Stacey Sproule

A series of hand-drawn animation studies produced during a fellowship residency at the Vermont Studio Center. These studies are reflections on cycles, loops, transits and the journey of the return.

See the full work here

2024

A series of hand-drawn animation studies produced during a fellowship residency at the Vermont Studio Center. These exploratory studies use a mirror and a window as portals into alternate spaces, and allow the viewer to see the passage of time sped up through the animation process.

See the full work here

2024

Animated short that is a mix of hand-drawn and stop-motion animation. Centred on the South Shore of Ontario’s Prince Edward County, a place of significant bio-diversity as well as a high density flight path for migratory songbirds, Prince Edward County is also a popular tourist destination. This work was a meditation on access to nature, land, and temporary stays. The process involved shooting video footage in the spring and summer of 2024 along the South Shore, rotoscoping that footage and then returning in the fall to shoot the animation frames in motion on the trails at Prince Edward Point, and Monarch Point. The work is a way to grapple with rapid development, loss of public access to nature and the ongoing destruction of habitat both in Prince Edward County and across the province.

This work is currently in post production, with upcoming exhibitions in 2025.

I would like to acknowledge funding support from the Ontario Arts Council and the Government of Ontario for their support of this project.

2024

Acrylic on Canvas, this work is accompanied by a short text written for Interrupture Zine. See excerpt below:

“I often find myself considering the space inside a prism, one of those cut glass prisms that hang in a window to catch the sun and refract the light into rainbows: transparent panes strung together on an infinite net, a hall of mirrors, a reflection cavern. I have this feeling of its imaginal interior space, like a sieve that the visual world streams through leaving its memory on the glass, imbued. It is hard yet spacious, picturing myself standing in the centre surrounded by kaleidoscopic abstracted light refractions.”

2024

A plein-air animation short based on the four elements. This work is a moving meditation on the elements and nature and aims to highlight the subtle magic present in the natural world as well as the animation process.

2023

View full work here

An in progress installation work of over 400 paintings and two animation works that reflect on the role of ritual in art making. This piece aims to explore repetition, accumulation and devotion as transcendental technologies in creative process.

Acrylic on paper, various sizes

2023

Flowers are agents of the underworld. They emerge from the soil, from the beneath, to unfurl and express their beauty for a short time before they ultimately return to the earth. We cut flowers at the height of their beauty and bring them inside to watch them die, not as torture or an act of morbidity, but as a celebration of life by honouring their ephemerality. We give flowers at major life events and their presence is a comfort to the living when someone has passed. Flowers are a meditation on finiteness, and they give us the chance to reflect on the sometimes hard to comprehend limitedness of life.

“All born to grow and grown to die” - Rex’s Blues, Townes Van Zandt

Watercolour on paper, 18”x24”

2022

Nine card oracle deck made to reflect on the symbolism of moon phases. Produced for the Moonwatchers annual show at Melt Gallery. Accompanied by a guidebook.

watercolour and ink on paper

2021

Drawings exploring repetition and image making as a form of visual meditation.

Gel pen on paper,

2017

Made to be used in my performance “Silver Threads and Golden Needles” at the Rhubarb Festival in 2013. Participants were instructed to pull a card prior to entering a room where they would lie on a table, receive reiki from me and an embroidery tattoo on the clothing they were wearing. It became a meditation on the hands’ ability to transmit, and transform through healing and creative practices.

Embroidery on Cotton,

2013

Inspired by the practices of contemporary theological and contemplative thinkers, this collaborative performative work examined how a spiritual practice gives us the tools we need to function and relate to one another, through concepts like forgiveness, humility, compassion, atonement. This piece explored healing on an inter-personal level and offered a space for strangers to gather, be still, listen, contemplate, converse and reflect.

Featured collaborators: The Toronto Sacred Harp Singing Group, Cory Bertrand, Cameron Buy, Julie Gladstone, Jenna Turk, Deciduous (Vanessa Hansen, Jason Benoit and Stacey Sproule) Alex Samaras (and his group Grex), Dawne Carleton, and Tori Whyte

performance, discussion, and collaboration

2013