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Gwenessa Lam

Associate Professor

Availability:

Education:

MFA
New York University
BFA
University of British Columbia

Bio

Gwenessa Lam has exhibited at the Bronx Museum of Art, the Queens Museum of Art, Galerie de L'Université du Québec à Montréal, the Glenbow Museum, the Alberta Biennial and more. She was artist-in-residence at the International Studio and Curatorial Program in New York, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Banff Centre for the Arts and others. Her work has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the B.C. Arts Council and Alberta Foundation for the Arts. Gwenessa has taught at New York University, the University of British Columbia and the Alberta University of the Arts.

Websites:

Research Interests

Working across drawing and painting, Gwenessa’s research considers how ancient objects have the potential to disrupt cultural categorizations. Her research takes interest in understanding the psychological and social implications when these artifacts are damaged, lost or misidentified. The historical fragment acts as a framework to examine broken accounts of the past, personal and collective. She undoes the logic of a comprehensive historical account, creating visual patterns and new ancestral lineages that enliven the fragment and their unexpected fractures. What unfolds is a speculative and shifting account that forefronts the fragment as a record of rupture and erasure.

Thesis Supervision

Supervised Programs:

24/25 Courses

Course Name Department Course Code Term
Drawing DRWG 308 26/SP

Description

Building upon Drawing Studio: Materials and Techniques (DRWG 208) and/or Drawing Studio: Process and Transformation (DRWG 218), this course focuses on further development of drawing techniques and facilitates the students' refinement of their chosen subject matter through visual and text-based research. This includes helping students to develop their own personal approach to drawing, to experiment with drawing mediums, mark-making, collage, scale, gesture, etc., in a comprehensive manner. Students will be introduced to historical, current, and emergent paradigms of drawing production. The course requires students to contextualize their formal and conceptual interests while also encouraging experimentation. Students can expect to produce large quantities of work with in-process feedback and workshops, culminating in a dynamic body of work.

This course is subject to priority rules; see here.

Pre-requisites

No prerequisites.