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At that time, though, she didn’t feel ready to take on the role. “I felt like I had so much more to learn, so much more to experience,” she recalls.
After making a name for herself in her homeland, she was invited to Toronto for a solo show at the Canadian-Ukrainian Art Foundation in 1996. It was a turning point — not just in her career, but in her life. “One thing led to another, and then I’m like, ‘I guess I’m living here now,” says Movchan. “You could say I was brave, you can say irresponsible, you can say adventurous, I’m not even sure which one it was.”
Yet, as she reflects on her journey, Movchan carries no bitterness, no lin- gering “what ifs” — just a quiet, resolute acceptance. She repeatedly says she has no regrets, a phrase that becomes a mantra as she recounts the years of her life, both the triumphs and the trials.
“The change in my art is probably even invisible, it more so happened in the way
I switched mediums,” she says. “I was a printmaker. Then I worked on glass. And then I have my etching technique on gold, silver. And then when I started painting that was a big change.”
Movchan describes her style as “abstract storytelling,” because “real art, I think, happens when artists can find that beau- tiful, very fine balance between analytical process and... intuition or inspiration or magic, or whatever you label it.”
Now, decades later, Oksana has returned to academia, teaching painting at the University of Alberta. “Teaching is a way of giving back, of passing on what I’ve learned through all these years,” she says.
She shows me her studio along with a few unfinished paintings — nine, to be exact. But they are all a far cry from the heavy, monochromatic pieces of her last few collections. They are bright and happy. Movchan describes this shift yet again
as “natural,” where she allowed herself to trust her instincts and embrace the full spectrum of her creative potential.
Movchan, still in her bright blazer, radi- ates the same energy as the art around her. It’s a moment that captures her essence perfectly — a woman who, despite the many challenges she’s faced, continues to live with no regrets, letting her instincts guide her to where she needs to be.
— HIBA ZAIDI
GARY JAMES JOYNES
Five minutes into my conversation with artist Gary James Joynes, I realize
brushing up on my high-school physics would have been a good idea. Joynes, a visual/sound artist, integrates complex scientific concepts with his innovative artistic vision. His home, shared with partner Oksana Movchan and their fluffy feline companion, Kishka (which means “cat” in Ukrainian), is a haven of creativity and curiosity.
“A lot of people would know me when I was younger more for my music,” Joynes reflects, acknowledging his early career in metal bands where he was a lead singer and bassist. Yet, his passion for visual art, honed through years as an art director and graphic designer, was always simmering beneath the surface.
In his early 30s, Joynes pivoted from heavy metal to ambient and experimental music. “I immediately started working with the idea of putting visuals to the sound experiments that I was doing,” he explains. This led to his groundbreaking audio-visu- al performance project, Clinker, which pre- miered at the MUTEK Festival in Montreal in 2003 and garnered significant attention (Clinker has also become his stage name).
The buzz around Clinker caught the eye of the Banff Centre for the Arts, where Joynes was invited to perform at the New Media Summit in 2007. This pivotal mo- ment opened doors to further exploration and innovation. “In 2009, I saw a film by Swiss scientist Hans Jenny showing the visualization of sound through particles,” Joynes recounts, which inspired his devel- opment of the Wave Driver, a modern take on Chladni plates (named after German scientist and musician Ernst Chladni) that vibrates sound particles to reveal their wave shapes.
His approach earned him the Foot Award in 2016 for his piece, Broken Sound. “The installation was a reflection on the life cycle of sound through speakers,” Joynes explains. “Metaphorically, we start as these perfectly gold, unscarred beings, and as life progresses, we age and scar until the wire breaks, symbolizing death.”
Joynes describes his art as a blend of visual and auditory elements, emphasizing the concept of synchresis, a term coined by French film theorist Michel Chion.
“It’s when our brains make a connection between what we hear and what we see, even if we’re not physically seeing it.”
— HIBA ZAIDI
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