Mackenzie Kelly-Frère, photo courtesy of the artist.
Join us for an afternoon Visual Arts Open Lecture with contemporary artist MacKenzie Kelly-Frère, who creates breathtaking sculptural and installation works.
As a contemporary artist working with place-based approaches to weaving, Kelly-Frère is fascinated by the myriad ways that cloth entangles cultures, histories, and technologies. In this Summer Banff Artist in Residence (BAiR) faculty talk, Kelly-Frère will discuss plant and material fibres, and their application in a new body of work exploring the ecology of the prairies and foothills regions.
Open to visual artists working across mediums, Summer BAiR combines the freedom of a self-directed residency with the supportive benefits of an organized program. As well as receiving the space to create, research, and experiment, participants are part of an international community of contemporary artists committed to developing and expanding their practice.
This event is part of the Visual Arts Open Lecture Series, which presents talks by leading Canadian and international artists, curators, and academics.
Visual Arts is supported by Fondation DRG and the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Outstanding Artist Program.
About Mackenzie Kelly-Frère
Mackenzie Kelly-Frère
Director and Associate Professor in the School of Craft & Emerging Media at the Alberta University of the Arts. Mackenzie received his MFA in 2005 from Nova Scotia College of Art & Design University and his BFA in 1998 from Alberta College of Art & Design. His ongoing research focuses on collaboration with material that considers our co-evolution with plants and animals who provide the fibre we use to make cloth; and the communities and relationships required to sustain this activity. He has exhibited his work internationally, and participated in residencies at the Icelandic Textile Centre in Blönduós and the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland Oregon. His writing includes texts for Prairie Interlace: Weaving, Modernisms and the Expanded Frame, Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture and VAV Magazine. Mackenzie lives in Mohkinstsis (Calgary), Canada with husband Kristofer and daughter Elizabeth.