UCalgary student launches first off-campus exhibition

By Rachel Woodward, March 7 2017 —

While University of Calgary student Andrea Rizzuti is no stranger to the campus arts community, she will step out into the broader art world with her first exhibition outside of the campus environment.

Rizzuti’s solo exhibition Patchwork will show at ArtPoint Gallery & Studios until March 31 with a closing artist reception on the last day of the exhibit.

“I have always been interested in art. I started taking it a little bit more seriously in high school and then I decided to go on and pursue it in university,” Rizzuti says. “Right now I’m in the Bachelor of Fine Arts and Visual Arts in the honours stream. I’m also in a combined degree with communication studies as well.”

Patchwork will feature pieces Rizzuti has worked on since lastfall. Though this isn’t her first solo exhibition, she says that it is important to move away from the university.

“Most of my experience has been with student exhibitions. The one that I’m doing right now is kind of the first professional solo exhibition,” she says. “It was funded from the U of C through an award called the My First Professional Exhibition Award.”

Rizzuti says that working in the honours stream has given her more space to grow as an artist.

“I think it’s been really, really good because our building is pretty small so all of the professors really know the students quite well and you develop really good relationships with your classmates,” she says. “I also found the honours program to be very positive because you produce an independent body of work for display in the Nickle Galleries and a thesis paper to go along with it. I found that to be a very useful way of figuring out how to do art as research.”

Rizzuti says Patchwork builds on her thesis from last year. The exhibition features multi-faceted work including paint on various fabrics with lace and beading.

“I kind of wanted to build upon my honours exhibition that I had last April. I really wanted to continue working with fabric and working with ephemeral, really sheer, transparent fabrics,” she says. “When I first started in the fall, I did a lot of experimenting on different materials — different papers, different plastics and different fabrics — and trying to find a way to get these really sheer fabrics to hold paint, which was a bit of a challenge.”

The exhibition is a personal exploration for Rizzuti, who says that she was able to ask important questions with the pieces. She says that identity is vital to how the pieces interact with change.

Rizzuti hopes audiences will take their time looking through the exhibition.

“As they go through the work, I really want them to move around it and kind of take their time viewing the pieces and viewing all the different elements. I just really hope that they’re moved or touched in some way by it. That’s kind of my intention,” she says.

Patchwork will show at ArtPoint Gallery & Studios until March 31. There will be a reception on closing night.

For more information, visit andrearizzuti.com