avneet
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ਅਵਨੀਤ ਆਕਾਸ਼ (ਕੌਰ) avneet akash (kaur) (any/all pronouns) is an transdisciplinary artist moving through material, somatic, ecological, spiritual and conceptual research to interrogate the multitude of ways power, control and collapse emerge and recede in society and the material world–-both natural and manufactured. their practice moves fluidly between painting, being, installation, printmaking/paper works, rest, textiles, performance, sculpture, sound, breathing, video, photography, writing and low tech economically available applications. the path of their research is guided by the undercurrents of political movements and selfhood that constrain, conceive and perpetuate historical and contemporary narratives and experiences in public and private spheres of life. 

 

akash earned her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, BFA from Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design, BEd from University of British Columbia (2017-2018: medical leave), and CYT from Prana Yoga College. they have exhibited nationally at institutions including Peel Art Gallery Museum & Archives (2024), The Gladstone Hotel (2014), Gallery Gachet (2010), Koffler Gallery (2010), North Van Arts (2010), and in the US at Obsidian Ink & Gallery (2015), Carousel Projects (2012) and Wunderkammer Company (2012). akash developed and held the inaugural Health and Wellness Coordinator position at Ox-Bow School of Art and Artists’ Residency (Saugatuck MI, USA) (2015), where previously they were the recipient of the Summer Scholarship Program (2012).

 

as a queer, sick, disabled, neurodivergent, survivor, this past decade saw the pinnacle of debility from trauma and genetics compound towards urgent medical treatment with a rapid increase in rare complex chronic illnesses. entering a peripheral existence akash underwent 16 surgical procedures in 10 years, an embodied echo of our environmental political exigency. akash navigates an evolving radical life often from bed, and other positions of rest, subverting the normative pace and practice of creating and living.