Rotunda Gallery

This month in the City Hall Rotunda Gallery, we're offering a preview of “The Medicines We Carry”, by the 2022 Artist in Residence, Bangishimo. This preview of the final exhibition opening at the Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery in 2024 offers contact sheets as a window into Bangishimo’s artistic process. These sheets counter the colonial impulse to finalize and possess, inviting viewers to engage with the collaborative nature of artmaking.

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Inspired by chiaroscuro paintings prevalent in the Dutch Republic during the mid-17th century, Laura presents a modern take: drawings depicting subjects lit only by a device such as a cell phone. This time-consuming technique stands in direct contrast to the quick pace associated with the depicted technology.

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Environmental concerns are a focus in the artist’s current practice. Eva’s series of paintings explore the relationship between humans and the fragile environment they live in, a world threatened by systematic disintegration and devastation. The work speaks to climate and environmental change, particularly on oceans and shorelines: the sea level is rising, waters are warming, storms are intensifying, lives and communities are at risk.

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Fascinated by the lines and shapes created unintentionally and unpredictably, Wen incorporates these visual elements into her art making. Her work explores the concept of chance, contingency and uncontrollability of the human mind and body. Wen originally trained and worked as an engineer in China. She combines her cultural background and Western fine arts training together in the creation of abstract paintings, drawings, prints and artist books.

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Vanessa is a photographer living and working in Ontario’s Waterloo Region. Through her images, she explores themes of beauty, memory, wonder and renewal in the most ordinary of places, but especially among the trees or at the water’s edge. Long exposures and intentional camera movement techniques bring an ethereal quality to Vanessa’s abstract work. Self-taught, she enjoys wandering her neighbourhoods, practicing the art of noticing. 

Derek is interested in the built environment, industrial and economic systems, history and nostalgia. He is inspired by archival imagery, often linked to local history, particularly the history of industrial and economic development. He will present a series of prints investigating how we respond to images of mid-century North American homes, reflecting the spirit of postwar optimism belief that better living would come through industrial, economic, and technological progress.

Laura is a Canadian-Laotian artist, writer, and historian. She will present a series of oil paintings that will act as a symbolic narrative journey throughout various animal habitats. Fairy tale, mythology, and natural history motifs will be incorporated into the imagery, with themes of biodiversity, environmentalism, and interspecies dialogue.

Visit Laura's website