Hailey Guzik

Guzik’s practice is situated within the expanded field of painting, using video, 3D animation, light, sound, electronics, and virtual/augmented realities to explore the historical relationship between immersive technologies and landscape painting. Within this perspective, they investigate how the commodification of nature reveals itself through the history of gaze, mediated spectacle, sublime aesthetics, and staged realism, aided by technoscientific advancements and representational technologies. 

Forming a critical perspective of simulative technologies and seeking to repurpose these systems to incite renewed curiosity for the natural world, Guzik embraces philosophies of interconnectedness and the more-than-human through processes of assemblage and transformation, obscuring boundaries between fact and fiction, past and future, real and virtual, and the natural and the cultural.

Their graduate research is focused on the virtual garden as a site of intervention, where interdependent nature-human-machine systems emerge through the speculative repurposing of algorithmic evolution, computational mutation, and generative automation processes. Recognizing that ecosystems are strengthened through their diversity, and that loss of diversity is a threat to sustainability, Guzik aims to re-seed variability of cultural constructions of nature through a reclamation of the technologies that drive disconnected relationships to nature. 

Hailey Guzik is an interdisciplinary artist working across painting, audiovisual installation, performance, and new media practices. Their work entangles histories of art, nature, science, and technology through queerfeminist, postnatural, and speculative frameworks, manifesting as immersive and interactive sites that elucidate systems of the ongoing ecological crisis. They grew up in New Brunswick, Canada, and have been based in Tiohtià:ke-Mooniyang-Montréal since 2017. 

Guzik holds a BFA from Mount Allison University (2017) and their research-creation projects have been supported by New Brunswick Arts Board, Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec, and Canada Council for the Arts. Their writings on artistic practice and environmental concerns have been published in Shorelines: Climate Concerns and Creativity (Third Space X ACAP Saint John, 2020) and CreatedHere! Magazine (2020) and their work has been exhibited at venues across eastern Canada. Their light installations and live visuals have been showcased at festivals including MUTEK (Montreal, 2024) and Everyseeker (Halifax, 2022).

Most recently, Guzik completed residencies exploring virtual reality development at Centre for Art Tapes (Halifax, 2022), Ada X (Montreal, 2023), and World Creation Studio (Montreal, 2024). 

Profile image of Hailey Guzik taken at Ada X (2023) by Vjosana Shkurti. 

haileyguzik.ca

Hailey Guzik. Project still from alter_florescence (2024)

Hailey Guzik. Project still from alter_florescence (2024)