In September and October of 2011, I took part in an artist residency at the Ox-Bow School of Arts, in Saugatuck, Michigan.  These photos were taken in the Old Inn on the school grounds, where students would stay during the summer months.  I was instantly attracted to the blue colours in the rooms, from the painted furniture to the uncovered mattresses down to the walls, and I decided to create a series of photographs playing with the ideas of nostalgia and memories in relation to the colour blue.

eating the blues

October 5 – 23, 2011
Firehall Theatre
185 South Street
Gananoque, Ontario

November 10, 2011 – January 29, 2012
Royal Ontario Museum
Institute for Contemporary Culture
100 Queen’s Park
Toronto, Ontario

February 28 – April 8, 2012
Galerie d’art Desjardins
175, rue Ringuet
Drummondville, Quebec

My painting, Coda: Self-portrait in the studio, will be traveling with the exhibition later this year and into 2012 at the Firehall Theatre (Gananoque, Ontario), Institute for Contemporary Culture, Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto, Ontario), and Galerie d’art Desjardins (Drummondville, Quebec).  Check back soon for exhibition dates.

Chain Letter

Shoshana Wayne Gallery
Bergamot Station
2525 Michigan Avenue, B1
Santa Monica, CA, 90404

July 23 – August 25, 2011
Opening: Saturday, July 23, 6 – 8 pm

For more information on the exhibition, please visit the Chain Letter website & the Shoshana Wayne Gallery website.

TWIGS PAPER FOAM

Emily Carr Concourse Gallery
1399 Johnston Street, Granville Island, Vancouver, BC

One Night Only: Saturday, June 25
Hours: 6 – 9pm

For more information on the exhibition, please visit the 221A website.

Artist in Residence

Ox-Bow School of the Arts
Saugatuck, Michigan

September – October, 2011

For more information and to follow my progress during my residency, please check my blog regularly throughout September and early October 2011.

I would like to thank the British Columbia Arts Council for their financial assistance. I was awarded a Professional Development Assistance grant for my residency at The Banff Centre.

According to Pliny the Elder, the invention of drawing/painting occurred when a Corinthian maiden traced the profile of her lover using charcoal and the shadow of his face on a wall.  He was about to depart for war, and it was a way to remember him by.

During my What’s Love Got to Do With It? residency at The Banff Centre, I was thinking a lot about love and art.  I thought about my practice of portraiture and how I understood it as an act of love.  In my art practice, I work in two veins: personal and public.  There are the personal portraits of friends, family and loves; and there are the pop culture portraits of people.  In this instance, I am talking only about the personal portraits.  When creating a portrait of someone I am close to, it is an intimate act.  When there is love, whether it is platonic or romantic, that goes into the work; this can also become a very sensual act as well.  I will spend hours looking at the portrait subject’s face, both through the photograph I am working from as well as the painting I am creating.  Looking into one’s eyes, studying every line of one’s face; the shape of the eyes, nose, and lips; and how the hair falls just so.  I will spend hours to weeks focused on this one person.  And I do not paint at arm’s distance.  The amount of detail that I put into my artwork requires that I be physically very close to its surface while I’m working.  The entire process is not unlike the intimacy of studying a lover’s face.

Creating a portrait, for me, is a very personal investment and intimate act.  I only draw/paint those that I like or love.

These are the drawn portraits of my fellow Banff artists-in-residence, who I became close friends with over the course of my residency in early 2011.  The drawings were created, in the final days of my residency, as an act of both love and remembrance.