#okaycollective

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OKAY Collective member Sonet Providence | sōˈnet | |ˈprävədəns, -ˌdens. Providence Is a Toronto based multidisciplinary artist, born in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Her current work deals with the distance and proximity of childhood identity to adulthood identification. Providence uses an unauthorized and collaborative authorship to her works through the use of both printed an digital dictionaries. The outcome, a series of “Definitive Prose”, she expands in a poetic structures through repetition of language. Website www.sonetprovidence.com Image Info Part 1: The series is about a distance and proximity of childhood identity to adulthood identification |through the process of aging . 96"x48" Oil on Plastic 2015

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OKAY Collective , member Phuong Nguyen. Nguyen currently resides in Toronto, Canada. She is primarily a painter and has completed her Bachelor of Fine Art at OCAD U in 2014. Nguyen is interested in people and exploring the complexities of our physicality and spirituality through the exploration of the human figure. Her ongoing bodies of work explores the identity of the Asian Canadian/American in the contexts of North American history, post-colonialism, and mass production. Phuong is hugely influenced by anything that makes her angry enough to make art about. Website: www.phuongnguyen.ca phuongnguyenart.tumblr.com Image info "Haunt" 8 x 10 inches oil on panel 2015

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OKAY Collective would like to officially welcome new member Rachel Guglielmelli. Guglielmelli is an Ottawa-born photographic artist based in Toronto, whose practice centres on self-relfexive explorations of the notion of archive and cultural identity. Through process-based image making and presentations, Rachel primarily examines the concept of home in relation to a diasporic identity and its ability to inform an ever-changing representation of self. Utilizing historically based photographic printing techniques such as Van Dyke and cyanotype processes in conjunction with hand-bound book works, Rachel seeks to bring traditional materials and methods into contemporary contexts. Her work will be featured in OCADu's Graduate Exhibition and The Fortune of Having Been There at Project Gallery for the Contact Festival. Website : www.vandykegrrrrl.com https://instagram.com/vandykegrrrrl/ Image info Expectation (from the series Aspetta) 30.5x36.5" Van Dyke on Stonehenge

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OKAY Collective would like to officially welcome new member JD Chai. Chai is a Toronto based artist working predominantly in oil and ceramics. His work deals with topics ranging from internet culture to extensions of the physical plane through digital media. His works, often derived from composite imagery depict cloaked and otherwise obscured figures, which take the form of detailed oil paintings and smaller sculptural works. Chai’s works have recently been shown in the OCADU Festival of the Body 2015 and will be featured in the 2015 OCADU Graduate Exhibition.

Website: forthcoming https://instagram.com/jdchai/

Image info Runway 8” x 10” Oil on Panel 2014

http://www.okaycollective.com/

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OKAY Collective would like to officially welcome new member Chad Gauthier.

Gauthier is a Toronto based painter working with themes of the mundane. His most recent body of work revolves around the idea of isolation through dematerialized figures and the silhouettes created by them. Through wiping away glazes and using contrasting palettes his paintings emerge over an extended period of time. Constantly editing the images, his haunting figures take on a ghostly quality helping to display their own isolated existence. His works will be on display later this summer at Project Gallery and the OCADU 100th Graduate Exhibition.

Website: forthcoming https://instagram.com/ChadGauthier

Image info Feel Good Lost 28" x 38" oil on canvas over panel 2014

http://www.okaycollective.com/

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Emma Edghill Is an artist of dual citizenship of both Canada and Barbados, whose work explores the nature of overlooked landscapes and constructed representations by means of painting. As an emigrant from Barbados, a small Caribbean island revered for its idyllic landscape, mental perceptions of home and the unknown have been a recurring source of pivotal interest... ( Continue on her website)

Image info Beach-Oh (Bicho): Sargasso outside looks in. Oil on canvas , 60"x 84". 2014.

www.emmairisedghill.net www.facebook.com/EmmaEdghillArt

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Sebastián Benítez Visual Artist Sebastián Benítez is a Toronto-based artist born in Caracas, Venezuela. Sebastián explores issues of memory and identity through photography and installation. His recent works explore the role of objects and images in the construction and maintenance of notions of identity. He has been  a part of exhibitions in the United States, Canada, Finland, South Korea and China. Image info Untitled from Material Beauty. 16x20in Inkjet Print. 2014 www.sebastianbenitez.com Instagram: @sebastian.benitez http://www.okaycollective.com

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It was a cold cross city opening night for members of OKAY Collective; Phuong Nguyen and Emma Edghill last night. Both shows ( Estranged Spaces, at Creative Blueprint , and Cognitive Release at Yellow House Gallery) brought warmth to the city however. With the island scenes of Edghill's home island Barbados, and Nguyen's blanket cover self portraits. Photos by: Sonet providence

OKAY Collective website : http://www.okaycollective.com

Emma's website: http://www.emmairisedghill.net/

Phuong's website: http://phuongnguyen.ca