Canvas to the Imagination

A few shots taken with my holga inside an abandoned house, from a few weeks back. It’s a location I’m hoping to return to sometime soon and do a more thorough job of photographing.

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.

Week 18 – More Poppies. From the 52 weeks self portrait series.

From the inside cover of Boris’ little red pocket notebook:

Red is one of the few colours – along with white and black – found in every language known to humankind. Red is the colour of fire, the colour of blood, the colour of life.

Red can be found in the oldest artworks on Earth, the Stone Age cave paintings of Southern France. Cave-dwellers mined red ochre and crushed it to create a pigment that has not lost its lustre in 30,000 years.

Derived from the ancient Sanskrit word for blood, “rhudira”, red was believed to prevent evil and disease. Warriors painted their axes red. Scottish farmers tied red string around the necks of their oxen. Ancient Egyptians immersed themselves in vats of red.

In Asia, red is the colour of luck and prosperity. Chinese brides wear red. Hindu women put red bindis on their foreheads. Red is the first colour noticed by babies, the favorite colour of children, the most popular colour on national flags.

Red is the colour of passion and love. A zest for life. A craving for excess. It is no myth that red is exciting. Just looking at red will increase the blood pressure, stimulate adrenaline and speed up the pulse. See what happens when you think in red.

Red is my favorite colour.

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.)

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.