Natalie Draz

'Navigate' and 'Flight' Intaglio Prints

2012-01-13T23:41:00.000-08:00

'Navigate'

'Flight'

Lithographs

2012-01-13T23:39:00.000-08:00

'Circulate'

'Narrate'

'Breath'

2012-01-13T23:31:00.000-08:00

My large-scale installation at Concordia of my digitally printed drawings and my papercuts took over the walls one building at a time.

Power Tower Stop Animation

2012-01-13T14:33:00.000-08:00

Using drawings, papercuts, street soundscapes and my own take on sound effects, I've made a stop animation of my current building-beasts.

These drawings were scanned, digitally printed large-scale and installed at Concordia. The pieces were installed with double-sided tape, meaning each drawing and colourful network papercut could be re-arranged by the audience.

'Evolve' Book

2011-10-09T10:24:00.000-07:00

As part of the altered book collection in the Toronto Reference Library, I had the opportunity to take an existing book and create my own work. Inspired by a visit to the anatomy Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, and the collection of anatomical pop-up books in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library in Toronto, I created a paper-and-acetate book of a female figure that has several layers of biological 'armor' that is slowly stripped with each turned page. The book can be checked out of the Toronto Reference Library in their Special Collection Artist Book room!

'Step' - Printing Footsteps

2011-04-25T11:14:00.001-07:00

Worn boots are actually flat linoleum surfaces to printmakers, and so I took lino tools to my old boots.

Walking around the city, I left a map of my favourite walking trails step by step.

Usually disappearing as quickly as they are printed, my footprints will last a little longer than most.

My footprints reveal both my neighbourhood and my walking pattern, and only the part of the boot that gets enough pressure will print. The rest of the image is hidden on my boot itself, and only I can read the whole story.

Lotus fold books reveal the steps as you page through. The books and the boots are stored in handmade boxes, but the boots aren't quite retired yet!

'Wind Factory'

2010-12-10T07:03:00.000-08:00

'Wind Factory' silkscreen
Wherever the wind blows, we follow it with industry.

'Vantage' and 'Nautilus'

2010-12-10T07:02:00.000-08:00

'Vantage' silkscreen and intaglio on translucent Japanese paper

'Nautilus' silkscreen on Japanese paper

'Coop City'

2010-12-10T07:00:00.001-08:00

'Coop City'
Standing skyscrapers have to ability to walk to prime real estate. These chicken skyscrapers were inspired by the folklore tale of Baba Yaga's house with chicken feet.

'Rib City'

2010-12-10T06:59:00.000-08:00

'Rib City' intaglio
Japanese paper skyscrapers fill the ribcage in lieu of organs.

'Automaton'

2010-12-10T06:58:00.000-08:00

'Automaton' lithograph and silkscreen
Cogs and pistons fill the void left in the chest.

'Archive'

2010-12-10T06:57:00.000-08:00

'Archive' lithograph and silkscreen
Categories of memory are held in different archive buildings within the mind.

Cityscape intaglio proof

2010-09-30T21:18:00.001-07:00

An intaglio city is shaping up, now that the litho pencil tone has been added in.

2010-01-08T07:19:00.000-08:00

Reverse Psychology at its best.

Happiness is a Stuffed Gun

2010-01-08T07:16:00.000-08:00

But do you love me too?

Spine City

2010-01-08T07:15:00.001-08:00

2010-01-08T07:14:00.000-08:00

Home is where the blueprint is.

2010-01-08T07:13:00.000-08:00

Silhouettes

2010-01-08T07:10:00.000-08:00

Cyborg cities - where organic and mechanical meet.

2009-10-29T21:37:00.000-07:00

New portraits of trophy heads along with reflections on identity and citylife! A mix of printmaking and photography.

Common Box Project at Abecedarian Gallery, Denver, Colorado

2009-06-30T07:44:00.000-07:00

My box, 'The Common Canadian Dissected, Eh?' is a three-drawer creation based on mythology and misconceptions about people living in the Great North. Participating in an exhibition which is physically very far away led to the idea of an introductory kit of ‘everyday’ Canadian objects for others to view – an anthropological examination of tongue-in-cheek Canuck 'common' culture.

Exhibition: Works on Kuritani at Propeller Gallery

2009-05-28T09:55:00.000-07:00

Opening Reception: Thursday, May 28 from 6:30-10 PM

Propeller Gallery, 984 Queen West, Toronto

Come see my photographic works on the Japanese Kuritani paper!

CONTACT 2009 - Still Revolution

2009-04-29T09:53:00.000-07:00

The largest photo festival in the world, CONTACT PHOTO 2009 is opening this Friday, May 1 through the 31 May. One thousand photographers are exhibiting their work at two hundred twenty locations all across Toronto. Eight exhibits are located in the Distillery.

OPENING NIGHT at PROOF is this FRIDAY, MAY 1st 6 - 9 pm.

Join us for a look at our latest works, spend a few moments chatting and enjoy some munchies along with good company. This year's CONTACT exhibition introduces the work of emerging artist Natalie Drajewicz. You can make an evening of it as there are four galleries opening on the same evening!
Artists will be in the gallery ALL WEEKEND.
OPEN 12 - 6 DAILY Including Saturday and Sunday.

Natalie Drajewicz - The Vacant City

The vacant city is a simulated hyper-reality of life - a metropolis populated by the excess machinery deemed necessary for human existence that functions in the void of humanity. The compression of a multiplicity of moments of time into one static impossibility points to the disjuncture of human life often blamed on the city. 'The City' has come to stand for both technological grandeur and the moral decay of people. Human presence is absent, and a moment in the vacant city captures the un-presence.

PROOF Studio Gallery, Studio 104, Case Goods Warehouse, The Distillery District
55 Mill Street, Toronto

Installation: Guantanamo Bay Headline Puppets

2009-03-22T09:03:00.000-07:00

March 19-26th in the Experimental Exhibition LAB (EEL) at 1 Spadina Crescent.

“The relationship between artist and work, model and spectator, although intimate, is never innocent” – MOMA curator Connie Butler

Complicity of an activating viewer is created in the pulling of newspaper twine and telephone cord, becoming the direct participants in lifting the headline bodies. Manipulating of the Guantanamo Bay media coverage reveals contorted bodies rising out of flat pieces of acetate, placing the viewers as the puppet-masters over the submissive bodies. The twine and cord are the transmitters of media coverage, from newpapers to online blogs and Youtube mash-ups sourced from American, Syrian, Yemen and international media sources and citizens. Yet the cords are also reminiscent of nooses, recalling America’s history with lynchings, though it has now been exported. Torture outsourcing as well as the proliferation of “Little Brother” media are two sides of globalization, unlike the rights and responsibilities constrained to actions committed within a nation’s boundaries.
To speak about Guantanamo Bay as an everyday citizen is to piece together contradictory opinions of a place known only through the media, which itself must be held suspect, be it information from a governmental source or a private filmmaker.

The five deaths at Guantanamo Bay have been equally slippery, lacking in details, firm coroner reports and claims of insufficient information for cause of death. The only material body available is the substance of the media headlines creating the body, and activated throughout the viewer’s use of media sources. The recent announcement of President Barack Obama of the closure of Gunatanamo Bay reverberates throughout the room through the multiplicity of media quoting him, picturing him, criticizing him, and engaging with the eventual demise of Guantanamo Bay overlaying the five bodies. The piecemeal information from a myriad of small narrative sources creates a body of conflicts, irregularity and insubstantiality.

Each body is held together by the plastic security constraints preferred by governmental agencies, dominating and controlling the bodies’ ability to resist and move. It is the viewers that choose to raise the bodies, revealing the headlines at the cost of inflicting apparent anguish in the body positions. The viewers can attempt to follow some form of narrative in the writings, images and film stills that Guantanamo Bay incites, but the overwhelming profusion of information as well as the discomfort in torturing, induces an atmosphere of unease and complicity.

The Experimental Exhibition Lab (EEL) is dedicated to fostering
student exhibitions in the heart of the University of Toronto's
cultural centre. Located at the historic One Spadina building, the EEL
provides a space for intellectually and artistically curious students
to cultivate, curate, and create their own exhibitions in
collaboration with graduating and graduate students.

Intaglio Print

2009-02-27T17:51:00.000-08:00

Intaglio Print
3 Plates (Aquatint and Imagon)

Installation - Headline Prisoners

2009-02-27T17:45:00.000-08:00

Headline Prisoner Installation

Shadow puppets made up of media headlines surrounding Guantanamo Bay and its announced closing, hung by the newspaper twine and computer wiring that transmits news.

2009-02-27T17:42:00.000-08:00

My Year of the Ox print for PROOF Studio Gallery's International Chinese NEw Year Print Exhibition & Exchange

'Bull Market'
Multi-Plate Lino with Chine Collé

See all the ox prints at http://yearoftheoxprintexhibition.blogspot.com/

Photography: 'Embellishments' in Old Vic Jan. 25-29, 2009

2009-01-29T08:15:00.000-08:00

Last day of my week-long exhibition of 'Embellishments' in Old Vic's foyer, part of "Vic Going Global". I'm also taking names and e-mails of people interested in being photographed and "tattooed"!

2009-01-11T10:36:00.000-08:00

'Mask' 5x5 Monoprint with Flocked Pigment

This mask is one of four flocked masks exhibited at the Gladstone Hotel Speakeasy.

Flocking with pigment instead of fibre is highly addictive! The pigment can be very sparse and spraypaint-esque or can block out the entire background. A great way to experiment with layers and colours, too.

Printmaking Intaglio 'Queen'

2009-01-11T10:34:00.000-08:00

'Queen'
Intaglio 18x24

Printmaking: Pigment Flocked Monoprint for Textile Museum Fundraiser

2009-01-11T10:33:00.000-08:00

'Radioactive Bunny'

I contributed a pigment monoprint to the Toronto Textile Museum's annual fundraiser, on until October 31 2008.

http://www.textilemuseum.ca/microsites/shadowbox2008/drajewicz.html

Update: This piece is now sold! Thanks to all the artists and art-lovers that contributed to the Textile Museum.

Participation Art: Nuit Blanche 2007 Photo Shoot and Video Exhibit

2009-01-11T10:31:00.000-08:00

I was the interactive photographer for Nuit Blanche 2007 at PROOF, taking over two hundred photos of participants that then became the art on the walls as the night went on. See a collection of the photos at:

http://proofnuitblanche2007.blogspot.com/

Nuit Blanche 2008 is coming up on October 4, 2008 with the theme of secrets. Come be photographed - we provide the masks and you provide the secrets!

Printmaking: Pigment Flocked Jazz Pieces

2009-01-11T10:26:00.000-08:00

Three jazz-inspired monoprints. These prints are being exhibited at the All-Canadian Jazz Festival from September 19 - September 21, 2008.

Photography & Digital Illustration: 'Embellishments'

2009-01-10T09:59:00.000-08:00

"Embellishments"

The intersection of two historically suppressed embellishments through digital photography.

Historically both Victorian wallpaper and tattoos have been stigmatized as signs of deviancy, and now both have been consumed into mass media. Wallpaper such as the Victorian Regency wallpaper available to women through the Sears catalogue was considered so sexually evocative that it was banned through churches, and many homes were whitewashed or covered with newspaper. Tattoos were part of a police profiling check-off that were "scientifically" linked with criminality and psychological illnesses - of course the studied people happened to also either be in the army or in jail.

Pictures of the exhibition while up at St. Joseph's College, March 7-20, 2008 (Supported by the University of Toronto's Festival of the Arts).

This show of photographs was also exhibited at the Toronto restaurant Le Bar Au Soupe, 164 Ossington Ave from September through November, 2008.

'Embellishments' is also up for the Victoria College Photography Week, Jan. 19-24 2009.

2009-01-10T09:57:00.000-08:00

These two girls were performers at FAT: Fashion Alternatives Toronto, and had both an amazing set of costumes and an amazing act.
The three nights of the show had some great designers as well as some mundane ones (hint: if you could buy the exact same clothes at the Gap, why bother?)
The best part of photographing this show is the freedom the models are given to dance, run, scream and generally have real personality on the catwalk.

Printmaking: Chinese New Year of the Rat

2009-01-10T09:55:00.001-08:00

'Tree-Rat'
4 Plate Linocut with Reduction, 11x14

This year's contribution to the 2008 Year of the Rat Print Exhibition and Exchange at PROOF Studio Gallery. I actually had so much fun with this squirrely piece that I decided to do another rat piece for the show.

'Labyrinth'
Linocut with Chine Collé, 11x14

Exhibited at PROOF Studio Gallery, February 2008.

To see all the other entries as well as photographs of the opening:

http://yearoftheratprintexhibition.blogspot.com/

Update: Here are my prints among the others at PROOF Studio Gallery.

Printmaking: Chinese New Year of the Pig

2009-01-10T09:52:00.000-08:00

"Baconneer"
Lino

This was my printmaking piece for last year's Year of the Pig. The rest of the entries and the opening is at http://yearofthepigprintexhibition.blogspot.com/ .

This was the first time I'd used a metallic ink, and I was very happy with the sheen it ended up with. The metallic ink was very pervasive and slowly ended up in the red, so over the edition the red gets very metallic.

I have the Year of the Rooster and the Dog somewhere as well, but for now they'll consigned to the oblivion of past portfolios.

Sculpture & Photography - Shadow Battery Factory

2009-01-10T09:24:00.000-08:00

'Shadow Battery Factory'

After ripping apart the battery with tweezers and gluing it all into the sculpture that forms this shadow, I saw Ed Burtynsky's "Manufactured Landscape" film where a woman in China in pulling batteries apart to pick out the heavy metals all batteries have. Batteries are the most destructive everyday object I can think of, between the inefficiency and the metal poisoning capabilities.

3-D Paper Construction & Photography - 'Cardboard Alley'

2009-01-10T09:16:00.000-08:00

'Cardboard Alley' is a piece created out of paper goods that were thrown out.

My final pick. A 'dawn' look. This diorama is 100% paper and foamcore painted with acrylic and attached with hot glue. The only non-handmade part is the translucent scarf for the backdrop. The diorama is about 10' tall and 14' across.

This effect was achieved by having colored Christmas lights behind the backdrop cloth.

A 'night' scene, achieved with just light from the flashlight coming through a blue section of the background cloth.

These two are photographs of the 3-D diorama with both ambient light and directed light from a flashlight covered in cloth to soften the light and then half-covered with my hand to break up the circle.

2009-01-10T09:15:00.001-08:00

I am now beginning the switch over to this blog! Stay tuned.

Doubling up on blogs!

2008-12-06T21:35:00.000-08:00

If you're interested in my work, make sure to visit my old blog - I haven't yet switched over to this one (but it is forthcoming!)

Http://natdrazphotography.blogspot.com

Most of the "photography" is actually documentation of my two- and three-dimensional work - hence the eventual change to this blog!