Olivia Brouwer

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The Arty Crowd funding sources require inclusion of members who identify as belonging to priority groups encompassing: Indigenous, ethnocultural communities, rural or remote residents, youth, and Francophones (english and french). Hamilton Arts Council further wants to measure its success in attracting members from all the diverse groups we serve in the Greater Hamilton Area arts community, including those who are LGBTQ2S+, and persons with disabilities. We will use the aggregates of the information collected here to measure our success in making The Arty Crowd an accessible and safe space for all who join. We thank the members of the committee from the Safer Spaces Project who advised us in creating an inclusive self-identification process.

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All profile holders must live or work in Hamilton, Ancaster, Dundas, Flambourough, Glanbrook, Stoney Creek, Waterdown, Six Nations of the Grand River.

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Biography / Artistic Statement / Creative Vision

Olivia Brouwer is an interdisciplinary emerging artist born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario, now based in Cambridge, Ontario and currently working in Stoney Creek, Ontario. In 2016, she graduated from the Art and Art History joint program, specializing in painting and printmaking, at the University of Toronto Mississauga and Sheridan College Institute of Technology. Since then, her work has been exhibited in a number of shows across Southern Ontario, some of which include the Blackwood Gallery, the Idea Exchange, Centre[3], and the Robert Kananaj Gallery in collaboration with Emerging Young Artists. She was a recent recipient of the Centre[3] Emerging Artist Residency program, the Artist Residency program at the Cotton Factory, and the 2022 Femme Folks Fest Residency. She was one of 52 finalists for the 2021 Salt Spring National Art Prize, an award winner of the City of Hamilton Creator Award, as well as 1 of 5 finalists for the JRG Emerging Artist Award.

As a partially blind artist, Brouwer explores the concept of blindness by incorporating mixed media materials with painting, printmaking, and sculpture, melding organic and geometric abstraction with scenes inspired by natural organisms and spiritual teachings relating to vision from both a metaphorical and literal sense. Inspired by the Rorschach Inkblot Test, she addresses blindness and perception by examining ideas surrounding belief, meaning, clarity, and sight with an abstract image. Her current work explores visual art accessibility and the activation of human senses beyond the reliance of vision, such as touch and sound, enabling an inclusive experience for both visually impaired and sighted viewers.

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