A really exciting new art project has gone up on the exterior wall of Moda Hotel along Smithe Street, in downtown Vancouver. Working with curator Indigo of Becker Galleries, Moda Hotel commissioned four internationally renowned artists–Augustine Kofie (LA), Jerry Inscoe (PDX), Remi/Rough (LON) and Scott Sueme (VAN)–known as Unintended Calculations to paint two collaborative murals on its exterior walls. Continue Reading…
William Betts returns to the Jennifer Kostuik gallery this week with a new series of paintings that explore our notions of privacy in the digital age. Whereas his last exhibit dealt with the passive mediating agent of the surveillance/CCTV camera, this series shifts towards the theme of voyeurism depicting beach and swimming pool scenes that reflect our paparazzi/Facebook-fueled fetish for consuming personal moments within the public space.
The paintings are created using a technique that involves drilling small holes in the back of acrylic mirrors and filling these holes with paint. When viewed from the front, the holes appear as tiny colored spheres. The images are composed of sub-pixels (similar to a television screen) arranged in a triangle arrangement, each providing different color intensity to complete the image.
Opening night is the 16th, with Betts delivering a talk at 6pm. Not to be missed.
Stumbled upon a brilliant exhibit at the Yaletown Jennifer Kostuik Gallery during lunch break today. Texas based artist William Betts (whose website curiously bares an “iPhone Optimized” icon) taps into the Big Brother omnipresence of our modern world, taking webcam and surveillance video screencaps as his subject matter and, by exchanging pixels for pointillism, reinterpreting them in often abstract and beautiful ways.
Says Betts in his Artist Statement:
“Today we have so many layers between the individual and direct experience, it fundamentally changes how we see the world…I am intereseted in how far removed I can get from the subject and the painting itself and still make paintings.”
Definitely worth seeing in person if you get the chance. The exhibit runs until June 8th.
Erin McSavaney wrote me recently to let me know about his upcoming show of new work at the Atelier Gallery from April 5th to the 28th.
From his artist’s statement:
“Based on rules and parameters, architecture is premised on the
creation of boundaries. But time and usage have the ability to strip
intent and function from a building, revealing its inhabitants’
successes and failures. Surfaces, stained and battered, become porous,
transparent. Evidence of beginnings, middles, and ends are clear.”
Not to be missed.
What: In the Realms of the Unreal
Where: Gallery Gachet
When: March 28th, 7:30pm
This past Saturday evening, local street artists Jerm9ine and Andrew01 engaged in a battle of words and pasteups outside of the Gallery Gachet at 88 E Cordova. I wasn’t able to attend (have i mentioned the chaos engine that is my life these days?) but made it down on Sunday afternoon to survey the aftermath. Brilliant and engaging, more performance poetry than graffiti, it is exciting to see things like this happening in our fair city. Documentation of the event by jerm9ine, cameraman and shallom can be found here.
Also be sure to catch the current exhibition at the Gachet, Internal Guidance Systems: Contemporary Outsiders that includes artists from UK, Sweden, France, Australia, USA and Canada. Until March 29th.
Young, local artist Erin McSavaney‘s collection of gritty, urban canvasses opens at the Atelier Gallery this coming Saturday and runs through to May 12. Looking forward to it.
On June 13th, 2006, artist Jeroen Witvliet bought a number of newspapers and proceeded to cut out images from their pages. From this collection, he would select those which he responded to most and paint them. In doing so, they became something new; stripped of its context and caption, the painting forced you to confront the image for what it was.
As Jeroen writes:
Jeroen’s exhibition, “In this light…whisper, 24″, opens tonight at the Cristall Gallery from 6 – 9pm and runs until the 22nd.
Read my interview from last year with Jeroen here.
Jeroen dropped me a line today to let me know that he has a new series posted on his site called Untitled Days. As timely and thought provoking as ever.
More info on Jeroen can be found here.
It seems Jeroen Witvliet has been busy with a new series called Text and more panels added to his Pan-orama series. Enjoy.
For more info, check out my interview with Jeroen here.
