Miriam El Abbassi | Arts Editor
Featured Image: 4090 Collective prompts us to ask critical questions about the art and of ourselves. | Fatema Ali
4090 Collective is the result of intense collaboration between the students from the fourth-year painting and installation art classes. Coordinated by Janet Jones and Ezekial Moores, both professors within the Department of Visual Art & Art History, 4090 Collective is an exhibit which spotlights different themes focusing on the body, the environment, and cross-cultural overlays.
Jones is currently an active artist, who focuses on studio art and cultural theory in her teachings, and how those two correlate. While having multiple group and solo shows throughout Canada and across the world, her recent works have been shown to highlight themes of “techno-sublime and feminist geography within urban spaces.” Her writings also focus on the influence critics have on artists, as well as the current state of painting and where it relates to modernism and postmodernism.
The work of Moores explores a more industrial realm, as his background stems from blacksmithing and foundry. Moores examines, and then reimagines, the plain objects around us under a critical lens, exploring our relationships to them, as well as the “cultural significance and hierarchical systems of value that exist within them.”
When asked about her experience working with the students to produce this exhibit, Jones replies: “I really enjoy working with senior level undergraduate visual arts students on this kind of collaborative project. The ‘Collective’ exhibition, one of four exhibitions that the class will be organizing this term, is a way for us to showcase what we do, as visual artists, to the entire York community.”
Jones also describes the process of putting together the exhibit, from designing posters and promoting their efforts on social media, to installing the final piece of work, as being the essence of what experiential education is all about. The benefits of hands-on engagement are what she feels to be the most valuable part of this process, as it is something students can carry with them into their professional career.
Located at the Gales Gallery in the Accolade West building, 4090 Collective prompts us to ask critical questions about the art, and of ourselves, all while observing the product of an incredibly synergistic process.
