About
Hailey Guzik works across painting, sculpture, video,
light, programming, electronics, 3D, and virtual reality. Their research explores
histories of art, nature, science, and technology through queerfeminist, postnatural,
and speculative frameworks to elucidate systems of the ongoing ecological
crisis.
Their recent work ties the commodification of
nature to histories of gaze and illusionistic representations of landscape, where
beauty, aesthetics, and spectacle reinforce romantic and disengaged
relationships to the environment. Pairing plein-air and landscape painting
practices with ecological fieldwork strategies, Guzik often uses phenomenological,
observational, sampling, and collecting strategies within site-specific contexts
to form connections between systems and the natural environment.
Through processes of disruption, alliance,
transformation, and assemblage, they reinterpret site-specific findings to
produce reimagined alternative worlds in painting, interactive, and immersive
contexts. Considering these worlds as spaces of suspended reality, they obscure
boundaries between fact and fiction, past and future, real and virtual, and the
natural and the cultural.
In complicating these matters through layered
meanings and symbolic strategies, Guzik seeks to provide a platform for
audiences to reflect on how systemic dynamics affect their perceptions of the
environment and inspire societal change towards a habitable future planet.
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Guzik is an interdisciplinary artist working
across painting, audiovisual installation, performance, and new media practices.
They grew up in New Brunswick (CAN) and have been based in Tiohtià:ke-Mooniyang-Montréal
since 2017.
Holding a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Mount
Allison University (2017) with a specialization in Painting and Sculpture, Guzik’s
research-creation projects have been supported by New Brunswick Arts Board,
Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec, and Canada Council for the Arts. These
projects have been exhibited at venues including This Town is Small (PEI, 2023),
Halifax Independent Filmmakers Festival (2022), Galerie d’art
Louise-et-Reuben-Cohen (l'Université de Moncton, 2021), and Owens Art Gallery (Mount
Allison University, 2017). Their writing has been included in publications such
as Shorelines: Climate Concerns and Creativity (2020) and CreatedHere!
Magazine (2020).
Rooted in Montréal’s DIY scene as Memory
Management Unit (MMU), Guzik’s performative visuals and audio-reactive light
installations have accompanied sound artists at reputable underground event
series across the city and have been showcased at festivals including MUTEK
(2024) and Everyseeker (Halifax, 2022). Through this work, they map virtual
memories to physical spaces, forging connections between nature, humans, and
technology to create ephemeral worlds for experiencing joy, empowerment, and embodied
healing through community and dance.
Most recently, they completed
artist residencies focused on virtual reality creation at Centre for Art Tapes
(2022), Ada X (2023), and World Creation Studio (2024) and are currently pursuing a Master
of Fine Arts in Intermedia at Concordia University.
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