Perseverance /Severance Painting

Suzanne Caines is a Canadian Artist, Researcher & Arts Educator from Nova Scotia who holds a Doctorate of Philosophy in Art from Goldsmiths, University of London. Working within the intersection of painting, drawing, writing and video art she raises questions about cultural heritage & cultural genocide, suppressed histories, collective forgetfulness, and identity in the form of muted/mutated witness and reconciliation. Her current research focuses on the various forms of constructing and imagining cultures and communities through video, drawing and painting practice where she explore the hybrid, and spatialized, nature of the Jewish & Aboriginal Canadian diasporic. These ghosts within her work have become abstracted, morphing and evoking Derrida’s concept of hauntology, which proposes that the present is always haunted by the future and the past. Caines has led and conducted courses at NSCAD University, Goldsmiths, University of London and currently teaches Adult Education at Cit Literary College, London UK. Having participated in several international residencies and exhibitions including, Extratextual: An international exhibition of contemporary art informed by modes of writing at Contemporary Calgary, Canada, V-Tape, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Banner Repeater, London, UK, The Projection Gallery, Liverpool, X Marks the Bokship, The Nunnery Gallery, London, Transmediale 2006, Berlin, Germany and VertexList Gallery, Brooklyn, New York, USA, The Projection Gallery, Liverpool, England. Caines has received several Canada Council Grants, Nova Scotia Arts Grants and has participated in several international residencies including CAMAC Marnay Sur Seine, France; The Future Idea of Art, The Banff Centre, Canada; and local artist in residencies at CFAT, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and Binaural, Portugal.