Drift

Drift
48" by 36"
Oil and oil stick on canvas.

Floating in the current... belly to the sky. Flow and swirling deep down. Flittering and twittering above... electric sky, rays of sun. Receding into the surf. Reflecting. Potential energy.

Can't wait to see what happens next.

About to start the first canvas of the tides series.
the first one will be called "drift" signifying the end of my aimless searching for direction in art. that awful moment in between one canvas and the next when for a brief (sometimes not so brief) when you say to yourself "i've got nothing left to say" or worse "what i just said sucks ass i might aswell quit" or even worse "i'll never say anything as good as that... so i might aswell quit" and the moment when your whole body aches with joy in finding that next idea that propels you to the easle.
no one said artmaking would be easy... sometimes i wish someone would so we could all throw rotten tomatoes at their car!

initial sketch from my free flow drawings



sweeling organic life bits



first composition



second composition: ideas taking form now



third compostion: the basis/foundation for the first canvas



should an interesting week!

the Tides

search and exploring, i have stumbled onto the Tides.
Primodial movement (implicating the effects of the earth's rotation on the oceans)
slow and powerful, swirling and sinking
constant motion, heart beat of the sea
wet, fluid
engulfing, current

starting with studies in oil stick and paint.
next will be on canvas

Movement

I've decided that I'm going to dig deeper into the concept of movement.
Enough waffling... get down to some work that will challenge me that will (hopefully) push my visual vocabulary into somewhere it hasn't gone before.

here's my starting point.



Below are some free form abstract drawings to loosen me up. I'm so full of doubt and uncertainty. This is something I'm going to have to resolve before I get started. There's no going back to my old forms and working methods. I have to break the ice.... and this is the only way i know how. (plus i love the concept of movement as it relates to the 2d space/time of the page)



let's go and explore one of these variations... make it bigger... dig deeper.

Images from B.E.

I haven't posted in a while because i've been replanting myself. I clean out the studio from corner to ceiling to make my way for some (hopefully) new and exciting artmaking.
Below are some action shots from the final performance from Brief Encounters.

Hey... so if y'all were wondering what the "finished" product looked like... here's the two panels that i painted... the first being the one i responded to the music... the second one responding to Lynette.





i've been told they look radically different up close than when i was working on them on stage...
hmmm?
any hoo... twas a blast folks... hope to see you soon out there in art land

peace out homies
pete

One more time

This experience of performing / painting live on stage is quite a thrill. This is a really cool opportunity... one that i'll never forget.
Lynette and I had our rehearsal last night. We worked out the frame of the piece. Since it is relies heavily on improvisation, we didn't go over it too many times... just enough to know when our main queues are.
I'm probably going to do a practice tomorrow and then prep the canvases for the final show. i've added some depth to the colour palette just to make it punch a little more. I'm also going to visualize how i'm going to respond lynette... but it's all up to the moment now.


Other thoughts;
a series of paintings on the subject of some of the daily poems that i've written.
giving visual form to my words....
not an earthshaking concept... but something that might facilitate my desire to create experimental work.
i feel as though i'm at some sort of stylistic crossroads... involving my dialogue with oil painting.
do i commit to it and dig as deep as i can and find out if oils can bring shape to my ideas?
or do i start fresh with new and a variety of medium?
"i hate freakin' crossroads"
pete

Brief Encounters

Lynette and I both know what our roles are this piece. We have one more part to work out but other than that, it's "in the bag"! I can't wait to do a full rehearsal but tonight i've got to ask myself "how do we connect?" "how do we bring this full circle?" So i'm going to put the piece we are performing to on repeat until i get a glimmer/seed of an idea.
Feedback from katy and mara was great. they seem into what we are doing (which is awesome) and had some helpful suggestions regarding logistics and "choreography". mara's dog is a lil' cutie too. Lynette and i did a quick run through for them and since i didn't have my gear, i was forced to do some "air painting" ;)

An example of personal/artistic growth:
here's a couple of pics of my paintings.










and here's a glimpse of what we are planning to do for Brief Encounters.


i know i was wanting to get more experimental... watch what you wish for cuz you just might get it :)

tuesday we get together again in the body spirit studio... this time i'll be materially prepared
Pete

p.s. the salmon are running in Goldstream if anyone cares. it was my first time seeing a salmon run... twas pretty cool

had a great sesh with Lynette today
we are finally nailing down exactly what we are going to do for the 10 minute piece.
warmed up with some interpretive drawings of the arabian music she had on... then some drawings based on what she was doing to the music. my first impression of her style of dance FUN! she would use the word Joyous. but i'll let these lil' sketches speak for them selves.

Getting closer to what i think would work on a stage. A large canvas at the back of the stage so i can paint lynette while she's obscured from view. and make my way across the canvas. and then we can switch sides and she can dance her way across to the other side.
i'll use bright acrylic paints or tempera and use possibly two brushes.
yeah!!!

Brainstorm sesh

We had our brain storming sesh as to what Lynette and i are going to do for our piece on movement. it didn't take long to decide that we are going to incorporate gestural painting with freeflowing intuition/improvisational dance.
Somehow, we are going to play on the idea aswell that Lynette will be dancing out of view of the audience and i will be painting her so the focus is on the visual aspect of movement... then she will come into view and i will bugger off and she will respond to what i have done... and then i will either start another one or play on what she has responded too... perhaps she could add to the picture somehow? and then we'll tie it together by her and i working at the same time in full view of each other.
Our next meeting is on Wednesday and we will start jamming and choosing some music. I've gotta go check out art store and see if there's some sort of vicose paint that i can use that'll enable me to create long flowing stokes without having to recharge the brush too frequently.
So yeah! this'll be awesome. Lynette is great to work with too cuz she's open and enthusiastic. It's gonna be great... i'm going to paint onstage too... wow!

Some initial thoughts and ideas.
1. notion of fluidity with regards to movement. dripping, drying, brushing, marking
2. colour movement: the idea of complementary colour, simultaneous constrasts, the push and pull of warm and cool hues
3. displacement of the body in time and space... could be just the displacement of form in time and space.

there is ofcourse the obvious gesture painting while my partner dances... a visual representation of movement... this might actually fit the bill... but we'll see what Lynette thinks.
the idea of using a tennis ball or some unusual object as an implement of making marks would be appropriate... possible dipped in ink.

link to Tomorrow Collective website
http://tomorrowcollective.com/

pretty awesome stuff

a couple of images i found on the internet to generate some ideas

Partner has been chosen

So last night i was paired up with my partner for this project. It was cool, about ten of us went over to Holly's house (art director of Crimson Coast) and chatted over some wine and cookies. Then the Project Coordinators (Katy and Mara of Tomorrow Collective) paired us up. It was fun to meet some dancers from Vancouver... they just seem to exude creativity and artsy funness!
My partner is named Lynette and she's trained as a belly dancer. She is into improvisation, which is great, cuz i think this'll be very "by-the-seat-of-our-pants".
It was a cool experience to go to a sort of artist party. i had a few too many glasses of wine but that's allright! (coupled with the martinis i had with my girlfriend as we booty danced in our living room last night = a fine headache and shakiness this morning)
So tonight after i go for dinner with my folks, i've gotta do some brain storming and figure out what i can contribute to this project.
the theme is movement: purposeful motion.
leaves falling from the trees. water. internal organs. earth's rotation. still.
this is exciting!

Brief Encounters

I'm very excited. I'm going to be involved with an experimental/cross media art project. It's called Brief Encounters. "Artistic speed dating meets creation under the gun". It's part of Nanaimo's Infringing dance festival produced by Crimson Coast Dance Society.
Basically, i'm going to be getting paired up with another artist from a different media ie. dance and create a ten minute performance piece. Theme=movement. So yeah, i'm freekin' stoked!
I'll keep posts on this project as it develops.

Current Show

Check out www.victoriaemergingart.com for new paintings available through the Victoria Emerging Art Gallery.

Please contact info@victoriaemergingart.com for viewings and sales.

About Me

Pete Kohut moved to Vancouver Island from Winnipeg in 2004. Over the past seven years his work has moved through a series of stylistic and theoretical explorations without ever veering away from a distinctive, highly recognizable personal aesthetic that has been, perhaps, most deeply concerned with representation of the human form. He began his artistic life on the West Coast with Statuettes, a series of figurative paintings that investigated the monochromatic. In his words, “A monotone image takes the subject matter from the usual perception of things and places it into a new, ethereal context. It seemed only fitting to experiment with the whole range of the basic colour spectrum.”
Perpetually working at the borders between the naturalistic and the abstract he has at times more fully embraced the representational, as with his 2007-2008 series, Joy. About this work he stated, “I have turned from abstraction, which I believe alienates the viewer. Clever juggling of form and colour do not seem relevant to my current mode of expression. Self-referential symbols and archetypes run the risk of being obscure, and I want to create images that everyone can experience without a written rationale or explanation . . . This series follows the theme of simple joys in every day life. Brought on by the sense of peace that the landscape of the West Coast gives me, my subjects express my appreciation of the familiar.” His subjects from this period follow the traditions of still life, landscape, and, of course, the nude.
By 2009, he had left this tranquility and simplicity to address the complexity of emotions inherent in human relationships, in works rendered with an emphasis on lines and planes that is reminiscent of cubism. As he describes, “Vulnerability is a series of paintings on the theme of emotional fragility. There are two sides to the coin of a loving relationship. On one side are all the giddy, weightless, exciting, and hopeful feelings. On the other side of the coin are all the feelings of loss, grief, depression, and anger. The figures in the paintings are enacting these powerful emotions . . . I was compelled to create these works for two reasons: 1) therapeutic to release troubling memories from my mind 2) intrigued by experiments into how to represent the figure in a more expressive way (as opposed to photographic realism).”
His most recent work sees a renewed interest in forms and an attention to the multifarious moods created by their shifting juxtapositions. “Over the past year, I have been intrigued by the effects of repetition of form and the use of line in painting. My studies in contemporary art have pushed me to search beyond naturalism to find a means of communicating. The paintings are transitioning from paintings that look like things to paintings that are expressions.” The complexity of relationships is not, here, represented by highly readable body positioning and the facial expressions of individuals, but rather by the intricate shapes and patterns that emerge when quasi-abstracted human forms are superimposed on one another.
Victoria Emerging Art Gallery welcomed Pete in 2010 as a finalist in the first ever Victoria Emerging Art Award show, and has since had the pleasure of witnessing the ongoing excitement his work generates in both new and established audiences and collectors.
—Victoria Emerging Art Gallery
Represented by Victoria Emerging Art Gallery. For viewings and sales, please contact info@victoriaemergingart.com

Press:
Exhibit-V Solo Exhibition at the Victoria Emerging Art Gallery
Exhibit-V Victoria Emergin Art Gallery Grand Opening
Inner views with Ally
Robert Amos column in Times Colonist.
Exhibit-V virtual tour of the Victoria Emerging Art Awards






Below are some of the spaces that have exhibited my work over the past few years:

Victoria Emerging Art Gallery in Victoria, BC, 2011
Dales Gallery in Victoria, BC (as part of Victoria Emerging Art Gallery), 2011
The Old School House Arts Centre in Qualicum Beach, BC, 2010
The Avenue Gallery (as part of Victoria Emerging Artist Awards) in Victoria, BC, 2010.
Overleaf Cafe in Victoria, BC, 2010
Chemainus Theatre Festival Art Gallery in Chemainus, BC, 2010
District Hall in North Vancouver, BC, 2009
Libby’s Kitchen in Vancouver, BC, 2009
CFB Comox Lobby/Lounge in Comox, BC, 2009
Muir Gallery in Courtenay, BC, 2008
Aurora Gallery in Vancouver, BC, 2008
Yaletown Gallery in Vancouver, BC, 2008
Eileen Fong Co-op Gallery in Vancouver, BC, 2008