My first solo show in two years opens tomorrow evening at Radha Yoga and Eatery in Vancouver. It has been the biggest personal project I’ve ever worked on, one that allowed me to further explore a heat transfer printing process I’ve grown to love. I have been working on this show for the last six to eight months, slowly streamlining the imagery I wanted to use based around the idea of tree photos taken with a Holga camera, and figuring out the technical aspects of creating and displaying large scale metal prints. It was definitely a sort-things-out-as-I-go-along process, so in the end I’m glad I was able to reproduce the type of work I was envisioning in my head.
There are sixteen pieces in the show, three are diptychs, and the rest are single images divided and printed onto four metal panels. I chose to create these works in two and four panels due to limitations in the size of heat transfer paper and the heat press itself. Each panel has been individually hand-printed on aluminum and assembled into the finished product by me, in order to create a one-of-a-kind piece of art. Everything is mounted onto a wooden support frame on the back. These are definitely handmade pieces of art, down to the inconsistencies and imperfections that hopefully add and not subtract from each piece.
This show would not have been possible without the help of many of the lovely people I am lucky enough to call friends. Thank you to the following people: Nicole Dextras for the use of her studio and heatpress, and also for her invaluable support and feedback; Susie Gardner and Travis Smith for their very generous birthday present; Mandy Moore, Kaishin Chu, Ben Damm, Hendrik Kueck, Kathryn Ashe, and Monica Ashe for their friendship, love and support from both near and afar.
