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March 2021

UBCO Graduate Student Works

Group Exhibition // Scott Lebaron Moore, Kaytlyn Barkved, Sam Neal, Rylan Broadbent, Jacen Dennis, Huiyu Chen, Natasha Harvey, Brittany Reitzel, Yujie Gao

ABOUT | PROJECTS INCLUDED

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Digital illustrations of three women with colorful hair and makeup, each with a different hairstyle and expression.

This exhibition features contemporary works by UBCO MFA students, developed through deep inquiry and creative experimentation.

Nighttime view of an outdoor area with three large screens displaying colorful abstract visuals, with tables and chairs visible behind a glass railing.

This exhibition presents a selection of contemporary works by MFA students in UBC Okanagan’s Visual Arts program, developed within the context of the Graduate Studio course. The artworks span a range of media and approaches—from installation and sculpture to painting, video, and performance—reflecting each artist’s individual inquiry, critical exploration, and evolving studio practice. Together, they offer insight into the diverse perspectives and creative processes shaping the next generation of contemporary artists.

Three digital screens displaying abstract art images with the hashtag #FAKE, set in an outdoor shopping or dining area at night. The screens are mounted behind a railing, and there are overhead lights and structural elements visible.
Nighttime exterior of a building with three glowing circular projections in blue, pink, and green on the windows, and architectural elements with wooden slats and metal supports.
Three digital screens displaying stylized portraits of women with different hair colors and styles in an indoor setting.

As part of Light Up Kelowna’s art-dedicated urban screen projection, students presented their work in the Rotary Centre for the Arts window.

Projects Involved

  • Close-up of a torn paper revealing a colorful abstract design underneath

    Inland Waters

    Sam Neal

    Inland Waters, 2021, captures the exploration of time, place and process. Sam collaborates with water bodies in the Okanagan using an early photographic process, cyanotype; a photographic process that utilizes UV light to create cyan-blue prints. He is a multi-disciplinary photographer, artist and Master of Fine Arts candidate at UBCO.

  • Close-up view of a human hairy body part, possibly skin, through a circular magnification

    Continuous Breath

    Jacen Dennis

    Jacen Dennis’ triptych Continuous Breath explores the concepts of gender transition and familial loss through slow looping animation. The imagery is derived from the recent loss of his sister juxtaposed with his own body, and the joy in its transformation. Jacen is a transgender digital media artist and Masters of Fine Arts candidate at UBC Okanagan.

  • A metallic sculpture of a human head with what appears to be a computer chip or electronic component encased in the forehead, with the hashtag #FAKENews displayed at the bottom.

    #FAKENEWS

    Rylan Broadbent

    Rylan Broadbent’s #FAKENEWS examines how a recognizable symbol can be transformed across virtual and physical spaces in an attempt to destabilize and subvert the body of meaning. As a multidisciplinary artist and Masters of Fine Arts candidate Rylan examines the nature of symbols and meaning through a physical language of materials and gestures.

  • A yellow and black butterfly perched on a pink thistle flower in a field with a forest and hills in the background.

    sisymbrium altissimum

    Scott Lebaron Moore

    Scott Lebaron Moore’s sisymbrium altissimum, 2021, is a three channel video created on the unceded territories of the Syilx/Secwépemc nations in the North Okanagan. It is a pairing of re-discovered home video with found historical text to contextualize the complexity of being in space and place. Scott is an interdisciplinary artist and Master of Fine Arts candidate at UBCO.

  • Lips holding a watercolor painting in a small, square frame.

    The Container

    Huiyu Chen

    Huiyu Chen’s the Container, 2020, is exploration and examination of self within the transpersonal bodyshell. The series examines the relations of the self to the world to convey how the body can contain an infinity within it. Huiyu is an interdisciplinary artist and Masters of Fine Arts candidate at UBCO.

  • Abstract watercolor painting with shades of blue, green, black, and white, featuring drips, splashes, and textured layers.

    Mixed media paintings

    Natasha Harvey

    Natasha Harvey’s mixed media paintings, Okanagan Lake and Kalamalka Lake, are abstracted landscapes and bodies of water of the unceded Syilx Territory. Natasha’s Masters of Fine Arts thesis art work evokes an emotional connection to the beauty of the Okanagan Valley through poetic juxtaposition and layered metaphor.

  • Person standing barefoot near large, flat, multi-colored rocks or minerals in grassy area

    X

    Brittany Reitzel

    Brittany Reitzel’s X, is a land based, site specific performance piece created on unceded Syilx territory near Kalamalka Lake. It is a documentation of reattuning the settler body to the land through the intermediary of clay. As a Master of Fine Arts candidate at UBCO, Brittany works in an expanded field of painting and sculpture.

  • Abstract blurred image with shades of purple, pink, and gray.

    Individuals

    Yujie Gao

    Yujie Gao‘s media artwork Individuals is about the interdependency between individuals and the constantly chaotic universe. The work is a collaboration with electronic music duo Frankfurt Helmet. With sharing experience of living in Wuhan, China for many years between the collaborators, the work was created in 2020, shortly before COVID 19 lockdown was lifted in Wuhan. The work is dedicated to every individual who’s rights and freedoms were infringed during this period. Yujie is a Ph.D. student in the Digital Arts and Humanities theme of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies program at UBCO.

  • Three digitally illustrated portraits of women with colorful hair and makeup, each with a distinct expression and background color.

    Neuroqueer Imaging

    Kaytlyn Barkved

    Neuroqueer Imaging is an interdisciplinary contribution to an ongoing cultural shift regarding the life narratives of queer autistic women. Through a combination of qualitative research methods like arts based research (ABR) and feminist autoethnography, I utilize digital drawing as a language and as a means to explore the experiences, senses, and emotions of living as a queer woman on the spectrum. These image explorations are guided and interrogated through applications of critical theory that range from multiple fields —disability studies, feminist and queer theory, as well as posthumanism— and seek to show how the autistic researcher is deeply embedded and therefore best suited to contribute to autism research. “Neuroqueer Imaging” is a project that both shows autists as capable, subjective beings with a uniquely deep capacity for emotional and social intelligence, but further, it is an affective artistic experience that has life beyond the research paper: the images have capacity for multiple readings

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