Narcissus (2019), Ink on Paper Series
ABOUT
Justice Walz (shey/they) is an interdisciplinary artist, maker + brand designer based in Tkaronto.
Hers is a practice of making and making do: utilizing concept, craft, words and found objects in an experimental praxis that often results in confessional art, installation, illustration and image.
Since graduating with distinction from Toronto Metropolitan University in 2018 with a BFA in New Media, Walz has created, exhibited, spoken, and written about art that joins the discourse of living with chronic and mental illness within an intersectional, trauma-informed framework. In 2022, she became an associate member of Workman Arts.
Walz uses her artistic practice as a way to playfully process and explore her experiences as a neurodivergent, chronically ill, mad, queer, biracial Filipina-Canadian healing from complex trauma. Her work centres around three core tenets: finding beauty in the abject, humanizing that which has been pathologized, and inciting transformation through intention and enactment.
In addition to her art practice, Walz co-founded Bruized in 2019- a women run Toronto-start up on a mission to fight food waste with upcycled plant-based snacks. She is currently a co-owner and the creative director of the project, shaping the company through brand design, brand identity, copy, packaging, graphic and web design.
In 2020, Walz represented Bruized as a guest speaker at the Food Loss & Waste webinar hosted by the United Nations FAO & Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) of North America. Bruized has since presented at events including COP15, (CEC)'s 30th annual Council Session, and Toronto Metropolitan's 2023 Environmental panel. The company has been featured in the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, NOW Magazine, BlogTO, Sustain Magazine, Food in Canada, and on Breakfast Television.
Since it's inception, Bruized has won over $50K of grant support including the COIL Activate Circular accelerator, Earth’s Own Plant Project, Commission for Environmental Coorperation’s Youth Innovation Challenge, CAP Agri-Food grant from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food, & Rural Affairs, and the Vaughan Starter Company grant.
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