GINA STEPANIUK : THE NATURE OF PAINTING NATURE

Film by Eric Minh Swenson. Music by Zig Gron.

Gina Stepaniuk born Toronto, Canada currently lives works Los Angeles, California. Gina has a Master of Fine Arts from Claremont Graduate University, (CGU) in Claremont California where she recieved the 2009 CGU President's Art Award for Excellence, and the C.E. and Bertha M. Harsh Endowed Fellowship. She was nominated by faculty for the 2009 Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant in Painting. Her paintings have been shown in one-person and group exhibitons throughout Los Angeles, Southern California, New York and Canada. Most recently; The Affordable Art Fair, New York City, Painting (Los Angeles) at Another Year in LA, Los Angeles, Consumptive, curated by Shanna Nys Dambrot at Garboushian Gallery, Los Angeles, Tel-Art Phone curated by Mat Gleason at Beacon Arts Los Angeles and Eye Candy, curated by Julia Palmer at Peggy Phelps Gallery, Claremont, CA. Solo exhibitions include Sangria Fine Art, Lake Balboa, CA., Patricia Correia Gallery, Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, Metro Gallery, Los Angeles and Summit Fine Art, Calgary Alberta, Canada. She served several years on the board of directors at Los Angeles Art Association/Gallery 825, a non-profit emerging arts organization, including two years as board president.
Zig Gron is a video artist, filmmaker, and musician, working most recently in the area of video installation, producing synchronized multiple-channel projections and interactive video sculpture. At times, pointing the camera at himself, at other times content with isolated abstract imagery (either appropriated or original), Gron's work is concerned with the idea of synergy -- the combination, juxtaposition, and multiplicative layering of small, seemingly insignificant images or actions to create a more powerful "whole" -- explored through the use of complex rhythm, patterning, and at times, experimental narrative. He uses humor to question authority and the framing of contemporary Man as commodity. Zig Gron received an MFA in film/video at CalArts in 1990 and a Bachelors of Music in composition from Western Michigan University including a year of graduate composition at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music where his one-act opera, "Sweeney Agonistes" from the T. S. Eliot poem was performed in 1986. His 1992, one-man tour-de-force video, "Mono Playhouse" was a hit at the Dallas Video Festival (where it reappeared as part of the "Best of the Decade", the Pacific Film Archives in Berkeley, California, the Millennium in New York, and won the Juror's Award at the Charlotte (NC) Film and Video Festival, a Certificate of Merit at the Chicago International Film Festival, and runner-up for best feature at the Chicago Underground Film Festival. Recently he provided a digital set design comprised of 3 projection screens for a live musical performance at REDCAT in collaboration with composer Steve Horowitz and his tongue-in-cheek nod to B-movie sci-fi films, "Invasion from the Chicken Planet" for 10 musicians, four actors, two singers, narrator and theremin. Gron has also worked in Hollywood as a music editor creating temporary soundtracks for over 50 feature films including "The Matrix" trilogy, "Three Kings" and "August Rush."
For more info on Eric Minh Swenson or project inquiries visit his website :www.thuvanarts.com

ART SERIES: www.thuvanarts.com/take1
MUSIC VIDEOS: www.thuvanarts.com/musicvideos