Riisa Gundesen
Riisa Gundesen is an Edmonton-based visual artist, educator, and an art activist. She received her BFA in Studio Art from the University of Lethbridge in 2012, and her MFA in Painting from the University of Saskatchewan in 2017. She currently teaches Painting and Drawing at the University of Alberta and MacEwan University. Riisa’s impressive body of work has been a subject of numerous solo and group exhibitions in public art galleries and artist-run-centres across Canada and in the USA, including her first solo show in Edmonton in Harcourt’s Art Incubator Gallery in 2019. Riisa’s artistic career has also been featured in such publications as the Galleries West Magazine and The Capilano Review. In the context of contemporary figurative painting, her compelling work deals with femininity, mental illness, and the abject, and addresses important social issues. Riisa’s current artistic investigations – in general sense – oscillate conceptually around the notion of bodily experience and phenomenology in relation to current social environment and physical space, existential philosophy, identity, memory, and the nature of representation.
Developed by Harcourt House Artist Run Centre in 2002, the Artist-In-Residence Program is open to Canadian visual artists working in any studio art and/or multidisciplinary practice. The program provides the best opportunity to advance an artist’s career trajectory, values the role of artists as innovators within their communities, and helps emerging artist to become established. The residency provides the artists with a stable working environment in the professional studio space, the opportunity for research and to teach classes, material stipend, and a chance to interact with the community. The program culminates with the solo exhibition of works developed during the residency at Harcourt House. The artist receives CARFAC artist’s fees for this exhibition.
Top Image: Self-Portrait with Cryo Mask, Lingerie, and Still Life (detail) 2022, oil on drafting film, aprox. 48 x 35 inch.
Courtesy of the artist
