@electric.fawn
Artist Statement:
Evelyn Roitner is an emerging multidisciplinary artist and illustrator who identifies as feminist and queer. Originally from Aurora, ON now based in St. John’s, NL. In 2016 she graduated from OCAD University with a Bachelor of Design in Illustration.
Through traditional and digital mediums, she explores themes of identity, storytelling, place and personal mythologies.
In university, she took a domestic ceramics course that subsequently took over her life for the remainder of the year – in a good way. In her approach to clay, she is most interested in combining illustration and sequential art with functional ceramics.
In March, as things shut down, Evelyn started walking every day to get out of the house for exercise and fresh air. As the weeks went by, she became more attentive and familiar with the architecture, infrastructure, flora, and fauna in her neighbourhood. She began to simultaneously take in the minutiae of the route while constructing a larger understanding and experience of the environment around her. Below she describes some of the research that has inspired her current project:
As I was researching this project, I came across the Situationist International movement. Their concept of “psychogeography” – the exploration of an urban environment by ‘drifting’ in a playful way – grabbed my attention. Guy Debord, a founding member of the Situationist International wrote:
Psychogeography could set for itself the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, whether consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals.
On September 3rd, 2020, we got together with Evelyn Roitner & James Knott to chat about Evelyn’s work, psychogeography, the subjectivity of maps, and indulged in some personal map-making.
On August 27th, 2020, EE was delighted to host the inaugural Community Conversation between Tangiene Martin-O’Hara & Evelyn Roitner, facilitated by artist D’Arcy Wilson. This event was an opportunity to hear about the experiences of our FARR artists and exchange insights in an open dialogue with each other.
Below are some process shots of Evelyn’s project.
Here is a sample of some of Evelyn’s past work.
