Jennie Suddick: I was here – Donald O’Born Family Scholarship Exhibition

Each year, Open Studio awards three scholarship/fellowship residencies to artists of merit, as chosen through an annual juried selection process. The Donald O’Born Family Scholarship is awarded to an artist in the beginning stages of their professional career, who has graduated from a BFA or MFA program within the last one to five years, and who and has demonstrated an ongoing commitment to their practice during that time period, including an active exhibition practice, participation in artist residencies and successful grant awards.To learn more about our Scholarship/Fellowship program, please click “Scholarships” in the menu to the left.

Jennie Suddick’s work reflects on tourism’s role in facilitating access to Canada’s vast and iconic geography. Influenced by key moments throughout the history of tourism in Canada, as well as her own personal memories of childhood family vacations, Suddick creates two-dimensional and three-dimensional paper works that reference the symbols and sites of this distinct aspect of Canadiana. In I was here, Suddick reflects on the celebrated “pit-stops” found along our countries Trans-Canada highway. These multi-faceted buildings serve a unique dual-purpose – being hubs for the communities in which they are found, as well as sought out (or accidental) landmarks for travelers. Through her handmade papercraft structures Suddick elevates the status of roadside sites by presenting them as carefully constructed, detailed architectural forms.

Jennie Suddick (Donald O’Born Family Scholarship) is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Toronto, Canada. Her work has been exhibited in Canada, The United States, Germany and Italy. She received both a BFA and Advanced Visual Studies Certificate from OCAD University, where she was the recipient of multiple awards. She went on to receive her Masters of Fine Art at York University in Spring 2009. She creates work in print, photography and sculpture, which deals with issues of Canadian identity, cryptozoology, museological display, and hyper reality. In Toronto, she has exhibited with Narwhal Art Projects, Harbourfront Centre, LE Gallery, Art Metropole, Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects, Open Studio and was part of a featured project in Blackwood Gallery’s Nuit Blanche exhibition at Hart House in 2009. She has also exhibited at The Ministry of Casual Living in Victoria, British Columbia, Proteus Gowanus in Brooklyn, New York, and Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center in Buffalo, New York. Her solo projects have been featured at The Art Gallery of York University (agYU) and Okazi Gallery in Berlin, Germany. She received the Award of Excellence at the 2009 Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition. Previous residencies include Bee-line to Berlin: The Woodn’t Bees Artist in Residency Program in Berlin, Germany, Open Studio’s Visiting Artist Residency and Elsewhere Collaborative’s Residency Program in North Carolina. She is currently a sessional faculty member at OCAD University where she is also the Coordinator, First Generation/Student Success Programs.