Artist in Conversation: Zachary Ayotte + Nulle Part

Zachary Ayotte is a visual artist working primarily with photography and installation. With light and form, he uses depictions of bodies and space to explore gender and sexual identity, power, distance and experiences of the unknown. A sense of otherworldliness hovers over his work. Interested in the relation that intimacy and familiarity have to disconnection and uncertainty, Ayotte allows the forces in his work to elide and collide, generating tension. This process allows him to embrace and comment on the superficiality of the photographic image, exploring it as both a manipulation of light and a mode of delivering information.

Ayotte has participated in select solo and group exhibitions across Canada and Europe. As part of collaboration with sound artists Nulle Part, his work can currently be seen at the Art Gallery of Alberta (until 10/18/2017).

He lives and works in Edmonton, AB.

Nulle Part is an Edmonton electronic production duo that makes hazy melancholic music inspired by the concepts of place, longing and loss. To achieve their rich, layered sound, the duo utilizes an arsenal of analogue synthesizers and drum machines, detuned cut-up vocals, and clouded pianos. Their music is then further washed by their shared love of vintage tape delay and reverb units.

Nulle Part has participated in a wide range of interdisciplinary art, dance and film projects, recently scoring the Citie Ballet’s production of “Ghosts” for their “Reflections” series, exhibiting as part of the Art Gallery of Alberta’s “SONAR” sound art exhibition, soundscaping the Edmonton Arts Council’s “Ramble in the Bramble” art installation, and composing a 30 minute piece for Yukichi Hattori’s “Solo?” ballet production at Calgary’s Fluid Festival, among others.

Carolyn Jervis is an Edmonton-based art writer, curator, and gallery professional. Carolyn attended graduate school at the University of British Columbia, where she received an MA in Art History, Critical Curatorial Studies. She has worked extensively in local galleries and arts organizations, and has written for national and local publications, including C Magazine and SNAPline, as well as exhibition monographs and catalogue essays for galleries in Canada and Germany. In her current position as Art Gallery Coordinator, Carolyn is organizing the opening and inaugural exhibitions for MacEwan University's first public gallery, which opens in October 2017.