Inaugural Doodlezoo
Gab Kokas, Aly Ogasian, Chris Saba, Amy Uyeda
November 7-27, 2007
Artist talk: November 7, 3p | Reception: November 24, 6-8p

Chris Saba, found palette

In this exhibition, Gab Kokas and Chris Saba establish the importance of the art-making process and the legitimacy of the process itself as artwork. It is ultimately an installation of a working artist’s studio, emphasizing the importance of the working environment and how it affects the work produced within. This is a new venture for these artists as it is their first showing of installation work, and also their first attempt at collaborating artistically with one another. The exhibition features paintings, drawings, and prints, both finished and unfinished and sculptural elements working towards an environmental installation of the inspirational studio space. Recreating a studio environment in a gallery setting will not only endeavor to educate the viewer on the tools and practices involved in producing artwork, but it will also command authority and recognition as art due to the implications of the gallery space.

Chris Saba is in his fourth year of his BFA at Queen’s University. He was raised in Beamsville, Ontario and attended Grimsby Secondary School. He has exhibited in collective shows in high school and first year of university; Xtracurricular and 29. He recently finished summer employment at The Grimsby Public Art Gallery where he curated an exhibition, A Printer’s Craft: The Art of Printmaking. Chris is interested in exploring further a career in a gallery after graduation but is still weighing his options.

Drawing both from observation and imagination, Aly Ogasian and Amy Uyeda simultaneously document and construct their lives in a collaborative visual diary. Each produced a daily drawing based upon sentences alternately chosen by the artists. An endeavor taking place over the course of six months, the work stems from shared traveling experience and the long distance relationships that inevitably occurred as a result of their separation. Through their drawing installation, Uyeda and Ogasian explore the ways in which intimate relationships are maintained through electronic medium. The drawings speak to different perceptions of the same occurrence; the act of drawing is intuitive and immediate causing a shared sentence to yield different results. Meant to reference the creative calamity of the studio space, the installation is inspired by the work of Raymond Pettibon, Tomoko Takahashi and Team Macho.

Aly Ogasian is a 4th year Fine Arts student at Queen’s University from Granby, Connecticut. Her studio practice involves installation, sculpture, and time-based media and deals with issues surrounding decay and preservation. She studied abroad at the Glasgow School of Art in 2007.

Amy Uyeda is currently completing a BFAH at Queen’s University, majoring in printmaking. Valuing the artists’ hand, this show is reflective of her art practice in a larger sense, as drawing processes inspire her work in lithography. Travels to Glasgow and abroad inspire her current work about nature in urban spaces.


Aly Ogasian, They played Klaxons at Social and I DIED, I threw up on my lawn and DIED again, mixed media, 2007