The collective art persona of Shannon Garden-Smith, Corrie Jackson, Emily Smit-Dicks and Polina Teif

Message to Japan

We are holding you in our thoughts.

Artist information

XXXX is the collective art persona of Shannon Garden-Smith, Corrie Jackson, Emily Smit-Dicks and Polina Teif. We are four artists who make work marked by a sympathy for serialization and the corporeal. Our interdisciplinary practice employs video, installation, painting, drawing and photo-based work. While demonstrating an understanding of the aesthetic, our work values the contemporaneity of ideas/concepts as they relate to our cultural context.

Message to Japan

Mr. Nobody sends a message to you of perseverance, hope and renewal.

Artist information

Tanya Read graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 1995 and since then she has been active in the Toronto art community. She was an organizer and founder of the Impure artists collective in Toronto from 1994 – 1998. In 1999 Read and partner Scott Carruthers opened a storefront exhibition space called Fly Gallery in the Queen St. W. neighbourhood of Toronto. Fly Gallery closed in the fall of 2011 after 12 years.

Tanya created a character called Mr. Nobody in 1998 and since then her art practice has focused on projects featuring this character. Read has made super 8 animations, drawings, sculpture, silk screened t-shirts and video all featuring Mr. Nobody. Her work has received extensive critical acclaim including articles in The Globe and Mail, National Post, Canadian Art Magazine, Calgary Herald and Korea Times. She has exhibited work in Toronto, Calgary, Hamilton, Seoul, Korea and Japan. When not spending time with Mr. Nobody, Read enjoys the rock and roll life playing bass and singing in the band ‘Ethel and the Mermen’.

Mr. Nobody is a black and white anthropomorphic cartoon animal of questionable pedigree. The inspiration for this character comes from the Depression era cartoons of Max Fleischer (Betty Boop, etc.) and George Harriman (Krazy Kat). The drawing style of Mr. Nobody is a reference to the cast of characters that often appeared in animations of this era. Mr. Nobody is an attempt to embody the ambiguous and surreal quality of those cartoons. He is a Buster Keaton, a Charlie Chaplin, an average ‘Joe’ of our times, somewhat perplexed by the state of affairs in the world today.

Official Website: mr.nobody

Message to Japan

My support is with you. Stay strong. Keep going.

Artist information

Scott Rogers is a Canadian visual artist based in Glasgow, Scotland. He recently completed his MFA at the Glasgow School of Art, and has also attended the Städelschule in Frankfurt as part of Simon Starling’s class. Exhibitions including Scott’s work have taken place at FalseFront (Portland, US), St Paul St Gallery (Auckland, NZ), National Glass Centre (Sunderland, UK, as part of the AV Festival), Liverpool John Moores University (as part of the AND Festival), PM Galerie (Berlin, DE), The Southern Alberta Art Gallery (Lethbridge, CA), The Art Gallery of Alberta (Edmonton, CA) and the Soap Factory (Minneapolis, US). In 2013 Scott will be the Gordon MFA Graduate Fellow at the Glasgow Sculpture Studios.

Recently, Scott exhibited the solo exhibition Meanders Into Nonesuch Place, at the Odd Gallery in Dawson City, Yukon. In fall 2012 Scott will be part of a three-person exhibition at the University of Moncton. As a member of the Arbour Lake Sghool he will present a lecture at Institutions by Artists (a conference organized by Fillip Journal in Vancouver in October).