Leah Byrne & Sean Procyk
Dawson, Canada
Residency: March-April 2017
While in residence at Sculpture Space, we developed components for a project that began in Gros Morne National Park in 2016. The resources at the studio allowed us to begin prototyping installation elements immediately upon our arrival. We developed five prototypes for works that would lend themselves to presentation in a gallery context.
Midway through our residency, our process took an unanticipated turn as a result of the resources and equipment available. We explored MIG welding and surface finishing techniques, and began to explore the ductility of various metals through the use of heat and force. As our understanding of these material properties increased we began to incorporate stone as a way to understand the surface tension between the two materials. The result was a series of material studies that depict the stages of a steel pipe swallowing a stone.
The time and space granted by the residency at Sculpture Space was incredibly valuable to our artistic and collaborative development. It facilitated intuitive engagement with material process and fabrication equipment that is otherwise inaccessible to us in our daily lives.
About the Artists:
Drawing from our respective art practices, we create works in sculpture, installation, sound and film. Our work responds to the availability of materials and inherent characteristics of site. We make use of what is readily at hand in order to push the boundaries of materiality and an awareness of place. Though our process we investigate human and non-human systems and the ways they interact, culminating in works that embody an intuitive process of discovery and learning.
Leah Byrne is a Canadian multidisciplinary artist working in film, photography, sculpture, and performance. Her projects examine relationships between perception, matter, and place, and often take shape within a framework of shared experience. Her work has been presented in festivals and group exhibitions nationally and internationally.
Sean Procyk is a Hamilton-based artist who builds immersive, site-specific installations using reclaimed materials, light, sound and video. His work addresses notions of site-specificity, alternative living tactics and audiovisual musical performance. His work has recently been presented at Stride Contemporary Art Gallery, Calgary, Elemental Festival, Kagawong; Convergence Conference on Art and Technology, Banff; Factory Media Centre, Hamilton; Ingenuity Festival, Cleveland and Nuit Blanche, Toronto. He holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Carleton University and a Master’s of Fine Arts from OCAD University.