Category: Vancouver art

Trees I Have Dreamed at Waterfront Theatre

Metal prints-2

In an unexpected turn of events I now have two art shows up at the same time, and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

A few weeks ago I had an email from the Granville Island Cultural Society wanting to confirm the load in date of my show at Waterfront Theatre. I was taken aback because when last I’d been in touch with them regarding this particular show it was supposed to be rescheduled for another time because nothing was booked in the theatre space. To give a bit of backstory, I’d applied and been accepted in early 2009 to show my work at Waterfront Theatre in 2010 from the beginning of March to mid-April. When I’d followed up in September of last year to start preparing for the show I was told the theatre wasn’t yet booked for the time period of my show which meant no one would be in the space to see my work. I was disappointed but I decided to reschedule for another time rather than having a show in a space no one would be visiting.

Metal prints-3

Fast forward to two weeks ago and colour me surprised (and pleased!) because the show is still on afterall. The timing couldn’t be better because I am now a full time artist and getting more work out into the world is a good thing.

Luckily I’ve had a very productive period of art work creation over the last few years and I had a show on hand that was ready to go in the very short amount of time I had to prepare. In my application for Waterfront Theatre I had proposed to show the metal prints because at the time it was the most consistent body of work I had. Even though I had originally intended to create new work for this show I’m not disappointed. I’ve always wanted to show the large scale metal prints again and not just have them gathering dust in storage.

Metal prints

I’ll be having an artist reception towards the end of March, and will post details here once the date is confirmed. Boris has a few photos up of the work hanging in Waterfront Theatre.

Trees I have Dreamed
March 1st to April 11th, 2010
Waterfront Theatre, Granville Island
1412 Cartwright Street
Vancouver BC

The Return of Hot One Inch Action

Remember back in November when I wrote about attending the Hot One Inch Action show? I’d submit work to it but wasn’t accepted. Well good news! The organizers of the event, Chris Bentzen and Jim Hoehnle, have decided to do a medalist round selecting work from designs that didn’t make it into previous shows, and mine was chosen. Dude, I am so excited!!!!

From their website:

Ever wonder what doesn’t make it into the show? We have a difficult time choosing buttons to be in Hot One Inch Action and with 100-150 submissions each year, there’s a lot of great art that doesn’t make the cut. So, to kick off 2010, we’ve chosen 50 buttons not in the 2004-2009 shows to be MEDALISTS. Bags of 5 random buttons will be available for $5. Get a button you don’t want? Trade with the people around you!

The exhibit is one night only and will take place on Saturday February 6, 2010, with doors open at 8pm. Boris and I will be there, and I’ll have a bag of buttons featuring my design to give away and trade. I can’t wait.

Hot One Inch Action Medalists
W2 Culture + Media House – 112 W Hastings Vancouver
Saturday February 6, 2010
doors open at 8pm

Button Action

Hot One Inch Action

A few friends and I attended the Hot One Inch Action button show yesterday evening. If you’ve no idea what I’m talking about it’s a show of buttons designed by fifty different artists and is on for one night only. The buttons are on display at the show and people can buy grab bags with five buttons each. The idea is to trade buttons with the other audience members until you get the ones you want. Everyone gets into it and the fun of the show is in the trading.

These are five of the buttons I came away with at the end of the evening, mostly thanks to Boris because he’s a more convincing trader. I went for most of the buttons with designs featuring birds and one of the two designs featuring a cat.

This is the button design I came up with for the show. It wasn’t accepted but it didn’t make it any less fun to attend and participate. Next year I will try again.

button_design copy

(Edit: The dash lines mark the button area and the bleed and aren’t part of the design.)

Vancouver Art: The Sultry World and The Red Thread

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I have two shows for you featuring the colour red. One is past and the other is upcoming.

Norico Sunayama | A Sultry World

Centre A Gallery was hosting Norico Sunayama’s live installation of A Sultry World for only two days last week, so I made sure I got myself down there to see it. The idea is relatively simple, a live model is seated high on a chair wearing a giant red dress that covers the floor of the gallery. Audience members are invited to crawl under the skirt and make their way to a sitting area directly under the model. It’s a very intimate experience and it reminded me of the blanket forts kids like to make. From the outside the installation is stunning with the red fabric covering the floor, and the way the dress transforms into different shapes when people crawl underneath. I’m very glad I went to see this because I found it a very inspiring piece.

soizick_meister
I love Soizick Meister’s paintings. They are everything I aspire my photographs to be; imaginative and real with the twist of the magical. Her work has had an influence on some of the photos (here & here) I took during the 52 weeks series. I saw her last show at Jacana Gallery in August 2008, and now she is having another show there, opening this Saturday and on-going until November 22. It’s called The Red Thread, and the imagery is based upon an old Chinese proverb about an invisible thread that connects those that are destined to meet. I am loving what I can see in the online gallery and can’t wait to see this work in person.

Love Letters at Grace Gallery

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Love Letters: Grace Gallery
Cameraphone pic taken at the opening.

I’m a little behind on posting about this because the show actually opened two weeks ago, but I have a letter in the Love Letters show at Grace Gallery. I enjoy writing letters and decided I had to do something to submit for the show. My letter is written to Boris, but using more “poetic” language than I would normally write in. I wasn’t sure if it was any good (read: incredibly sappy.) until I went to opening night and read it again. I wrote it by hand in one draft, trying to be as articulate and neat as possible since it was going to be in a show. Boris has only seen this photo of it but I’m pretty sure he had the mushies when he read it.

I hope you can read the words at its current size because I couldn’t quite bring myself to retype them for further sharing. Even though this letter is hanging in a gallery and has been read by many people, it is still a very personal piece of work.

More about the show opening on Scout Magazine.

Sale: Metal Prints at Etsy.com

I’ve decided to put all of the metal prints I have listed in my Etsy shop on sale. The regular price is $45, now on sale for $35. This does not include shipping. Below are detail shots of two of the eleven prints.

Metal print - Stranded balloons detail

Metal print - posing crow detail

Each is a handmade aluminum metal print mounted on a wooden cradle frame. Size: 7″x 7″ with an image size of 5″x 5″. These prints are made using a heat transfer printing process, and the imagery are my photos taken with a holga camera.

rashe.etsy.com

Mask in the Window

Mask

On Sunday afternoon I checked out the Comicon and Zinefair at the Vancouver Art Gallery. It was an event taking place in conjunction with Krazy, the comic/manga/anime focused show that’s been at the VAG for the last few months (go see it if you haven’t yet.) It was a good little comicon, spread over three floors but in very small and cramped rooms. There were plenty of local artists selling their comics or zines and showing off their stuff, as well as vendors with more mainstream publications.

I bought two items I’d been wanting for quite some time: Volume Two of comic anthology series Flight, and Milk Teeth, a book of illustrations by Julie Morstad. I really love her work. Her illustrations are all delicate pen and ink drawn lines with subtle colour palettes, and intricately detailed subject matter of childhood with a dark twist. She has an upcoming solo show at Atelier Gallery in September, and I recommend you check it out.

Green Words: Nicole Dextras at Van Dusen Gardens

My good friend Nicole Dextras has been the artist in residence at VanDusen Gardens over the summer. Starting this weekend she will be presenting the installations created on site. Instead of having a traditional exhibition opening Nicole has opted to lead people on tours of her installations throughout the garden at select dates (Listed below).

Nicole creates her work from natural material such as leaves, twigs, thorns, grasses, flowers, etc., often with a focus on text. For the work in the garden she has created a pair of thrones to represent the King and Queen of Versailles, installed a rangoli made of leaves on the lake, grown a large scale version of the word culture from grass seed, and more. The tours begin this Sunday.

Green Words, growing the language
Sunday August 24 at 2 pm
Tuesday August 26 at 2 pm
Thursday August 28 at 7 pm

5251 Oak Street
at the corner of 37th Ave, between Oak & Granville Streets
Hours: August 10am – 9pm
September 10am – 7pm

(Nicole has a set of work in progress photos on flickr.)

Magic in the Landscape

Out for a paddle
Out for a Paddle
Taken from the train window, somewhere near Tacoma, Washington.

I really wish I was better about keeping up with what’s going on at local galleries, because too often I see shows just before they close or miss them completely. In some cases the shows I do catch at the last minute are ones I would definitely recommend to others, but then it’s too late.

Such is the case with the show I went to see on Saturday afternoon at Jacana Gallery. The show featured the work of artist/illustrator Soizick Meister. The series of paintings focuses on easily recognizable landscapes around Vancouver, with plenty of iconic imagery of crows, herons, tanker ships against the north shore, logs on Kits/Jericho beaches, and other things easily recognizable as “Vancouver”. In every painting there is the mysterious figure of Mr. M dressed in hat and trench coat, turned towards the scene to contemplate the landscape. The scenes are peaceful, sometimes with playful details of paper boats or piles of books. This is magic realism at it’s best, and I found the show to be a wealth of inspiration.

Jacana Gallery has the full show online.

Chronicle

I’m really looking forward to the upcoming show of collaborative works by Neal Nolan and Eben Bender. He’s one of my favorite Vancouver-based artists. The above shot is one of his most recent pieces (located on Pender Street), and he was also one of 150 Vancouver artists in last Saturday evening’s “Cheaper Show” in Gastown. His works are done with a mix of airbrush, acrylic, inks, and text, with imagery focused on portraiture.

A full set of Eben’s work on display for Chronicle can be seen on Flickr.

The show opens Friday at Little Mountain Studios on Main Street, and runs until July 7th. Both artists will be in attendance opening night.

Chronicle: Collaborative Works by Neal Nolan and Eben Bender
Little Mountain Studios
195 East 26th (One block west off Main.)
Opening: June 27th, 7pm to 11pm