3 inspiring artists to watch

The second in a series showcasing notable Faculty of Fine Arts alumni

August 3, 2016

By Simona Rabinovitch

Source: Advancement and Alumni Relations

In this second part of a series, we introduce you to three Faculty of Fine Arts alumni whose vibrant and dynamic work is lifting them to impressive career heights.

Velibor Božović, BFA (photo) 11, MFA (studio art) 15

Award-winning photographer Velibor Božović, BFA 11, MFA 15, worked as an aerospace engineer for eight years before changing flight paths to become a fulltime artist.

Born in Slovenjgradec, Slovenia, Velibor Božović moved in 1970 to Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, at age four. He remained there through the 1992 to 1995 Bosnian War, before immigrating to Montreal in 1999.

This experience impacts his award-winning photography and video work, which inspires us to reconsider fact and fiction, memory and history.

Božović’s video My Prisoner reinterprets and fictionalizes a 1994 event: a young man and an officer drive to visit the young man’s father, who is imprisoned. In real life, Božović was a soldier of the army that held his father as a prisoner of war.

The piece was screened in 2016 at Les Rencontres Internationales, New Cinema and Contemporary Art festivals in Paris and Berlin.

Living Room, from Haunts Alphabet, by Velibor Božović

“In January I travelled to Jaipur, India, as a speaker at the Jaipur Literary Festival, where I talked about The Lazarus Project and my collaboration with the writer Aleksandar Hemon,” Božović says.

“The Jaipur Literary Festival is probably the largest literary festival in the world and I had the honour to participate among many literary greats, most notably Margaret Atwood.”

The Lazarus Project was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award.

Božović is now working on a project supported by the Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Fellowship in Contemporary Art, which will be presented in Montreal’s Dazibao gallery in spring 2017.

Elisabeth Belliveau, MFA (studio art) 09

Elisabeth Belliveau, MFA 09, is an assistant professor of ArtX in Concordia’s Department of Studio Arts.

Elisabeth Belliveau, a multidisciplinary artist, stop-motion animation artist and graphic novelist, also blogs and makes zines — for which she’s gained a cult following.

These expressions first became part of her practice as ways to share her experiences and keep in touch with “pen pals and other artists” while travelling and attending residencies, explains Belliveau.

In fact, her first graphic novel was a compilation of her zines, and she still uses the medium to “test run” long-form graphic novel projects.

Short-listed for the Doug Wright award at the 2015 Toronto Comics Art Festival, her graphic novel One Year in America (Conundrum Press) is a coming-of-age story told through emails and drawings.

“I see the similarities in that both my blogs and zines are collections and accumulations of everyday observations that clarify driving questions and desires in my life,” says Belliveau.

Still from Limonade, a stop-motion animation by Elisabeth Belliveau

The Nova Scotia native’s work has been shown in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, the Czech Republic and Canada, including at the 2013 Alberta Biennale.

“Like One Year in America, they are all semi-autobiographical, braided with historical references and meditations on relationships, place and imagination,” Belliveau says. “Zines and blogs can circulate quickly and widely and invite response — this is really satisfying, as I also work in stop-motion animation and longer graphic novels which are really process-based and take so much time before they can be shared.”

In 2015, Belliveau received the CALQ (Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec) Writer and Graphic Novelist Residency at Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Belgium.

Dominic Papillon, MFA (studio art) 09

The grotesque body fascinates Montreal artist Dominic Papillon, currently working on a series of three exhibitions. Through sculpture, he explores the idea of metamorphosis.

With the first show presented in December 2015 at Montreal artist-run centre Plein Sud, the second exhibit in the series is coming up in fall 2016 at Maison de la culture de Frontenac in Montreal.

Represented by the Roger Bellemare et Christian Lambert gallery, Papillon’s sculptural work explores the body through, among other qualities, “ambivalent forms” and the materials themselves.

Papillon aspires to create “figures that are both seductive and eerie,” he says.

Dominic Papillon, MFA 09, working on his distinctive sculptures. | Photo credit: Francesca Tallone

Grande Tête by Dominic Papillon

News

3 inspiring artists to watch

#CUalumni

Related links

3 inspiring artists to watch

#CUalumni

Related links

Related topics