Sena Cleave is an artist living and working on the unceded lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ peoples, or Vancouver, Canada. They explore the ways images and texts fabricate ideas of femininity, language, and originality or authorship. Their practice involves weaving, video, and photographic image making, as well as quoting and recombining found text. By bringing together materials found in research and in everyday life, Cleave points to the slippage that occurs when an idea is translated between mediums, languages, or cultural and historical contexts. The found materials become recontextualized among one another, and together they generate something that resembles a whole—one that is jumbled and misbehaving. 

 

Cleave is currently completing their BFA at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, Canada) with a major in Visual Art and a minor in Creative Writing. Recent presentations of their work include Mónica Reyes Gallery (2022, Vancouver, Canada), Massy Arts Society (2022, Vancouver, Canada), James Black Gallery (2022, Vancouver, Canada), SFU Galleries: Audain Gallery (2021 & 2022, Vancouver, Canada), and Centre A (2021, Vancouver Canada).