Contact
connie@conniechappelart.com
Biography
Connie Chappel is a multidisciplinary artist based on Treaty 1 territory, in Winnipeg, Canada. She uses photography, sculptural assemblage and installation to explore correlations between the natural world, human life, inanimate objects, and the cycles of life and death, growth and decay. Her life experiences inform her art practice. She holds a BFA - 1st class honours from the University of Manitoba School of Art, Winnipeg.
Her work was featured in juried exhibitions at World of Threads Festival in Oakville, Orillia Museum of Art and History, and the Navel Historical Museum in Puerto Vallarta, MX. In 2016, she was commissioned to exhibit The Mulvey, a photo installation, for Transitions: The New Biennial for Art and Architecture, Botkyrka Konsthall, Tumba, Sweden. In 2019, she had her first major solo exhibition - Embodiment - at aceartinc. gallery in Winnipeg. The following year, she participated in a three-person exhibition, Through Distant Air at AllArtNow Lab in Stockholm, Sweden. In 2021-22, she partnered with two scientists for an Eco-Craft research project on climate change sponsored by the Manitoba Craft Council, Winnipeg. Most recently her sculptural work was curated into an exhibition Worried Earth: Eco-Anxiety and Entangled Grief at Gallery 1C03, in Winnipeg. The second iteration of the exhibition at Anna Leonowens Gallery - Port Loggia and Treaty Space, NSCAD University, Halifax, NS featured her most current work.
Artist Statement
In my studio practice, I have become aware of my intuitive exploration with art historical allegory and universal experiences. In view of that discovery, I am exploring human presence in the natural world as a study of adaptation, diversity, self-generation, the inescapability of physical death as well as the material evidence of time. I wish to emphasize human intervention in, as well as connection with, redeemed natural salvage through sculptural works that combine natural and artificial material into idiosyncratic objects and installation pieces. My work pays hommage to the cycle of existence, plunging into its least uplifting phase and conveying it flourishing.
I am grateful for the opportunity to live, work and gather my materials on Treaty 1 Territory and on the ancestral lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples and in the Red River Métis Homeland. I am also grateful for the fresh water I drink and use that is sourced from Shoal Lake 40 First Nation.