Artist Statement

Through the lens of social practice, my work activates public space and conventional gallery sites to inspire audience engagement. I integrate drawing, printmaking, performance, mapping, artist multiples, textiles, site-responsive interventions and artist-curated events to explore ideas of representations of 2SLGBTQ+ identities. Often working collaboratively with artists and members of the public, I create opportunities through visual art to engage with archival records of underrepresented herstories. From mobile exhibits to movable spas and miniature awards, from plant identification walks to social sculptures, my projects reframe unlikely locations as sites of intimacy for collaborative improvisation.

Biography

Onya Hogan-Finlay (she/her/hers) is a multidisciplinary artist and educator of settler ancestry based in the LaHave Islands in Mi'kma'ki (Nova Scotia). Onya’s work cultivates collective models of DIY organizing and includes collaborations with The Third Leg (Logan McDonald and Ginger Brooks Takahashi), and with artists Kim Kelly, Paige Gratland, Hannah Jickling, and Phranc. She is the co-founder of projet Mobilivre-Bookmobile project and co-editor of The Bookmobile Book. Her work has been published in C Magazine and exhibited at The Power Plant, AGO, Oakville Galleries, SAW Gallery, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, The ArQuives, ONE Archives, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Brooklyn Museum, Pacific Standard Time (The Getty Foundation), Documenta 12, and Kunstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin. Onya served as faculty at Armory Center for the Arts (Pasadena, CA) and Instructor in the UCLA Visual and Performing Arts Education Program. She holds a BFA from Concordia University and an MFA from the University of Southern California.