progress

I made a few revisions to these paintings before the xmas break (which is still happening :zzzzz). Here are some of the results. I'm liking how these make a little more sense to me know.

Series in progress

Here's a couple of the smaller works I've made. They are supposed to accompany the larger portraits but I think I have to obscure them a lot more. Make the paint come forward!

Holiday Season

Dark and cold
raining, windy
trying to walk out my ghosts
my memories both happy and sad
stamping out my malaise with each step
trying to figure out where i can get $12,000

Doubt

Doubt: an artist's best/worst friend.
I'm considering putting my mixed up portraits back the right way round. But we'll see. Gonna let that sit for a while. I think they become better images, but not better paintings.

Leigh Square

Dropped off my work and helped hang my paintings for my show at Leigh Square. It looks pretty legit ;)

Art Show at Leigh Square

I have an art show that opens Thursday December 1, 7-9 and runs until January 9 at Leigh Square (1100-2253 Leigh Square (Behind City Hall) Port Coquitlam)

Collage

Our objects assignment has been scrapped from class, so instead we have to make a collage of an historical painting. I chose Gericault's "Raft of the Medusa" because I wanted a challenge. I think I may have bitten off more than  I can chew, but we'll see . . .

Raft of the Medusa, by Gericault

Yay

I may have ressurected my laptop from the dead! Not sure how leaving the thing on all night while it's stuck on the loading screen helps, but it's back . . . for now.
While it's back, I'm going to do a fuller post.
Our next assignment for Drawing 300 is to choose no fewer than 10 objects that relate to our drawing and/or art practice. This is an interesting project cuz it is more like sculpture than drawing. So I'm not sure what the prof is getting at with this assignment . . . drawing as objects in space? or objects as implied drawing?
Not sure how I feel about this assignment yet, but here's some objects from my studio that inspire me or lead me to reverie.

I'm going to present these objects in book form.
We'll have time to talk to Matt next class about the project, so I hope to get some good feedback then :)

Next

Onto the next project . . .

Fantastical architecture

Heres my finished drawing. We'll have to see how it holds up in crit tomorrow.

Wip

Fantastic architecture drawing

Holy smokes! This is gonna be a very large drawing! Better get to it, its due in 2 weeks . . .

Collab

Working on some collab stuff with PJ Kelly with the intention of having a collection of work to show somewhere around town. Need more stuff so if you're interested in collaborating with me, drop me a line.

Drawing machine results

Had a good crit today in class. Its awesome when your prof and fellow students point out the things that need improving in your work in a way that inspires you to try harder. There are presentation issues in my work (all my work to be honest) which i think is an important and doable aspect to imrpove on. I think that sole fact is worth the tuition right there because i seem to suffer from tunnel vision and these comments might help me to take my work one step further in quality.
Ill post images later once i take some gallery quality ones!

Not so New beginnings

Getting started on another large portrait painting :)

Blindfold drawings

Plaskett Gallery

Some video of my show at the Plaskett Gallery. Up until Sept 30

#ArtisanSeries in Vancouver (Winsor Gallery)

A few images from the reception of the Vancouver Finals for the Bombay Sapphire Artisan Series. Quite an amazing event! Thanks to the Winsor Gallery, organizers, throngs of people, and cheers to the other participating artists! Congrats to Ben Lee on advancing to the next round.

Halcyon Days

Halcyon Days, 64" by 64", oil on canvas, 2016

Bombay Sapphire Artisan Series

Woo! Excited and nervous to be a part of this event!
https://www.facebook.com/events/1041070612673844/?ti=cl

Drawerings

Im excited to start my drawing class this term. One of our first assignments is to make a drawing machine. It doesnt have to be a mechanical thing that makes marks, but it could take the idea of the machine and interpret it as the crestion of a scenario that produces marks. Like a sol lewitt wall drawing.
Listening to the preamble in class, i got to think about what drawing is fundamentally. Its a record of movement (which involves time and space).
So what if my machine was a scenario that recorded the movement of something that doesnt appear to move? I have no idea what that would be . . . a pretty interesting assignment. Cant wait to get started.

Plaskett gallery show

I have a show for the next month at the Plaskett Gallery in the Massey Theater in New Westminster. Details here http://www.masseytheatre.com/event/insideoutward/

Eek!

This is an experiment for how to mount my large portrait paintings. I had my piece 3.2 accepted into the semi final of the Bombay Sapphire Artisan Series show in Vancouver next week (Winsor gallery) and now I'm in a bit of a panic cuz I want to mount it flat and not on a stretcher. So heres a trial run using foam core and pva glue. Fingers crossed!

Integrate Art Society weekend

Below are the prints that I'll have for sale during the annual Intergrate Art Society festival. Should be a fun weekend with lots of cool events happening :)

Sketching

I'll need to do a few sketches before starting my next portrait. I want the next one to have a feeling of burn out exhaustion. That delightful moment when your head hits the pillow after a late night.

Sunday Night

Sunday Night, 80" by 80", oil on canvas, 2016

Collab piece

Im starting work on a collaborative painting with Ira Hoffecker. Going to try and meld my fractured figures in with her map like abstraction. Im not sure the oil will hold over the resin she uses, but i guess we'll see :)

In progress

I nose this is gonna take awhile.

Study for Sunday Night

Starting a new 4 panel painting in my portrait series. This one will focus on making the plane of the painting like an actual skin. We'll see how it goes ;)

Outdoor cafe

Another piece im working on for the cafe series.

02

Cafe paintings

Here are some of the paintings i have been working on to bulk up my cafe series. I still need to make a few more for my shows on the mainland this fall and winter. So far so good :)

Fritz the pooter

Just a quick post. Laptop on fritz. Gonna have to gut it i think ;(

Cafe paintings

Here is a sneak peek at one of several new paintings for my upcoming shows on the mainland in the fall. Its been nice to revisit this work and try to beef up the series a little. The initial inspiration may have changed, but the spirit remains the same.

Thoughts about canoes

I was thinking about Peter Doig's painting (below) today because I was looking for imagery of Canadian vacation destinations.

Peter Doig, No Foreign Lands

There is something ominous about this image. The isolation of the figure, the ambiguity of the space, the barren bit of island in the background. I love the stillness, the silence. The only sounds would be the water rippling against the side of the canoe, and maybe the wind. I always thought it funny that the boat was so long, but perhaps the lone figure is actually the last survivor of the journey. That might explain the androgenous quality: long hair, beardy, emaciated, woman's dress? There are no paddles visible. The water almost seems like cement. The title makes me think of early explorers conquering and naming everything theirs eyes fell upon. But it also a bygone era and as Canadians, our heritage. I wonder what the equivalent will be when we start to colonize our nearby planets and star systems?

Edits

I make art to feel a connection to the world. The act of painting helps me to process how I feel about my sphere of daily life. Painting forces me to engage with the present, to be actively aware of the now: my feelings, thoughts, events. I also make art because I feel like there's a gap in the culture that I can fill with my paintings. This gap is found somewhere between photo-realism and gestural painting.
I am inspired by painters who paint the figure in a gestural and abstract fashion. I believe these kinds of paintings have the right kind of life and energy that I'm after in my own work, but I feel like there needs to be more of this kind of painting. I am unsatisfied with the state of the current visual landscape. In my opinion, it has become homogenized and devoid of genuine emotion. I am inspired to try and be a part of the remedy to this situation through painting.
My art signifies a response to the current monoply of the digital image on the visual landscape, a desire to break through the surface to a deeper understanding of what it is to see. My art prompts the viewer to do the same.
My art is specific to the current dialogue of contemporary painting because it combines the supposed binaries of representation and abstraction simultaneously. My art is distinctive because it uses traditional tools to create contemporary images and uses contemporary images to create traditional art objects.
The meaning in my art lies in inviting the viewer to participate in looking and deciphering the painting. My art is a challenge, puzzle, or visual riddle. My art extends the discussion of the relevance of painting started by Modernism, questioned by post-modernism, and its constant reevaluation in contemporary art dialogue.

Running Now

Running Now, 60" by 60", oil on canvas, 2016

Orbital

Artist statement in progress.
This latest series of paintings I'm working is very exciting for me, but I'm having trouble verbalizing what I'm doing with these. I hope to flesh it out.

why i make my art?
-I make art to feel a connection to the world. The act of painting or drawing helps me to process how I feel about my sphere of daily life.
-I make art because I feel like there's a gap in the culture that I can fill with my painting. This gap is found somewhere between photographs of people and gestural painting.
-I make art to test the limits of my perception of art. I often ask myself "Is this a painting?"
what inspires me to make it?
-I am inspired by painters who paint the figure in a gestural and abstract fashion. I believe these kinds of paintings have the right kind of life and energy that I'm after in my own work.
-I am unsatisfied with the state of the current visual landscape. I feel it is homogenized and devoid of feeling. I am inspired to try and remedy this situation with my paintings.
-I am inspired by the way colours and light interact.
what does my art signify or represent?
-My art signifies a response to the current monoply of the digital image on the visual landscape.
-My art represents what I think about the way that other people look like.
-My art represents my thoughts about contemporary painting.
what is unique or special about how I make my art?
-My art is unique because I combines representation and abstract simultaneously.
-My art is special because it uses traditional tools to create contemporary images.
-My art is special because it uses contemporary images to create a traditional art object.
what my art means to me?
-My art means a challenge to try and decipher it.
-My art means a trail  that I'm leaving myself to look back on. Each painting leads to another.
-My art means a break from the mundane. I feel in dialogue with all of history's past and future painters and makers of culture.

I guess this is more of a general statement. When I make a exhibition proposal, I could be  more specific? I'm still not quite sure how these things work or function.

Thinking about the tradition of portrait painting

A very brief sampling of paintings of people (western art tradition): portraits and self portraits

Raphael

Frank Aeurbach

Francis Bacon

Chuck Close

Gustave Courbet

Jacques Louis David

Edgar Degas

Kim Dorland

Edouard Manet

Lucian Freud

Thomas Gainsborough

Alberto Giacometti

Frida Kahlo

Gustav Klimt

Amedeo Modigliani

Leonardo Da Vinci

Pablo Picasso

Rembrandt

Andrew Salgado

John Singer Sargent

Jenny Saville

Elly Smallwood

Titian

Vincent Van Gogh

Andy Warhol

Kehinde Wiley