Shadow Games

Nicole Levaque (she/her) is an artist and arts educator working through ceramics and sculptural installations to address aesthetics of consumption, chronic pain and her emotional attachment to objects. She uses ceramics for its familiarity rooted in touch and the immediacy of its materiality where her work acts as an inventory to be deconstructed and rebuilt. Her process is rooted in embracing failure through the trial and error of making and accumulation, finding beauty in unpredictable materiality and highlighting the traces of touch.

Levaque is based out of Hamilton, Ontario and holds an MFA in Sculpture and Extended Media from Virginia Commonwealth University (2019) and a BFA in Painting from Concordia University (2014). Levaque has worked as an adjunct professor of sculpture and currently teaches ceramic workshops and art classes through the Art Gallery of Burlington. She has been an artist in residence at The Visual Arts Centre of Richmond (Richmond, Virginia), Mildred’s Lane (Narrowsburg, New York), SIM (Reykjavik, Iceland), Von (Cuernavaca, Mexico) and held the Sculpture Practicum position at The Banff Center (Banff, Alberta). Her work has been exhibited locally and internationally including at Tap Gallery, the Front Gallery New Orleans, True Luck Gallery, Anderson Gallery, Spriten Kunsthall, York University and Guadalarjara90210. Her latest work has been made with the support of the Ontario Arts Council.

Shanie Tomassini (she/they) is a sculptress and her work explores the cyclical and renewable potential of objects, sites and ideas. Evoking sustainability, craftsmanship and ecofeminism, her work hints at the sacred emerging from the mundane. She examines the nature of a material, reflecting on its evolution across space and time. She explores the potent aftermaths of an existential crisis and her ideas often crystallize around a shape that becomes a motif for poetic emancipation.

Shanie completed an MFA in sculpture from the University of Texas at Austin in 2019. She presented several solo exhibitions, namely at Clark Center (Montréal), at the UMLAUF Museum (Austin), and at CIRCA art actuel (Montréal). Her work was also shown at the PHI Foundation (Montréal), Arsenal Contemporary (New York), Tenerife Espacio de las Artes (Spain), and Artpace (San Antonio). She is a current resident at the Fonderie Darling in Montréal (2023-2026) and was a resident at Est-Nord-Est Center (Saint-Jean-Port-Joli) and at Rad’Art Project in San Romano (Italy).

Ayam Yaldo (she/her) is a Montréal-based artist working in a wide range of media including video performance, ceramic sculpture and installation. Yaldo holds a BFA and an MFA from Concordia University in the Department of Intermedia. Through acts of unearthing and world-building, Yaldo’s practice extracts from historical and personal memories in relation to her Middle Eastern and Mesopotamian heritage. Focusing on objects and artifacts related to identity and image, Yaldo explores concepts of reconstruction, transformation and ephemerality, through fragmented forms of displacement. 

Yaldo is currently an artist-in-residence at the Fonderie Darling from 2023-26, Montréal. Her previous solo exhibitions include Franz Kaka (Toronto), Perte de Signal (Montréal), and a forthcoming exhibition at Galerie B-312 (Montréal). Group exhibitions include Patel Brown (Montréal), Bradbury Art Museum (Arkansas), Mackenzie Art Gallery (Regina), Woman Made Gallery (Chicago), Centre for Contemporary Arts (Glasgow), and Nuit Blanche (Toronto).