Adam Wright
'My Climate Incubator'
I’m someone who’s really into trying to help the environment. I’m worried for my future and the future of others as a result of something we didn’t cause. For this project, I thought what is some way that I can mix helping the environment with a dream or nightmare? I came up with finding a pile of litter and a nightmare, I could look to find a way to show how it can affect the environment and animals. My inspiration came from how much trash and litter I see when I walk around. It makes me so upset because it is so easy to pick up, or walk to a garbage can and simply throw it out. This inspired me to show people just how bad it is. As I was walking and looking for somewhere to take a photo, I saw this scene and was disgusted with how much garbage there was. But, it was also the perfect example of how our earth looks.
Ash Newsome
Dreams are one of the most interesting things that humans experience – because they are never the same. Each dream has a completely different feeling and triggers different emotions. For my image, I selected a forest scene to represent the sort of “lost” feeling that some people get in their dreams. However; the colours are different. Instead of natural colours, I have used pink and purples to represent the unrealistic aspect of dreams. To create this image, I used a motion blur filter to show the “fuzzy ness” of dreams, as research shows that only 5% of dreams are remembered after waking up. I also took inspiration from another artist, Adriene Hughes who gathers information from the science of nature. I really enjoyed their idea of changing the colours of nature to make it unrealistic.
Cassie Gill
'I had a weird dream last night'
My dreams have always been a strange topic for me since they never make any sort of sense. Though because of this, I believe it allows me to make all sorts of captivating art using these dreaming experiences.
This image is based on common and repeating elements within my dreams. Many of my dreams consist of physical instability, which is represented by my kneeling position as well as the irregular shape of the ground. My vision is usually blurry or even non-existent due to my inability to keep my eyes open in the dream.
This is represented by the eyes of the mask being blocked, the blurry and bright effects on the photo and the warping of the image to display a feeling of confusion and brain fog. Lastly, the knife represents a period in my life when I consistently dreamt about being stabbed or watching other people being stabbed. I am holding the knife in an aggressive stance to present this.
Elora Truax
'Fog of The Mind'
Often, I think of my art as a reflection of what I am struggling with most at the time of creation; my mental health, my relationships with others, and my physical self. Art is an outlet for me to express my struggles and view them from a different perspective. I want to make something that others can connect with and attach an emotion to, but be able to find the beauty within despite the possibility of bittersweetness. I’ve battled with depression for the past five or six years, and one of the biggest struggles that come along with it is trying to stay out of your own head. Sometimes that feels impossible. Your head feels clouded with pessimism and everything around you seems to wilt. But pessimism goes hand in hand with optimism. Dark with light. Wilt with growth. Holding on to optimism, light and growth is what helps you always find the good in the bad. My work is the reflection of where I am, but also where I look towards.
Ethan Thibodeau
'The Art Behind The Art'
I’ve always considered myself to be a character artist. Since I began drawing, I loved putting a focus on people in my work, real or fictional. There are so many different people in our world, representing them creates endless possibilities. As my personal source of inspiration for the style of this piece, I worked with my long-standing interest in graphic novels; especially those brightly coloured superhero comics, and wanted to showcase the vast creativity that everyone has within themselves. By creating a work that is more abstract, I feel that it allows anyone, no matter who they are, to see themselves and ponder how they want to represent their creative selves and what inspires their creativity in their own work. My hope with this artwork is that, as a community, we will become more appreciative of people’s individual creativity and less focused on fitting everyone into a so-called normal. It's not always about the final product, sometimes it's about the process and person behind it!
Beau Morrish
'Game Show Dream #2 Take #1'
I am a walking encyclopedia of game show minutiae. While dreams are uncontrollable and art is an effort, they overlap in many ways. My personal favourite is the tendency of both to draw on your experiences, whether you want them to or not. You only know what you know, and as much as I have other, more important things to dream about, my nightly half-hour of game show consumption tends to sneak its way into my unconsciousness. Maybe I do dream of things of consequence. If I study before bed, I remember more in the morning than I did when I closed my textbook. That’s my only evidence, though. My dreams tend to come apart at the seams the second I open my eyes. Oh, hey, speaking of eyes, sorry if this one was bright enough to hurt them a bit. I’ve got a box full of colours and I wanted to use every tool at my disposal. I like art that takes your brain out of your head and scrambles it like an egg.
Jaymee Brooklyn Somerton
'Nightmares'
I think a big part of who I am is finding an understanding of what being me is supposed to mean, or being anyone or anything is supposed to mean. My art follows suit. The art I create- that being a drawing, a poem, or an essay- is most definitely a storm of emotions or a peaceful middle ground of anger and love for myself. For this piece, I was inspired by my own jumble of confusing and unsettling dreams, existing in response to my recent life experiences. My art almost always depicts my emotions, a lack of my emotions, or a lack of understanding. More specifically, what I understand to be the truth. I wanted to communicate a mix of worlds with different mediums. As if the hand-drawn sketches and cartoons were intruding in this room. The room is to signify what I think life should be like: calm, warm, and comforting, and the drawings are emotions, experiences, other interruptions. I want this image to signify an intrusion of your own mind.
Karen Situ
'DARK WIZARD vol. III The Exfoliation Of Bungus [even more of the spleen reversing tales of DARK WIZARD]'
Anyone could have made DARK WIZARD and frankly, I don’t know why no one has yet. So, I took the heavy responsibility of manifesting his third debut (volume III. The Exfoliation Of Bungus, volumes I and II lost to the sands of time). I soon realized why when I began the gruelling task. No sooner had I finished my work, than his arcane image caused hordes of scorpions to materialize in my house for no explicable reason except that DARK WIZARD’S evil aura attracted them. I was afflicted by plagues of locusts and wasps and suffered frequent nightmares (of which my only reprieve was sporadic and sudden awakenings because of the scorpions and locusts etc., so I had to sleep standing up like a horse for a week (there were plagues of horses, too.
Kelly Situ
'Gabriel Agreste - dedicated to Michele Hawley (Nikita's Mother)'
I make art mostly for fun, there isn’t much deep meaning or reasoning behind most of my work, and I usually just do whatever I want to do, which is what I think art should be about. I was deeply inspired by a character called Gojo Satoru, from Jujutsu Kaisen (manga written by Gege Akutami, I do not own this character) and decided to put a spin on his appearance in my own picture. While making this piece I actually experienced some sort of spiritual awakening, as if I had ascended to another level of being. The simple project that I did for fun, ended up really changing my view on the world and the things around me and I hope my project will also be eye-opening for others. I am truly grateful to Incubator for their generous opportunity, for I otherwise would never have realized my true self.
Nicole Smythe
'Skyward Peace'
Dreams, and the images they make within our minds, have always fascinated me. Whenever I think of the topic of dreams I always begin to wonder where the inspiration and often strange imagery originates from.
I created this work of art by capturing photographs of the Dundas peak at agreeably the most dream-like time of day, sunset. I then took the natural colours of the landscape and in my next step, I digitally amplified them to create a fantasy scene. The image of the white dove was an addition I alluded to the dream of peace and a gentle place where one might dream to be.
Some of the things I learned while creating it were how to change opacity in adobe Photoshop and how to use the transform tool, those features were very helpful to the creation of this artwork.
Ky Moruzi
'Gray'
I wanted to make an image that feels like how I experience dreams; disorienting and strange. Areas often overlap each other, with rooms being in the same space as other rooms and buildings and I hardly ever see the faces of the characters that appear. Sometimes there are multiples of the same person, but with different thoughts and memories.
I went into this piece with the concept of using a long exposure to create a blur effect over my face with a background in a wooded area and developed a full idea by sketching different composition ideas on paper. After I took the photos, I compiled them in photoshop to make a single image of myself with a blurred face. From there, I then wanted to add a strange feel to the image to make it more dreamlike, so I experimented with image settings, before landing on editing the colour balance to add bright colours.
Nina Savoie
'Dream Trap'
As an artist; I just like making weird things and dreams can get weird, especially mine. Since I like weird things, I like making surreal art like weird pictures or songs, so I made my image something weird and surreal. My dreams can go from 0 to 100 and fast.
I wanted my picture to have a magical yet eerie feeling to it. The picture was inspired by a real dream I had. There was this fox person, and they wanted me to follow them, so I did. And, I ended up being pushed off a cliff. I don’t know if anyone else does this, but I have a lot of dreams about letters and numbers.
I want people to look at my work and think, wow! I have no idea what’s going on because dreams are just random and usually you have no idea of what’s happening in them, I mean you’re not even awake.
Tato Humeniuk
'Longing Identity'
With this work, I was inspired by Canada’s Wonderland Halloween Haunt. I thought it was very dream-like and I had a lot of fun with my family. So, I decided to use a picture I took of a spot I found very mystical for my art piece.
When I took the picture at Canada’s wonderland I thought it fit the theme really well and I really liked the memories that go with the pictures. The eerie mist and Halloween décor were just perfect for the feeling I wanted and I didn’t need to edit much in photoshop. The final photo represented part of a dream that I had, which featured a scene somewhat like this. With this work, I hope to make people think of how cool it looks and I want them to be inspired to make something of their own. So, while I was creating my piece, I had that in mind.
Su Akturk
'Last Reach'
I created this work because I am interested in helping our environment. With this, I hope people take into account that we need to help our world, we need to fix what we destroyed. My process for creating this project was to find the place I would like to take my image, and then use my phone camera to capture an image where the light is reflected in the lens so that it looks more dreamlike.
The meaning behind my work is to show us trying to hold on to what we are losing. The hands represent us, the green refracted light represents being in a dream, and the eye makes it seem as we were in the dream itself.
Noah Moruzi
'Time is a Blur'
My idea came to me in a stream of consciousness when I saw the theme “Dreamers”. I was influenced by the works of Sarah Anne Johnson and how she integrated abstract elements into her natural photos. My first idea; to use a long shutter speed to capture an area with many people around me, gave the opportunity to scout locations where I learned that my idea was not feasible as there were few people downtown. So, I adapted.
My piece conveys the strange fluid ways time passes in dreams. Time can move slower or faster depending on the circumstance, and much faster than in real life. This school year is very much like a dream. Being thrown back into a social state in my last year of high school is intimidating and surreal. I am now old enough to drive, apply to post-secondary, decide my life path, and consider moving out. All of which is terrifying. Life is moving so fast, but so slow at the same time. It feels like a blur, like a dream.
Donnie McShmloppin II
'Good vs. Bad'
As an artist, I am usually creating work on the cinematography side of the media arts, using final cut pro as my main editing software. These videos usually incorporate the action sports that I am passionate about while being filmed on various cameras. However, some occasions call for me to work with photoshop and illustrator, in which I can take a break from video, and move to photography. I enjoy this balance as I am creating pieces from the same genre, with different forms of media. As for my piece specifically, I wanted to showcase two opposite moods, with bright colours in contrast to a dark, gloomy mood.
Morgan Baker
'Out of the woods, and into the forest'
"I create. Then, I deconstruct. Looking past the norm, the obvious, what we expect to see in the up-close detail. Far off observation and engagement of the subject is my process. The challenge is to see beyond the distractions of the conspicuous fillers of life to capture its unique self. This piece is meant to be as beautiful as it is unsettling, as true beauty can only be achieved when in the folds of chaos. My goal here is to inspire those who see my work to look more carefully at the world around them as a whole picture even if it's missing a few pieces, to discover beauty in unusual places. Life should never be straightforward, if it was then why would it be worth living?"
Rylan W.
The theme “Dreamers” permits me to express the weird side of my mind that I often cannot express in projects. I liked knowing that there weren’t many boundaries when it came to this theme, because there are no rules saying what can and can’t be a dream. I love the surreal type of photographs so I was very excited when I found out about what I could do.
I used architecture as my subject because I feel a lot can be expressed just through a building. Depending on how it looks; old or new, each tells its own story and history.
I hope to make any viewers feel the same way I feel about this theme and my reason for using architecture. A photograph of a simple building you may not think a lot can be done, but it can. Editing and proper work of the camera, and an imagined story can make you look at things with a whole new perspective. I hope people feel inspired and express that weird side in their work.
Cameron Anais Wilkie
I enjoy making art for the reason of expressing my emotions in a way that can be perceived by viewers in many different ways. For my image, I made a physical representation of what I see in dreams in a way that is more similar to reality. The message I worked within the making of my work is that dreams may have meanings that correlate with your mental state. Personally, I rarely dream but I find that if I am feeling overwhelmed or having a bad time handling emotion, I get vivid dreams which symbolize the emotional changes. I want viewers to be self-aware and understand that dreams can show something you haven’t even taken notice of.
