This September, I have the amazing opportunity to attend the one month SIM Residency in Reykjavik, Iceland. While I’m there, I will be working on my new drawing project, pretty boys kill me. This series of large scale drawings is entirely done in coloured pencils on paper and so far, I’ve finished one drawing. This is something new for me and a bit of a departure from my usual paintings, but drawing is something started to get back into recently and I feel it’s been leading up to this. The drawings are very labour intensive, so the time away will help me focus, without distractions, on this project, and I will be exhibiting it next spring at Gallery Fukai in Vancouver.
I’m currently running an Indiegogo campaign to help raise funds for attending this residency. While I was extremely lucky last year, in receiving scholarships and fellowships to attend the Banff and Ox-Bow residencies, the SIM Residency will be 100% self-funded. I was hesitant at first about raising money through Indiegogo, but then I realized, I wasn’t asking for free money. In return for contributions, I would be giving art, from prints to original drawings and commissioned paintings. So it is no different than normally selling my artwork, but anyone who contributes will know exactly where their money is going and how it is helping a project.
Last year was a personally difficult year for me. Banff was my first residency experience and I got so much out of it, both professionally and personally, I realized the importance that residencies held for artists. I set a goal for myself to attend a residency in the US and then an international one, both of high esteem. I spent a lot of time writing and submitting applications, and it all paid off. I went to Ox-Bow, in Michigan, last fall, and this September, in Reykjavik, I will be able to say I reached the goal I set for myself last year. This is a big boost for me.
So how can you help? Please visit my campaign page and read about my project. Your monetary contributions would be greatly appreciated, but if you are not able to give to the campaign this way, there are other ways you can help. You can like and share the campaign through Facebook and help spread the word.
If you do decide to contribute money, there are many different gifts available – from new limited edition prints to original drawings and paintings.
So let me tell you a little bit about this new series. I will be creating between 6 to 8 of these drawings, as well as other accompanying smaller works, which will be shown in an exhibition next spring in Vancouver. I first came up with this idea while I was at Ox-Bow last fall, when I was working with scans of patterned fabric and text. I thought to myself, how can I combine this with my work and my portraits, and it suddenly dawned on me, I wanted to make repeating patterns of faces.
Why did I choose pretty boys? Continuing with my interest in the representation of beauty, love and desire in pop culture, I wanted to look at these androgynous men who are being presented as an alternative to the machismo male. Long deified throughout art history, in paintings and sculptures as gods, angels and saints, the pretty boy has always been present in art and pop culture, but in the past, it was often as the muse of a male artist.
And what about the text? Kind of a departure from my usual work, but well, I’ll get into that more in my blog post about this series coming up next week. I’ll be writing more about the ideas behind this work in the upcoming weeks, while my Indiegogo fundraising campaign continues, with updates on my work as I prepare for my residency.
In the meantime, please help if you can. Every bit helps, from just forwarding this on to a friend or telling someone about my project to making a donation. I’ve always been extremely appreciative of all the support I’ve had over the years for my art work and I have a lot of really exciting things coming up in the next few months. You can read more about my fundraising efforts here.