Some days of the week, our humble abode in Oakville transforms into a dynamic space where other artists and art lovers can interact, share ideas, create new art, inspire and be inspired, or simply socialize with other artists of varying mediums, backgrounds and statures.
The Artists / Host
Tazeen QAYYUM
Tazeen Qayyum (She/Her) is a Pakistani-Canadian contemporary artist based in Oakville. Trained as a miniature painter of South Asian and Persian traditions, Qayyum continues to explore new materials and processes through drawing, installation, sculpture, video and performance. Repetition, rhythm, balance, and geometry are methodological devices that allow her to create visually complex artworks and offer viewers a multi-layered understanding of materials and techniques used. Drawing from complex issues of belonging and displacement within a socio-political context, her art is a way for her to navigate identity and beliefs living in the diaspora.
Exhibiting nationally and internationally, Qayyum’s work is included in several private and public collections, some of which include the Welt Museum, Vienna, Austria; TD Canada Trust Permanent Collection, Toronto; Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pengzhou, China; The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa; Doris McCarthy Gallery, University of Toronto; National Gallery of Amman, Jordan; and National Art Gallery, Nepal.
Qayyum’s work has also been featured in critical reviews in several publications, including in BlackFlash Magazine (2021) Canadian Art (2018), The Globe and Mail, Canada (2011 & 2015), and The New York Times(2009). She was the recipient of the Excellence in Art Award 2015 by the CCAI (Canadian Community Arts Initiative) and was nominated for the Jameel Prize (2013) and K.M. Hunter Award (2014). She has been awarded grants from the Ontario Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, and UNESCO. Qayyum received her BFA in Visual Arts from the National College of Arts Lahore, Pakistan. Along with her artistic practice, Qayyum teaches workshops in traditional miniature painting and works as the co-founder of Art Address, an interactive space for artistic discourse in Oakville. She currently serves as a member of the Arts Council at Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital, and previously sat on the Board of Directors at Oakville Galleries and the Advisory Board at Blackwood Gallery, Mississauga.
Faisal Anwar
Faisal Anwar is a Hybrid Artist, Curator Karachi Biennial 22, and creative technologist working between Canada and Pakistan. Founder of CultureLab.art, he explores the intersection of art, science, nature, data, investigating pressing concerns on climate change, sustainability, and shifts in new emerging economies. He is also a co-founder of ArtAddress, mentoring and fostering creative ideas and dialogue. His creative computational thinking, research, and artistic practice branches through interactive installations, immersive environments, data-driven interventions, internet art, HybridNFT, and MetaVerse / Web 3.0.
Anwar’s project CharBagh was presented at the exhibition ‘Garden in the Machine’, at Surrey Art Gallery, Vancouver in 2019 and ‘Sensory Garden’ at the Aga Khan Museum Toronto in 2016. His ongoing investigative project, TweetGarden was presented at the Contact Photography Festival at the Royal Ontario Museum in 2012, Art Gallery of Mississauga in 2014 and the TRED research and education conference, University of Massachusetts Boston 2014. He has shown at several galleries, museums, and festivals worldwide, including the Winter Olympics Vancouver 2010, Nuit-Blanche Festival Toronto 2008 to 2016, and at the First Karachi Biennale 2017.
In 2019 Anwar was awarded the Labverde Residency at the Amazon rain forest to research and work with scientific climate data. In 2013 he was co-awarded the prestigious SSHRC Insight Development grant, for his research project +City. In 2007 his project ‘Into it!’ was selected for the Artist as Innovators Grant in the category for research for kids with multiple disabilities by the CFC Media Lab, Banff Centre and University of Toronto’s Adaptive Technology Lab.
Anwar is a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre’s Habitat-LAB, Interactive Arts Program 2004, and did his bachelor’s in graphic design from the National College of Arts Lahore, Pakistan 1996.