andrea carvalho

An open road where I can breath

2011-10-03T19:40:00.000-07:00

Some of my new work, shown at Cambridge Galleries

Artist Talk at Thompson Rivers University

2011-10-03T19:35:00.000-07:00

Just returned from Kamloops, British Columbia. I spent a week with my good pal Emily who hosted me while I was in her city to present my work at TRU. I also had some great studio visits some 4th year art students. There's seems to be a lot of influence from the surrounding landscape leaking into their work, both literal and conceptually- all promising.

Thanks for the great poster design Emily!

Thanks to Cory, great picture.

Beautiful right?

G A L O G A L O

2011-10-03T19:07:00.001-07:00

St. John's!

2011-10-03T18:40:00.000-07:00

Place de Galo in St.John's Newfoundland. Thank you Eastern Edge for inviting me and my rooster to Art Marathon 2011

cluck cluck cluck

2011-08-06T05:19:00.000-07:00

been busy working on a new version of Place de Galo for the Arts Festival in St.John's Newfoundland. I'm super excited to be going! The timeline of the Festival and spread-out location fits really well with the idea of the piece.

go to Cambridge

2011-07-15T19:49:00.000-07:00

If your around Cambridge Ontario check out my work at Cambridge Galleries.

theSHOW.11
July 08 - August 27, 2011
OPENING & SUMMER PARTY:
FRIDAY, JULY 8 at 7 pm
Cambridge Galleries Queen’s Square
1 North Square, Cambridge, ON N1S 2K6

July 8 – August 27, 2011
OPENING AND SUMMER PARTY: Friday, July 8 at 7 pm
CURATED BY IGA JANIK

The.Show.11 is a renewed fourth installment of the biannual exhibition at Cambridge Galleries dedicated to promoting the work of emerging Ontario artists. It highlights the talent and innovation of upcoming art producers, many of whom are recent graduates of visual arts programs throughout the province.

We’ve changed some things this year by moving the dates and expanding the scope of the exhibition. Ten artists have been selected from province wide call for submissions. The works include painting, sculpture and installation with the unifying factor in the projects being a sense of the absurd, the impossible, and the unique derived in many cases from observations of the everyday. Expect a multiplicity of views and opinions in a broad spectrum of practices and installations throughout the building at Queen’s Square.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:

Elinor Whidden – Toronto
Dustin Wenzel – Toronto
Ryan Park – Toronto
Christine Negus – London
Caroline Larsen – Unionville
Justin A. Langlois – Windsor
Heidi Jahnke – Waterloo
Josh Cleminson – Guelph
Andrea Carvalho – Uxbridge
Jaime Angelopoulos – Toronto

love this guy

2011-07-15T19:31:00.001-07:00

On left Pedro Cabrita Reis

toe-may-toes

2010-10-24T12:58:00.001-07:00

two tomatoes are growing in my studio. Thank you worm composter!

N0n-Place is a trailer!

2010-09-05T11:24:00.000-07:00

SRSI - Andrea Carvalho from dsankey on Vimeo.

the wonderful Daragh Sankey has been working towards a video outlining some of the things BCL have/are doing. He put together this lovely clip about some of my work during the residency. thanks daragh

a long holiday

2010-09-05T11:21:00.000-07:00

on holiday, moving my studio and moving slowly towards the fall

BCL: Parks & Letters

2010-06-19T09:03:00.000-07:00

Seated at a collapsible cardboard table on the entrance ramp to a parking garage, I spent some time drawing symbols that incorrectly defined new words. Some examples include; furfur, toft, galligaskins, and lulliloo. My intention was to challenge the experience of a parking garage, a non-place. I wanted to create a metaphor between the willful trust of definitions and symbols with the submission of our actions in non-places (in this case we submit to the rules/laws of the garage to be allowed in to it).

To gain 'access' to the garage, a ticket is purchased. It validates our presence and acts as a contract, reminding one of the nature in which they should behave. While redefining words, on paper, I was also redefining the space of the parking garage.

This tactic was 1 hour long. During that time, 20 cars passed by. I was sitting at the fork of the two entrances, where a stop light made almost every car stop for at least a few seconds. Two pairs of people, a couple and two party girls, redefined the exit of the car park by walking down the in ramp ( a big no-no). The couple stopped to talk to me about my presence there, they seemed to enjoy it.

BCL: research and flowers

2010-06-17T17:09:00.000-07:00

Everyday, I come to the storefront to, among other things, water and check on the plants. So far people have helped themselves to some of the plants on the sidewalk; cactus', violets, and some have made claims from the selection inside the 'Non-Place' store. When I came in today (noonish) people were excited to tell me about the cactus in the store had bloomed. The Peoples Museum's, Jefferson Campbell-Cooper told me that the flower was still closed when he rolled in at 7 am, so this just happened to bloom during store hours, nice.

This afternoon was filled with some research at both the new bus station and soon to be old Via station.

At the bus station: I met a lovely woman from Rawanda who shared her some of her story with me. Seven years after immigrating to Canada, Matilda recieved her Citizenship. This was an especially nice conversation for me, as my parents became Canadian citizens only yesterday. Because of Matilda, the bus station became everything but a bus station. Infact, I was worried that I may have been keeping her and I worried that she was going to miss her bus because of our conversation, but she confessed that she wasn't there to take the bus anyway, and was just meeting a friend.

At the train station: I am planning an installation that relates to the many birds that call that building home. I decided, for this tactic, that I would work with the staff for permission to work on the property. We'll see how that goes.

BCL: Badminton

2010-06-15T22:42:00.000-07:00

Due to extremely windy conditions, yesterday's Badminton game was moved from the roof of the car park indoors, onto Eric Cheung’s indoor grass space. Although, the badminton game was meant to engage the parking garage in an alternative way, it operated in a similar way inside what is typically used as a commercial space. How often do games take place within a store?... especially and games with out scores, winners or losers. Many matches were played and smiles made.

Tomorrow, Friday 18th, meet me on the roof for some fun with definitions and semiotics, 5 pm.

describing Non-Place

2010-06-14T21:43:00.000-07:00

Non-Places, an elaboration

In Marc Augé’s 1995 essay, he proposes an anthropological perspective and study of Western society by looking at Supermodernity’s construction of ‘Non-Places’

“Supermodernity, which subjects the individual consciousness to entirely
new experiences and ordeals of solitude, directly linked with the appearance
and proliferation of non-places.”

[Augé, Marc. non-places introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity. 1995, pg 77.]

Q: What exactly is a Non-Place?
A: They are spaces that;

• are formed in relation to certain ends (transport, transit systems, commerce, airports, supermarkets).
• are solitary and/or contractually in relation to individuals. Anthropologically, places create organically social places, and non-places, typically do not.
(How are they solitary and/or contractual?)
In most cases, we submit our autonomy to move in and through non-places, by buying tickets to gain entry, or by purchasing goods under particular conditions. Some examples are airplane travel, and self checkout stations at some supermarkets.
• non-places are often mediated through printed text (instructions, tickets, receipts) and/or pre-recorded electronic voices.
• each non-place operates under ‘laws’ that are specific to that place. (return policies, boarding times, luggage, etc.)
• time and space is condensed to measurements between destinations and stops in between (more specific to transit).
• non-places posses little historic or local signifiers.

My work for the Store Front Residency will attempt to reconcile some of the Non-Places in Windsor through private and collective actions. They include gorilla gardening, badminton games (in parking lots, and abandoned bus stations and gas bars), expanded bus stops, a sound installation, and images along the via’s Windsor track, and maybe some cardboard adornments.

Windsor has been a really interesting city to explore. Before my BCL residency began, I’ve been fortunate to experience this city for almost 1 month, and although it, without a doubt, inhabits many non-places (thanks of course to its car manufacturing past and proximity to the U.S.) it also alludes some of the trappings of a ‘supermodern’ city. Perhaps depressed economies just don’t allow it?

Foundry

2010-06-14T19:12:00.000-07:00

Before my residency with the University of Windsor, I took advantage of their foundry and did some sand casting with the help of Lucy Howe and Zeke Moores. I'm casting two sections of a staircase picket in Aluminium. NOt sure if I will have the piece finished in the next week, I may be finishing this one in Montreal.

BCL: Forgotten Flowers Found..... downtown

2010-06-14T18:41:00.000-07:00

Our flower beds can be found in an empty lot at Riverside Drive and Church St, right beside the Art Gallery of Windsor. They sit in a line running along Church St.

Although, Simon and I can't identify all of the flowers and vegetables found for this tactic, we do know that some of them are:

Asparagus
Garlic
Fennel Heads
Ivy
Acrylic Poinsettias
Opuntia Cactus
Stonecrop

We also spent the morning at the store front preparing some flowers and garlic in planters pots for people to take and plant throughout city of Windsor.

This 'tactic' became more and more significant as we learned about the reasons surrounding the abandonment of the Chappus St. neighbourhood. We learned from another 'gorilla gardener' and a previous home owner that these houses and gardens where in the state they are because of the expansion of the E.C Row Highway and proposed development of the new Nafta bridge. The implications of this development (an empty neighbourhood) met with our gestural tactic increased
over the last couple of days as we felt that the emergence of the 'Forgotten Flowers' into the downtown core (and directly across from highly manufactured municipal gardens) seemed to highlight changes to a community at a personal level, against the heavy handed actions of government and commercial interests.

SOME WORDS FROM SIMON

I enjoyed playing in the dirt and touching plants! The former owner of the house we took most of the plants from made very clear choices about the location of plants in their yard and tailored the soil in each bed to those specific plants.
I met the former owner of the home next door, she is actually related to the former owner of the first house we visited. Apparently a lot of their family lived along Chappus. She drove up while I wrestled with her irises and ivey. She asked why I was taking her plants. Immediately after she had a moment of self-doubt where she admitted they weren't hers anymore. I borrowed the shovel from the other guerilla gardener we met that day and dug up her rhubarb for her.

I've only been in Windsor for 1 month and I'm already confused if they are or are not going to follow through with the Detroit River International Cross Project aka NAFTA (or Gordie Howe?) Bridge. Regardless of my confusion around the bridge I am confident the highway expansion will plough forward. The expansion to E.C. Row will also mean strengthening the connection through Huron Church, along Talbot Rd., to the 401. The province has already purchased property on either side of Talbot to accommodate the additional lanes (including a portion of the luxury outlet mall). Through some lobbying by the city about 2km of this streamlined highway will be buried (think Boston's 5.6 km Central Artery/Tunnel megaproject but less epic) with the intention to create green spaces above the tunnels.

The Ambassador bridge is believed by truckers to be the most important US/Canada crossing. This expanded highway (and 2nd bridge?) will no doubt streamline the crossing for commercial traffic. I wonder what benefit Windsor will experience? In creating a faster connection will it not become even more of a city to simply pass through?

It isn't sentimental feelings for a lost neighbourhood that is motivating me in this project. As the expanded highway connects, our gesture is also to connect two sites. I am uncertain about the character of the site we choose downtown. One thing I've learned from my time in Windsor is that sometimes sites of intense investment can look the same as sites of an intense withdrawal of investment. Is the site we choose abandoned? Or is someone biding their time for a stronger market to build on this waterfront real estate; in which case perhaps the highway (and the bridges?) completion will bring the economic conditions for this empty lot to be developed.
Simon

Ps the statements about the bridge development and truckers opinions were gather from a tour at the Windsor City Hall and some trucker magazines I've been reading...

BCL: Forgotten Flowers Found

2010-06-13T20:23:00.000-07:00

Forgotten Flowers Found, is the first tactic. It is a collaborative effort between myself and Simon Rabyniuk, who also happens to be a resident at the University of Windsor and is an upcoming res. with BCL (Department of Unusual Certainties, June 15- July 11). Needless to say we've got on really well since meeting, making this collaboration a very organic process. Simon's practice is concerned with notions of living in and experiencing the city. For this collaboration our pracitices met first through a bike ride departing from our studio, through some of the park systems in Windsor, to the end of the EC Row Highway, and into the industrial (east) section of the city. We found a number of empty houses where the EC Row highway ends. This land has been sited for the future expansion of said highway and located where the proposed Windsor-Detroit NAFTA bridge will be located. We immediately found beautifully flourishing gardens and flower beds, they included wild vegetables, bright iris', and large blooming cactus'.

This afternoon, Simon and I returned to Chappus St. with the intention of transplanting some of these plants into empty lots downtown. We spent a few hours gardening in several backyards. We met another fellow plant scavenger looking for perennials, and a woman who had owned one of the houses on the streets (she told Simon she had to fight to get market value for her house: She and her extended family lived along the street: It leaves a very familial sentiment with me, how lovely it must have been to live alongside so much of your family).

After gardening for a car full of plants, we unloaded them only to make room for some portable flower beds we scavenged at the recycling plant. We found a stack of beautiful light pink styrofoam square containers that we took for our plants. Tomorrow we will be placing our flower beds in the empty lot beside the Art gallery of Windsor.

Broken City Lab residency: June 11-21

2010-06-13T20:07:00.000-07:00

I've been invited by the Windsor based, Broken City Lab collective, to participate in their storefront residency. Since Friday I've been occupying a store front space on Pelissier st, downtown. My storefront will grow over the next week to include images, maps, plants, and equipment that is/will be used to illustrate the actions that are happening during my stay here. I'm looking at the city of Windsor with sites of Non-Place in mind. Anthropologist, Marc Auge describes non-places as sites that are devoid of history, a sense of the local, and as sites that are public but which ultimately places people in isolation with eachother. Some examples include the airport, highways, supermarkets. My time with BCL will be focused on reconciling these spaces by activating them through personal and collective engagements, and by inscribing local signifers throughout them.

riverside at sunrise

2010-06-05T12:44:00.000-07:00

Thursday was a wonderful and horrible day for me. I woke up way too early and so decided to have my morning coffee by the river. It was quite, the water was calm, and only a small tug boat crossed along my view (in the evenings super long cargo ships form a straight line along the river). I also found a manufactured spawning area for sturgeon further west.

wisdom

2010-06-02T16:39:00.000-07:00

two weeks after my residency began, I had my bottom left wisdom tooth removed. OUch. i've been puttering around the studio, but clearly I'm not using any power tools.

DETROIT

2010-06-02T13:33:00.000-07:00

Last week, along with two other residents and our wonderful hostess Lucy, I took one of Windsor's city buses through the river tunnel and US customs to Detroit. It was much bigger and cleaner than I had thought, and of course it was very very empty. We walked from downtown along Woodward to the Detroit Institute of Art. This 30 min walk brought us through a vacant business district, over a highway and along a fresh condo development sharing property lines with crumbling brownstone mansions, strange.

forgotten flora

2010-06-02T13:07:00.000-07:00

One lovely afternoon, Simon and I went on a long bike ride and came across the abandoned neighbourhood of Chappus St. There were two distinct sections to these forgotten places, an indisputable newly developed section and a street with homes that appear to have been lived in and loved for several years and decades. By far one of my favourite properties had about 4 different structures; house, garage, chicken/pigeon coop, garden shed, with each surrounded by beautiful flower beds. Here we found, now wild asparagus, growing through the overgrown vegetable garden, hearty cactus' in almost every flower bed, and beautifully bloomed purple iris'. Through these flowers, I very much felt a continued effort for survival and maintenance, even though the property and the surroundings have been completely abandoned. Simon and I are planning on returning to some of these properties in hopes of transplanting some of its flora to other abandoned spaces downtown.

forget me nots

2010-06-01T17:09:00.000-07:00

panarama Chappus St.

Where the expressway meets industry, there lies a lonely street with an empty intersecting residential street. All of the newly built houses are empty except for one which is heavily guarded by a pack of dogs, some inside the house and some inside the garage. No one was home for an interview.

Indian Rd.

100's of homes have been purchased and boarded up by the independently owned Ambassador bridge company. The bridge company had hoped on expanding the bridge and prematurely bought up part of the neighbourhood before securing permits. Development plans have been stalled (with many people hoping to stop the second phase completely). In the end, the houses have been left empty and deteriorating for several years. I live a couple of streets over, and I can't help exploring the backyards and beautifully flourishing gardens in these now empty spaces.

Felix Rd. (my favourite house and garden so far.)

my new roomate: meet Zooey

2010-06-01T16:47:00.000-07:00

I haven't lived with a cat since 1998. She is adorable. Our relationship so far is a fair one, I feed her, pet her a little, but mostly I use her toys to play with her and in exchange she wakes me up in the middle of the night. Although our progress as friends can be best exemplified through the cement stairs leading to a brick wall, I thoroughly enjoy coming home to her, I just wish she could let her damn self out.

gesture

2010-06-01T16:07:00.000-07:00

In Windsor I've been gathering materials and going on bike rides. My plan is to create works that gesture towards structure and lean towards permeability.

During the first week of my residency and on the same day that I placed cut out text on white paper throughout my studio, I went on a long bike ride with fellow resident Simon Rabyniuk. We rode through several parks, an abandoned residential area (more on that later), and the cities west-end industrial park. Hoping to grab a coffee at the Ford engine foundry (which didn't happen) we spent some time in the companies parking lot speaking to the workers, when we noticed a farm field between two large industrial plants. All but one side was encircled with a 9 ft tall barb-wired fence. We spoke with one of the farmers who told us that there are many random farm fields scattered throughout the industrial area, with excellent soil quality I'm sure. He was a pleasant fellow who offered both Simon and I a raddish bunch.

Windsor Bound

2010-05-05T19:15:00.000-07:00

Later this month (just after my thesis show) I will be traveling to Windsor for two back to back residencies! First, I'll be in residence with the University of Windsor. I'll be using this time to return to daily drawings and watercolours, along with creating some ephemeral sculptures that are in response to the city. I'm really excited to have some pensive and reflective studio time so quickly after my thesis show and defense. I think my hands and sore body will welcome the change from metal and wood, and basically anything heavy and sharp to bike rides, watercolours and styrofoam. Then on to BROKEN CITY LAB store front residence! For about a month, I'll be working from one of the storefront windows on projects that relate to Non-Places throughout Windsor. more details on this later.

a great reason to cut yourself

2010-05-05T18:21:00.000-07:00

For the past few days I've been cutting two large mirrors into 5" x 9" rectangles. I love the colour and effects of light and refraction they make when stacked. I think I'm going to make a block out of my pieces and suspend it.

my Dome!

2010-05-05T18:18:00.000-07:00

Here it is! Well, wrapped with paper and sitting on a table, but it is pretty much finished. I've already peeled back the paper, but I'm going to wait until my show before posting pictures.. anticipation. Dymaxion fans, eat your heart out.

p.s. I'm having my thesis show in this space, what a lovely view

knit knit knit

2010-05-05T18:08:00.000-07:00

a couple of weeks ago I spent 2 really full days in the fibers studio knitting 30" x 6' panels with this nifty jumbo wool knitting machine. This baby helped me to realize a sculpture I wrote about earlier, the horizontal silhouette. As you can see in the photo. it clamps to the table and delivers all of your dreams. I think I need one for home.

studio update

2010-03-31T20:08:00.001-07:00

now that's what I call a jigg...... hubba hubba

2010-02-26T10:14:00.000-08:00

I've spent too much time building this beautiful jigg to construct the curved cabinet doors for the 'nomad chair' that it deserves to be highlighted here. The piece is 15" wide by about 44" long, it's made from flexi-ply and a thin veneer glued together, with the shit pressed out of it by this over built jig, jiggity, jigg. I'm making one long curved piece to be later cut in 1/2 to make up two doors. It took about four of us to get it off of the table on to the floor. bloody hell, it better work.

works in progress: chair

2010-02-21T12:33:00.001-08:00

i'm reworking one of my pieces from last year, Nomad Chair. The 2009 version was dark and too basement lounge-like, the update 2010 version will be ultra chic and user friendly, with cabinet doors that actually work.

works in progress: dome

2010-02-21T12:28:00.000-08:00

i'm making this piece out of aluminium. thank god for cheap metal prices. it's going to be this huge, heavy, hanging piece that creates a soft ephemeral atmosphere.

works in progress: flying buttress

2010-02-21T12:22:00.000-08:00

I'm making some mini me sculptures standing/sitting (doing something) on these shelves with coloumns resting on my shoulders. Think of a flipped flying buttress.

i just want to be horizontal

2010-02-17T22:25:00.000-08:00

maybe I'll make this piece. it's a horizontal silhouette of me in 3d. I was reading an interview with Pedro Cabrita Reis, one of my favourite artists, and he spoke about the position of ourselves in relation to space and the world. he described the horizontal as a measurement of distance, and the vertical as a measurement for closeness and intimacy. it also made me think of the measurement of time and space along the cross or t axis that was mentioned in one of my classes. this idea proposes time in relation to the self. the vertical as future time = 'me' and the horizontal is the present = 'I'. using this notion, we are always negotiating I and ME in time and space.

anyway, with this on my mind and really just wanting to fall asleep, i made this sketch of a new work instead. it makes me think of the nonsense from above and a lovely song I Just Want to be Horizontal by Mose Scarlett, Jackie Washington, and Ken Whiteley. (maybe I'll post it later.)

sleeping is for dead people

2010-02-17T22:16:00.001-08:00

or people who have the capability to actually sleep at night. three nights of little sleep normally results in my cranky disposition and mistakes in the shop.

today's mail

2010-02-17T12:11:00.000-08:00

I have some really interesting, brilliant, fun, and supportive friends who have placed themselves in many far away places. Even though I miss them, I know I am never too far from their hearts.

These two don't always get along. Rarely, do these circles intersect anyway.

deer on a wall

2010-02-17T12:09:00.000-08:00

blog in progress

2010-02-15T18:38:00.000-08:00

come back soon for images and updates on some things I am currently working on