An abstract artist who lives in Bruce County is looking forward to being on display in Toronto next weekend.
Bianca Artemida Nam is a visual artist from Toronto, who recently relocated to Tara and has been volunteering at the Tom Thomson Art Gallery in Owen Sound.
She says that she draws inspiration from nature and the natural landscapes of the region.
“I recently moved to Tara, so I have been integrating myself with the community here, and just trying to make an art community that’s closer to home.”
The 23-year-old recently graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto, and is now focusing her attention on an upcoming exhibition at the Tom in October.
By all accounts, she’s doing a good job of making connections and getting noticed for her work, saying that both she and her art have been well-received.
While attending OCAD, she was doing her schooling remotely while living in Shelburne, and she had a chance to draw a lot of inspiration from the pond that was on the property where she was living at the time.
“As I was making my artwork during COVID, doing university online, I started using that [pond] as my muse,” she explains. “I’ve just been doing it ever since – replicating willow trees, or using reeds that I’ve taken from that pond, and I’m still doing it.”
She says that from that starting point, Nam started to explore other media, turning to collage.
Nam combines hand-cut collage, digital media, and installation to explore themes of transformation, nature, and technology. Drawing inspiration from the landscapes of Grey and Bruce.
She says that the key is to start with something that people are familiar with, and transforming it into something new.
“Then I bring that into a digital sphere with Photoshop and make them super colourful and try and make animations out of them,” she shares of her process. “So I really take these images that people are familiar with but make them into this abstracted organism, and then put them into an installation, in a physical space, and really make an experience for people… creating a naturescape that is very whimsical and entrancing.”
Her work features things such as butterflies, praying mantises, and flowers, along with other elements of the region’s ecosystems.
Nam’s work will be on display at the Artist Project from May 8-11 at the Better Living Centre in Toronto.
She says that she’ll be working on some other projects in preparation of being part of an exhibition at the Tom Thomson Art Gallery in October.
