Who We Are
The Canadian Society of Contemporary Iron Arts is a not-for-profit organization founded in 2019. The purpose of the society is to promote the transformative processes of metal casting and contemporary cast iron in Canada. Through events and education, we are increasing the availability of casting iron to artists, and re-introducing historic industrial methods as a modern artisanal process. With our activities, we recycle metals and create links between industry and the creative arts, as well as promote experimentation in the transformative arts process, creating a community of people who enjoy this artistic process.
Kip Jones
kipjones is an active and experienced public artist, sculptor and instructor living in Hamilton, Ontario. Over the past two decades he has created public and studio based work that have addressed various issues of the critical and conceptual discourse of contemporary three-dimensionality. During a ten-year period of his life he co-owned and operated a small fine art bronze casting facility in Kelowna, BC. By the end of this time he was tired and disillusioned, that initial excitement, awe and amazement of the metal casting process had disappeared into just a job. The passion and the fun of the transformative casting process was re-introduce to him in 2015 when he attended the 11th cast iron symposium at the Serde Art Centre in Aizpute, Latvia. This experience re-energized his passion for the transformative art of metal casting and led him to travel to other cast iron events to participate and learn.
Photo by Gabe Akagawa (Foundry Tree)
A/Bel Andrade
A/Bel Andrade is an interdisciplinary transmasc-disabled artist and educator. Abel is a sculptor, filmmaker, metalworker, and performance artist, regularly working in multiplicity through the editioning of their works and through the performance of repetitive obsessive actions and stims. They live with a chronic nervous system disorder that causes them to frequently faint, encouraging them to integrate elements of their queer-crip identity into their work through the visual analysis of systemic collapse and intentional failures. Their public art practice invites viewers to appreciate the complex and interconnected nature of the human experience, seeking to dismantle and disrupt systemic barriers in the building of a crip-Utopian future. Bel obtained their Masters in Fine Art in Studio Arts from Parsons School of Design at the New School (New York, 2023), and completed their Bachelor in Fine Arts in Sculpture and Installation at OCAD University with a Minor in Gender and Sexuality Studies (Toronto, 2020).
Joshua Avery
Joshua is a non-exhibiting artist that has been running the Metal Shop at Ontario College of Art and Design University since 2004 and assisting in OCADU Foundry operations since 2021. He has shown work locally and internationally in the past. He has transitioned from exhibiting into being, through a practice of creation and reflection.
George Farmer
Since George Farmer found himself, almost by accident working at an iron foundry in the 70’s, he’s played with the inexhaustible possibilities of molten metal. Showing work usually commenting on ecological and political concerns in Canada and internationally, George also was technician for the Foundry and Mouldmaking studios at OCAD University for over 25 years.
Rebecca Hollett
Rebecca Hollett, aka Goblin, is a Toronto-based interdisciplinary artist whose diverse practice spans sculpture, illustration, craft, and installation. Her work draws inspiration from the natural world and the stories that shaped her childhood, delving into realms of child-like wonder intertwined with macabre undertones. Currently, Hollett is focused on an ongoing exploration of gourds and pumpkins. For her, they symbolize life’s ephemerality, embodying cycles of decay and rebirth. An intimate relationship with her work is evident as she grows all the gourds used in her casts from seeds nurtured in her garden.
Hollett’s main material is bronze and metal casting; she is fascinated by the unpredictable nature of molten metal and its technical challenges. Her current series, Divine Gourds, serves as a conduit for exploring themes of death and the supernatural, celebrating beauty in the unconventional and the grotesque.Her work has been shown nationally and internationally; she recently completed a 12-week artist residency at the prestigious Sloss Metal Arts program in Birmingham, Alabama, USA.
Hollett holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a minor in Textile Design from OCAD University and recently graduated from CMU College for Prosthetics and Makeup Design.
You can follow her adventures in art-making:
@rebeccahollettarts
Vanessa Krause
Vanessa Krause (she/her) is a Toronto based artist and educator born in Stuttgart, Germany. She is an interdisciplinary artist working in metal casting, ceramics and fibre art with a specific interest in domestic crafts such as knitting and crocheting.
Vanessa is a graduate of the MFA program at OCAD University (2020) where she focused on Sloppy Craft within the realm of memory-making and mending using sculptural elements and repurposed material such as worn clothing.
Vanessa’s work is process based and includes the use of mould-making, lost wax casting for bronze, sand moulds for cast iron, as well as ceramic press moulds. By incorporating everyday objects into her work, they become palimpsests for memories, slippages and interruptions.
Vanessa’s work has been exhibited in the United States and in Ontario.
Ante Benedikt Kurilić
Ante Benedikt Kurilić is an emerging Croatian multidisciplinary artist currently working and living in Toronto. He completed his BFA degree in the Sculpture/ Installation program from Ontario College of Art and Design University in 2020. He is currently employed in the Fabrication Studios at OCAD University as a Class Assistant supporting students and faculty in the foundry, mouldmaking and metal studios.
Ante Benedikt’s practice involves traditional approaches to figurative sculptures and uses multiple techniques and mediums. He mostly works with clay, plaster, ceramics, marble, and various metal casting approaches in aluminum, bronze and iron materials, often mixing mediums with everyday objects.
Ante Benedikt creates composited artworks that question the impacts of human actions on their environments, exploring the identity of belonging, immigration and the absence of dreams.
Ana Norton
Ana Norton is a Canadian artist, fascinated by the bridging of the virtual and physical worlds. She explores this transitory space by means of 3D printing forms to be metal cast. Her work examines the nature of tools as physical embodiments of virtual constants. Recently this work has begun to cross pollinate with her own experiences having transitioned gender, and grappling with the concept of femininity and womanhood, and what those concepts mean when translated into daily life and her own experiences.
Elizabeth M Lopez
Elizabeth M. Lopez is a Canadian interdisciplinary artist, Montreal born, and now based in and around Toronto. Exploring themes of timespans, moments and intraconnectivity, her work often involves play, interactivity, dynamic sculptures, and creating durational experiences.
She obtained her Interdisciplinary Masters of Art, Media and Design (MFA) at OCAD University, Toronto. Her work has been shown in Canada and the US, and is held in private collections.
Ruby
Ruby is the star of our performances! Ruby is a transportable Cupolette furnace for cast iron, keen to demonstrate the almost alchemic transformation of discarded iron into molten glowing heat to feed castings of sculptural and performance artworks which provoke and delight. Created between pandemic lockdowns, she is the realization of long musings and dreams. An 16 inch inner diameter furnace, Ruby can produce about 175 pounds of molten metal every 15 minutes.
Kate Rocco
Kate (she/her) is a contemporary Kunsthandwerker (the intersection of art and craft), specializing in leather goods. She’s a certified Master Crafts Person in Leather (certified in Germany, 1995). She has been tailoring leather safety gear for CSCIA since 2024 – you will notice our colourful pour jackets, aprons and “KIPS” (spat and chap combo). She has also created bespoke handbags for a variety of customers.
Kate received her Bachelor of Business with a speciality in Commerce and Global Development in 2010. Currently she’s working on a book about iron casting, which will be titled “Iron Casting by an Armchair Artist”!
@roccoworkwear
Matt Walker
Matt Walker is an artist from Hamilton, Ontario. His sculpture-based practice incorporates a diversity of technical and conceptual approaches for working with public space. His practice looks to object making as a metaphorical and narrative craft with the belief that objects have a fundamental ability to communicate, teach us about our relationship to place and generate an understanding of ourselves.
Matt has received grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, The Ontario Arts Council, The Alberta Foundation for the Arts and been a contributor to Social Science and Humanities Research Council funded projects. Matt has completed residencies at Plug-in ICA (Winnipeg), Artfarm (Nebraska), and The Centre for Innovation in Culture and the Arts in Canada (Kamloops).
www.emancipatethelandscape.info