ESSE’s 14th annual benefit auction featured works from these ten Concordia alumni.
Bilingual contemporary art magazine ESSE’s 14th annual benefit auction, Vendu-Sold, was recently on view at Projet Casa from Nov. 9 through Nov. 19. The opening event was attended by ESSE’s director, Concordia alumnus Sylvette Babin, along with many other ESSE administrators and several of the artists. Here is a list of all the works produced by Concordia alumni that were included in the auction—be sure to check them out and support their work!
Having earned her BFA in photography at Concordia, Clara Lacasse balances the industrial with the ethereal in her bright and airy work, Trame, 2020.
Trevor Baird, who earned his BFA in ceramics at Concordia, is showing his work The Gates of Ishtar, 2021. This curious work blends the new and the old, incorporating graphic design elements into a ceramic facade.
Lorna Bauer is currently Concordia’s studio arts program’s artist in residence. Her hand-blown glass work Sítio Bottle (Millefiori) #2, 2021, is one of a series of over fifty individual pieces that she began in 2018.
Ari Bayuaji studied fine arts at Concordia after moving to Canada from Indonesia in 2005. His woven plastic work The Rock Islands, 2022, speaks to the relationship between community and the environment.
Concordia’s MFA graduate program director in studio arts Kelly Jazvac’s work Time Scale (Granite #1), 2022, makes use of manufactured materials in order to comment on the longevity of humanity’s environmental footprint.
Jeanette Johns holds an MFA in print media from Concordia. Her work Plain Hunt on Four: 1234, 2023, combines the hand-made with the digital to create vibrating imagery that challenges our perception of space.
Élise Lafontaine earned her BFA from Concordia in 2015 before going on to complete her master’s at UQÁM. Her synesthetic work Rib of Sound, 2022, seeks to mystically translate sound itself into a visible gesture.
Jean-Michel Leclerc holds an MFA in fine arts from Concordia. His untitled work is part of a series that examines the crisis of the 1930s—rearticulating found imagery through analog photographic processes and digital fragmentation.
Former Concordia professor François Morelli’s rosy and surreal work Les aurevoirs, 2022, offers an illustrative and dynamic scene of sensual figures entangled in space.
Bea Parsons is a full-time professor at Concordia who previously studied fine arts at the university. Her monotype print Sun Dog, 2023, has a soothing, painterly quality that demonstrates how the possibilities of printmaking techniques can illustrate incredible natural phenomenons.
Alexandre Pépin earned his BFA in studio arts from Concordia in 2018 before recently receiving his MFA from the University of Texas in Austin. In Fish, 2021, employs a textured blend of painting and drawing techniques with a pastel colour palette to render the image of a fish out of water.
Multidisciplinary artist Fatine-Violette Sabiri holds a BFA in studio arts from Concordia. Her work Majdouline, 2019, draws its visual language from her Moroccan heritage.
Eve Tagny earned a BFA in film production from Concordia in 2011. Her xerox impression Poppies field print, 2022, is a dark and mysterious image of a poppy field that captures a moment which speaks to humanity’s desire to capture nature.
Lan “Florence” Yee’s bright and self-aware oil painting Cantonese Still Life, 2018, is a commentary on the dominance of European traditions within the art historical canon as defined by “Western” academia. Yee earned her BFA from Concordia and her MFA from OCAD University.
Visit ESSE’s website here to see all of these artworks and more!
