2018 Artist in Residence: Ayala Reznik

The Haven and The Gabriola Arts Council are pleased to announce that Ayala Reznik has been chosen as their Artist in Residence, 3-30 April, 2018.

Ayala is a Toronto-based sculptor and multi-media artist whose recent work has explored representation of the female body, particularly through the aesthetics of the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras, and its contemporary relevance in considering issues and representations of abuse, trauma, and rehabilitation. She has developed her understanding of this theme through sculpture and installation, performance art, and photography, and through this work has come to understand the profound and meaningful continuity between prehistoric representations of women’s bodies and self-representations of female bodies today. 

This is the sixth year of the Artists Haven program, through which young artists (under 30 years) from around the world are invited to apply for a month-long residency. This creative collaboration between The Haven and GAC is an opportunity to support young artists, and to introduce their work to a Gabriola audience.

Michelle Benjamin | Executive Director, Gabriola Arts Council | michelle@artsgabriola.ca
Warren Fraleigh | Executive Director, The Haven | warren@haven.ca

From Ayala Reznik
January 2018

I was born and raised in Israel, on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Recently my art has revolved around issues regarding women’s bodies and how they are shaped in perception and self-perception by experience and by their surrounding environments. In my work, I aim to bridge the gap between those inner and outer worlds, and to see examine how each affects the other.

As I pursued this objective, the representation of the female body in the Paleolithic and Neolithic aesthetic gained increasing interest for me as a focal point into the issues in question. Works such as the Woman of Willendorf have served me as a lens into the early origins of the visual representation of the female body in our artistic, cultural, and historical traditions, in addition to providing an original paradigm of the practice of sculpture as such, in particular anthropomorphic sculpture.

But in this body of work from the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras – that of female figurines – I saw something else aside from the sources of artistic traditions and practices. There I saw the beginning of a conception of the female body in the field of perception: in the domain that is concerned with how the female body is seen, by herself and by others, and has been seen throughout time. Consequently, I began focusing on those prehistorical forms more and more in order to trace the profound and meaningful continuity between representations and self-representations of women.

When I was informed that I had been chosen to be the artist in residency in the Haven at Gabriola Island in 2018, I was very excited – I am thrilled to take part in this new adventure. This will be an opportunity to connect with a new community and to create out of this new relationship, as well as to reflect on the connections between the inner and outer realms that I have consistently explored in my art. I am very intrigued to experience how the encounter with the community, creators, and nature in Gabriola will paint my art, and myself, as an artist and a human, in new colors.

Learn more about the Artist in Residence program at The Haven.