Shari Hatt
Loco Louie
Ukulele Louie
Two clowns walk into an art gallery...
Presidents Scholar-in-Residence Program | Student Workshop
October 14 - 15, 17, 20 - 21, 2008
Illingworth Kerr Gallery Prep Spaces | Gallery S302
The Presidents Scholar-in-Residence Program presents a student workshop with Toronto based Shari Hatt to create a new video as an extension of her IKG exhibition, I just want to be taken seriously as an artist.... and Clown Portraits, opening on October 16th. The IKG is seeking 10-12 students from all ACAD departments to participate in the production of this new work.
Shari Hatt's current exhibition comprises two recent bodies of work. The first is a series of Ten photographic portraits of professional clowns. The second is a video projection with New York-area clowns telling art world jokes. The flatness of the photograph can be frustrating but Hatts subjects are both monumental and ambiguous, psychologically charged. She succeeds in conveying this by depicting the tactility, textual contours and angular expression of each clown. Hatts clowns hope to subvert all levels of appeal. Their frivolous high jinks and old fashioned slap stick are a preamble to their delivery of art world jokes that invariably fall flat. Each joke become emptier, another hollow gesture, as abstract and distant as the far reaches of the professional art world can often appear to outsiders.
Shari Hatt is a photo-based artist from Halifax, Nova Scotia currently living in Montreal and Toronto. Hatt studied at The University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Concordia University, Montreal and The Banff Centre for the Arts, exhibiting her work in North America and internationally since 1993. Hatt has been the recipient of several fellowships and awards, including the Canada Council for the Arts International Residencies Program in Visual Arts for the UK Residency and the New York Residency, The Duke and Duchess of York Photography Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts, The Canadian Bureau for International Education Fellowship and the Barbara Spohr Photography Award.
Hatts work is in numerous collections including The Liberace Museum, The Canadian Museum for Contemporary Photography, The Art Bank of the Canada Council, The Banff Centre for the Arts, Museum London, The Confederation Centre for the Arts, The Norton Museum of Art, Seneca College, and The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. Shari Hatt wishes to thank Wayne Baerwaldt and the Illingworth Kerr Gallery, the Presidents Scholar-in-Residence Program, ACAD and the Toronto Arts Council. Special thanks also to Gary Burns and Tracey Glass and Joseph Lammirato and Chris Cran.
