Emerging Artists expose their deepest personal thoughts...well not really...

InterAccess is pleased to present Cake on the Icing, the 8th Annual Emerging Artists Exhibition. Since 2001, InterAccess has mounted an annual Emerging Artists' Exhibition showcasing new media works by post-secondary students and/or recent graduates. This initiative aims to offer young artists professional experience and exposure.

Please join us on Friday July 11 at 7pm for Cake on the Artists: Talk with your mouth full. We invite you for fluffy cake and rich discussion as the curator leads an informal talk with the artists about their works. Followed by an opening reception and Björg Olafson's performance at 8pm

See your Facebook Status in the big lights of InterAccess!!

Add Melanie Lowe's facebook application "You Saw Me?" and have your status projected in InterAccess's front window nightly for the world (ie Ossington hipsters, 905ers and the occasional rowdy) to see until August 9th, when Cake on the Icing closes. Go to: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=10600965740 to add the application.

Freya Borg Olafson's Performance online now!

view and respond to a performance by Freya Olfason from opening night. Go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj8QDIs4x_c to watch her fantastic performance Avatar.

Curator Shaun Dacey brings together six artists who are about to take a bite out of the art world, Serena Lee, Robert Lendrum, Melanie Lowe, Petrina Ng, Freya Björg Olafson, and Scott Saunders in this delicious display.

With the emergence of various communication technologies we are forced into a constant game of keeping up appearances. With online social networking sites like Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr, and the ease of digital photography individuals can seamlessly recreate and re-imagine personal experience for consumption by a voyeuristic public. The artists in the 8th annual Emerging Artists Exhibition at InterAccess question the ways we share and process personal experience by using personal and private information and images to create dynamic and complex works through the use of everyday media. The artists are not exposing personal secrets but instead present works deliberately planned, styled and embellished for public consumption much like a freshly iced wedding cake.

These works from across Canada confront the urge to relate our intimate experiences publicly for debate, acceptance and validation. Serena Lee's musical installations playfully mediate the awkward and confusing experience of learning classical piano. Robert Lendrum uses images from his family album as a source for quirky re-enactments casting himself as his father and grandfather, while Petrina Ng animates and appropriates family images producing objective studies of intimate moments. Melanie Lowe's installation continuously collects and projects Facebook 'Status Updates' turning textual representations of self into a nonsensical, ephemeral, and surreal take on online identity and surveillance. Freya Björg Olafson weaves a compelling duet with her laptop in a multimedia dance performance using found audio from YouTube at the opening reception, while Scott Saunders' video installation distorts an intense private conversation into incoherent and confusing sound bytes between two television sets.

Cake on the Icing focuses on the power media offers individuals in creating and developing new and ever-changing identities in a public context.

More about the Curator and the Artists

SHAUN DACEY is an emerging curator and educator. He earned his Honours BA in Art and Art History at the University of Toronto in 2005. Recently he has worked in various capacities with Oakville Galleries, Sleepwalker Projects and Trinity Square Video. Shaun begins his MA in Critical and Curatorial Studies at the University of British Columbia in fall 2008.

SERENA LEE is a Toronto-based interdisciplinary artist and piano player with curatorial tendencies. She studied Interactive Media at the Tampere Polytechnic University in Finland and is a recent graduate of the Ontario College of Art & Design. Serena has shown work in Ontario and Tampere, and has performed at an abandoned cotton factory in Hamilton, Ontario, Hart House at the University of Toronto and church tea parties in Forest Hill.

ROBERT LENDRUM is a Toronto-based artist working in video, video installation and performance. He received his BFA from the University of Western Ontario and his MA in Media Studies at Concordia University. He is currently completing his MFA in Documentary Media at Ryerson University.

MELANIE LOWE is a Toronto-based video and digital media installation artist originally from Halifax. Lowe received a Bachelor of Design in Communication Design from the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design in 2001. Currently, she is pursuing an MFA in Visual Art at York University. She has exhibited works in Toronto, Montreal and Halifax.

PETRINA NG is a Toronto-based emerging artist and arts administrator. She graduated from the University of Toronto with an Honours BA in 2008. She has recently worked with artists Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak, as well as Oakville Galleries and Nuit Blanche Toronto. In collaboration with Shannon Phair, she is co-founder of the community art project Dear Toronto.

FREYA BJöRG OLAFSON is an interdisciplinary artist who works with movement, painting, sculpture, video and audio in performance. She completed her MFA in New Media through the Transart Institute/Donau Universitat in Krems, Austria, in 2007. Most recently she has exhibited with the Plug In Institute for Contemporary Art, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Nuna (now) Festival, Groundswell New Music, Gallery 1C03 and Springboard Danse Montreal.

SCOTT SAUNDERS is an interdisciplinary artist recently graduated from the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design with a BFA in Media Arts and a minor in Art History. Scott currently lives and works in Halifax.