artwork’. Their conceptual frameworks springing from the histories of their materials and treatments which are often used in the creation of wholly utilitarian commodities and devices. Canvas and wax, sewing and drawing, the main recurring materials and methods in my work, have multitudes of uses within art disciplines and without. In the production of sails, shelters, clothing, construction material, ancient learning tools, waterproofing methods, as insulative agent in technology; and underlying all these things are plans and ideas in the form of drawing. Working with these materials and disciplines ensures their associations are communally accessible, which is key.
For art to be useful it should not be alienating.
Bio
Jarrah Csunyoscka was born in Tkaronto, on the lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnaabe Confederacy, the Haudenosaunee confederacy, and the Wendat, to a family of mixed European settler heritage. He grew up in Tkaronto and in Naarm (Melbourne, Australia) on the lands of the Kulin nation. He lives and works in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang (Montreal, on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory) studying Studio Arts at Concordia University, and developing an interdisciplinary art practice which combines research, community involvement, and multiple mediums.
Google Maps Mediations, 2022. Jarrah Csunyoscka.
CV
JARRAH CSUNYOSCKA
Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal | jcsunyoscka@gmail.com
English – Fluent
French – Beginner
Education/Relative work experience
2020- BFA – Department of Studio arts, Concordia University, Montreal, QC.
Major: Drawing 4.1 GPA
2023- Studio Assistant to Paul Hardy – Assistance in the creation of paintings for exhibition/sale, Montreal, QC.
2023 Restoration Assistant to Richard Gagnier – Restoration of damages to work by Nicholas Grenier, Bradley Ertaskiran, Montreal, QC.
Group Exhibits/ Publications
2024 -(Title artist as Multi-hyphenate), 4th Space, Concordia University, Montreal, QC.
2023 -Pain is a flower, Anteism, Montreal, QC.
2022 -Not Quite Present, Concordia Black Box, Montreal, QC.
2021 -Imagined Futures, Yiara Magazine, Concordia Virtual Art History Vitrine,
Funding, bursaries, grants, awards
2023 -REM and Concordia university strategic initiatives Grant
$4000
2023 -Personal Project Grant, FASA (Fine Arts Student Alliance).
Talks, workshops, presentations, collaborations
2023 -Artist talk- presentation of collaborative art practice to Art History: The
Aug, 6th Counterfactual Possibilities of Art in a Designed World Concordia University, Montreal, QC
2023 -Pieces from the garden Collaborative work with Lucile Beaudouin.
References provided upon request