Everybody I Know Loves Degrassi

If you're Canadian, you know exactly what I'm talking about. If not, I'm terribly sorry that you had to spend your teenage years without the comfort of a great public television show featuring others as zitty and angsty as yourself.

It may not sound like a winner, but it was great. Latecomers who try to get into Degrassi in their post-highschool years often don't - can't - understand the appeal. Part of the power of the show was undoubtedly the empathy it inspired in its teenaged viewers. While the premise of most television shows is based on a sort of voyeuristic longing, Degrassi was less about peering into the lives of the upper class, and more about peering into your own house. For those of us who tuned in to the CBC weekdays at 4, this series is for you.

The series is a mix of ink, graphite, acrylic gel, pastel, oil, acrylic, and collage. I was going for something that would look illustration-like and flat from a distance, but would reveal a greater complexity close up.

Snake.

Arthur.

Spike.

Lucy.

Joey Jeremiah!

And my personal favourite (as a character) - Caitlin.

View of the series as installed at the Concordia University Painting and Drawing Students Association show on Crescent Street in Montreal, 2007.

Dirt City

What a fun medium!  Seldom used because you have to make your own gesso from scratch, egg tempera is itself extremely easy to make.  It is, essentially, egg yolk and dry pigment.  That's it.  Okay, so there are a few tricks.  

Egg tempera allows for a lot of detail, and is appealing because it is extremely durable and long-lasting.  One of my favourite pieces in the Musée des Beaux Arts here in Montreal is an egg tempera painting from 1410.  It's a religious scene, but the red pigments in the skin have all faded, leaving only the greenish-grey underpainting.  Everyone in the painting looks like a creepy space alien.  The "space-alien effect" can be avoided in your own pieces by using stable pigments that won't fade over time.

"Dirt City" (above) is a personal coat of arms, a call-out to my home province with an oil-gushing sick heart over a yellow prairie, gorgeous sun and huge sky, and the Edmonton skyline in the distance.  Realistically, you can't get a view like that of the city; from that distance, you would likely be standing in a suburban cul-de-sac (Edmonton has one of the lowest population densities of any city in the world, and in size is larger than Toronto).

"Noxema Girls Get Noticed" started out as a tribute to Yayoi Kusama, and ended...well, it's not quite done yet.  I got off track and started thinking about the gender relations in the oil boom towns, and the syphilis outbreak in Fort McMurray and Northern Alberta.  I'll re-post this when it's finished.

I'm planning on doing more with this medium because it's so wonderfully portable and easy to use.  Eggs + pigment, and water to clean everything up.  Easy.  The fact that it dries almost instantly also makes it a nice change from those pesky oils.  Though egg tempera (along with watercolour) has a bad rap because of it's association with cheesy subject matter, I think it has a lot of potential to liven up contemporary subject matter.  At any rate, definitely worth continuing on with.

Ms. Guided and sexy bearded ladies

Ms. Guided, a feminist travel 'zine, launched issue #3 last week with a great party at the Eastern Block, and I'm honoured to be included. Just look at the thing! It's gorgeous. Perfectly bound and with a great cover illustration (in my mind I tell myself that the children are wearing orange jumpsuits because they're escaping from some sort of mad child-prison).

The inside is drool-worthy at points.

The theme was Change (,) of Course. My piece, Bearded Ladies, is about the fashion industry, which purports to "change" all the time, but in fact merely recycles the same tired looks (and ideals) over and over again. I thought it would be great if the fashion industry really did radically change for once, and bearded ladies became the next hot thing. Imagine...

Many thanks to Eliane, editor in chief, who did a fantastic job turning my image into one of those sliding-square puzzles (love it!) and all the bands who played the launch. Ms. Guided is available at select outlets around Montreal and elsewhere: check http://www.msguided.org for a full list of retailers.

Something Old, Something New

I finally photographed this old piece that I made for the show '23 Endings' at Latitude 53 back in 2003.  It was a really stellar one-night showcase of 23 young Edmonton artists, and it was an honour to be a part of.  The piece is called 'A Room to Fool Around In', and is a triptych portraying many of the friends who I felt I was growing apart from after commencing a rigorous Fine Art program.  People in it will have to guess at who they are though; I refuse to name names. A friend of mine is pitching this to a band as a CD cover, so who knows...maybe one day you'll see it in the 99 cent bin at your local music emporium (kidding!).

These other pieces are some of the silly work I'm doing now. They're all works in progress, more or less, so stay tuned to catch the final product.

Tiny paintings from Facebook video messages.


Confiture Bonne Maman - the best jam in the city.

Queen Elizabeth on ecstacy (she's going to have a kind-of red face and big pupils, and a little smile).

Stephen Harper, Stupid Hamster Face (needs to be more hamsterish).

Group shot!

Artist Desperately Craves Studio Space

This is where I'm working right now: in the corner of my bedroom.  I have to say that it's no fun sleeping next to drying oil paintings, but at least I'm getting lots of work done.  At last count I had almost 30 paintings in my room, many of them works-in-progress.  It's making the plan to teach English abroad so that I can afford a studio in the future seem all the more necessary.  If this weren't a short-term situation, I would be going crazy right now.  

The first thing I'm going to do when I have my very own studio space? Paint something HUGE!   For now, I have lots and lots of little paintings I've been working on.  

Expect many pictures in the coming months.

       

I completely have a new addiction

Would you still love me if I only placed 2nd in the Mexican Wrestling Championship Match???

Sadly, Photobooths do not appear to follow the Western construct of left to right narrative, so it's not quite in the correct order.  But next time - watch out!  I am now prepared.  I am going to spend all my food money this summer on train-station passport photos.  I'm so obsessed I'm going to go look on ebay right now and see if there are any old Photobooths for sale.  Not that I exactly have pocket change for that kind of thing, but at $4.00 a pop, these things are going to run me dry in no time fast.  Worth every penny, though.

720 New Prints!

Because I am a crazy, crazy person who doesn't know when to quit, I finished off the semester by making my biggest series yet: an edition of roughly 720 5x7 prints, each totally unique and different from the others.



I'm planning on going back into them with all sorts of drawing and collage materials.  This is definitely the most liberating project I've worked on in a while.  When you have so many of something, there's nothing at stake if you mess one up.

(Above: example of 3 of a kind.  Below: 'Double Nationalism' and 'Pull a Heavy Heart'.)

I say "roughly 720" because I left a few of them together.  I'm especially looking forward to creating more of a narrative within the wider ones.

Thanks again!

The opening of the HIV/AIDS show was also great. Tons of people came out, and (as with the FOFA show, which I sadly have no pictures of), the work was so strong I felt honoured to be included.


MR and Mandrew had a religious experience.

It ended with him serving her head on a platter.


View of the crowd. So much great work to look at!

My two measly paintings. I love them, but everything else was so much more exciting!

Like Miss Mandrew's video, which constantly had a line-up 10 people in to watch it. I had to come back the next day! Look at how thrilled he is with his success.

In fact, here's someone watching it. That's the shortest line of the evening.

So, muchos muchos gracias to all the organizers. I also want to do a shout out to Summer G., who had the great idea to put on a show for all those rejected by the Art Matters festival (that's twice now for me, and I guess two strikes and you're out since I am officially finished my degree now). Le Social liked the show so much they've decided to keep it up for another month. I don't have pictures, but Willy the Bum snapped a few at the opening, and they can be viewed here: http://communitycritique.blogspot.com/2008/04/salon-des-refuss-vernissage-photos.html

Thanks!

The months of March and April were a blur of making art, hanging art, and going to openings. Not that I'm complaining at all - I live for this sort of thing.

Thanks to everyone who came out to the McGill Sexual Assault Centre's show on sexual assault and gender-based violence at Brutopia, and thanks EVEN MORE to the organizers, who worked really hard to put this on and did a great job. 'Fire and Water' is up at Brutopia until May 15th.


It was very exciting to see Hot Topic up in a different place, curated in a different way. 20 portraits went up for the show, featuring people like Dorothy Allison and Leslie Feinberg whose works deal specifically with sexual assault and gender-based violence.


Along with the work that's up for the duration of the show, the Sexual Assault Centre also had these pieces at the opening. They were done by high school students taking part in a workshop about sexual assault, and I have to say, with absolute honesty, that they're some of my favourite works in the show! I don't know what to tell you, I can't get enough of them. I want to hang out every day with the brilliant teenager who decided to put little pink panties on the Calvin Klein man. Heart it!

4 Shows to See

  

 

I have paintings in four shows over the next three weeks. Come on down!

No Man's Land: HIV/AIDS and Waiting
March 31 - April 4, 2008
VAV Gallery, 1395 Renée Levesque West, Montreal QC
(corner Crescent, metro Lucien L'Allier)

Vernissage: Thursday April 3, 6-8pm

Fire and Water (put on by the Sexual Assault Centre of McGill)
April 7 - 21, 2008
Brutopia, 1219 Crescent Street, Montreal QC

Vernissage: Thursday April 10, 7-9pm

Salon des Refusées (for artists rejected by the Art Matters Festival)
April 7 - 24, 2008
Le Social, 1445 Bishop Street, Montreal QC

Vernissage: Saturday April 12, 7-10pm

The Annual Undergraduate Students' Exhibition
April 14 - May 9, 2008
FOFA Gallery, 1515 St. Catherine Street West, Montreal QC

Vernissage: Thursday April 17, 6-8pm

Hope to see you there!