Stephanie Kendrick

Education

University of Waterloo - Honours Arts - Fine Art (2013)

Specialization

Fine Art & Design

Biography

As a traditional artist, I have been undergoing a recent transition into the digital realm of creation. After beginning as a painter, my work ventured far from painting and into a style characterized by experimental and untraditional artwork, until it very recently refocused into traditional pencil drawing. After graduating from the University of Waterloo with an Arts degree in Fine Art in 2013, I focused on developing my skills in graphic design to better suit the digital economy. Wishing to continue learning and experiment with new things, I decided to continue my education with the Masters in Digital Media program at Ryerson.  

Why Digital Media?

To be innovative, to me, as a fine artist, is to maintain originality while discovering your position between the digital and the traditional. This is what I have sought to do after graduating in 2013 and this is what I expect will happen twelve months from now.  I wish to build upon my existing skills in terms of a digital media interest.  Although I have some experience in digital art and design, this program gives me the opportunity to enhance these skills in entirely new ways. 

Research

Major Research Paper: "Misogyny and Gaming: Uncovering the Operations that Maintain a Male-Gendered Gamer Culture"

The construction and reification of the gamer identity as one that is essentially or naturally gendered as male, originates from a still powerful discourse that posits technological proficiency as a distinctively masculine characteristic. This leaves female gamers in an inferior position to their male counterparts. The mainstream popularization of gaming, and increase in the accessibility of videogames, allows for the diversification of the gaming population, posing a threat to the traditional ‘gamer identity’. This could result in a cultural shift that redefines a now open and diverse community that was once highly exclusive. The diversification of gamer culture challenges the assumptions that its members have formed about the gendered nature of the community. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how a number of operations in gamer culture work to maintain these assumptions and preserve the illusion of male ownership.