Canvas to the Imagination

One of the ongoing photographic projects I’ve undertaken since moving to Vancouver is the documentation of local street artist’s work. I try to keep an eye out when wandering the city and photograph new paste-ups or stencils as soon as I see them because due to the weather and strict anti-graffiti laws, very few pieces stay around for long. I’ve always had an interest in Graffiti but not to the same degree until now because the Vancouver scene distinguishes itself with interesting styles and distinctive work. Some may consider this sort of thing vandalism but I like the idea of bringing art to the street, because it adds a more interesting aspect to the visual landscape of the city and takes art out of the safe and typical environment of a gallery.

Street art is defined as any art developed in a public space, and can include traditional aerosol paint graffiti work, but encompasses many other media and techniques such as wheat pasting, stickers, and stencil graffiti.

A favorite of mine is the work of The Dark, for his large scale, very detailed, stencils and paste-ups. He is one of the most active contributers to Vancouver’s tight street art scene, along with Office Supplies Incorporated and Weakhand. The Dark always throws something up on the boarded over store front on the corner of Nelson and Granville, while both Weaky and OSI currently have new stuff up all over the city, so keep an eye out for it.

This week two gallery shows begin that involve Vancouver street artists. “Plumage” opens at Midtown (438 Pender St.) on Friday January 27th at 8pm, and on Saturday “Faces of Basco” opens at Les Gallery (1879 Powell St.) at 7pm.

In my quest for a suitable venue to show my work this year I came across the wonderful little gallery at Havana Restaurant on Commercial Drive. The current exhibition is called Cuban Soul, featuring the work of Surrey-based photographer Gabor Gasztonyi. His black & white photographs were taken in the barrios of Havana, Cuba and feature the beauty and energy of the people who live there. “They are some of the most beautiful people in the world, full of life and music, this comes through in their faces, even though the communist regime limits their freedom.”

Check it out soon because the show ends this Saturday January 28th.

Over on the photo sharing community of Flickr there is an interesting and very active group called Utata that was originally started by Catherine Jamieson. She wanted to create a salon in the traditional sense, where people could gather to talk, share, learn and grow. The group has become a very vibrant community that I’m very proud to be a contributing member of. It’s one of the few groups I make an effort to keep up with (besides Vandigicam) because it seems to attract a higher calibre of photographer and many of the members are flickr contacts that I admire.

It’s a constant source of inspiration and ideas because there is often a new project on the go to get everyone out and shooting. This past weekend’s project was the theme “Beam me up” - photos taken in general darkness but lit with an artificial directed beam of light. The above three photos are ones that I chose to submit and I’m looking forward to the end results of the group project.

Click here for more Utata projects.