FOUNTAIN FIGURINES OPENING IAN FUNKE-MCKAY
*Fountain Figurines* offers a new collection of figurines, fabrics, and pictures, to the world of 100% Silk.
Made through a process of assemblage, the cut-outs and low-relief surfaces are a zone of adornment and ornamentation, where quartering techniques and quilt-like combinations plot to address issues of the composite image. A nonmaterial logic channels a speed of the observer’s gaze, when figures and iconographic colour conspire to generate an array of maximal energy, echoing patterns of animation and CGI.
Based in Halifax, Ian Funke-McKay attended NSCAD University (BFA 2014). With a focus on painting, he builds specialized emblems, figurines, and displays, that are combined for exhibition purposes. By synthesizing historic and contemporary styles he works to refocus futurist legacies of utopic construction into a cryptic terrain of pre-renaissance motifs. Recent curatorial projects include Invisible Bright Touch, Cork Street Project Space, Halifax, NS, and Stack Effect 9, Concordia University, Montreal, QC. Local and international residencies include the Visual + Digital Arts program at The Banff Centre (2018), The Vermont Studio Center (2017), and the Visual Arts at Chautauqua Institution, NY (2014). Last year Funke-McKay was a Media Arts Scholar at CFAT (Centre for Art Tapes), where he looked to the format of medieval display and how it could be translated to newer technologies and contemporary exhibition.