Some stuff I am working on for Art in the Yard

All wood stain on panel

Elora Art in the Yard

I was accepted to Elora's Art in the Yard on July 9th and 10th, here is the flyer, come check it out.

This aint Kansas anymore

 

This diptych is a social commentary on transgender stereotypes and is meant to bring the viewer’s perception of gender into question. Two nearly identical images of heightened female sexuality are seen next to each other.  Upon first glance the images read quite similarly, but upon closer inspected the viewer becomes aware that the female form in the one piece is actually that of a man.  How does this affect a viewer’s reaction to the piece?  Does this unexpected variant change our over all perception of the image? Does the phallus make this image any less feminine than its counter part? These works are meant to ask the larger question of biological gender vs gender identification. 

  

woodstain, graphite and acrylic

 

note to viewer, the format of this blog does not seem to want to let me show these side by side as i had intended :S

death of the nic nac

 

Growing up there were always alot of nic nacs in our home, this has carried over into my own home.  I still cherish many of my kitchy childhood porcelain figures, though many are broken.  This series represents desires for lost childhood, and depicts the injuries of porcelain comrades .  Acrylic and woodstain 

 

This deer is from my grandparents house, my estranged cat Windekinde broke its neck

 

This is drimble the hedgehog, I bought him already broken cause i felt bad for the little guy

 

This one is also from my grandparents' house and suffered from decapitation... I have named it ISADORA after isadora duncan who died when her billowing scarf got caught in her car's back tire and snapped her neck

 I have two of these tiny porcelain kittens, one with a broken tail, one fortunate enough to be in good condition

 

This guy i bought with a busted ear to keep the alien deer company

  

This poor little guy has his tail busted

 

A squirrel's worst nightmare, losing it's tail.

Self portrait of a dreamer

In my memory and desire class everyday at the start of class we sit down and do "flow drawings"  he are asked to draw things like the feeling of an ice cube on our tongues, or to draw emotions using only marks, music etc.  The assignment was to make an over all piece that combined 10 of these flow drawings.  Mine turned into a self portrait and includes, kitty swans, kozyndan hokusai bunnies, mushroom clouds, tornados, alien abduction and the sagitarius constellation.   I tried to stay as true as possible to the natural wood grain. Acrylic and woodstain.

this picture sucks

december 5th 1984

self portrait done for my collage class.  Went with joey to the textile museum annual fabric sale, for 2$ they gave you a garbage bag and you got to fill it full of scrap fabric.  So i cut the woodland scene all from scrap fabric and then sewed it together, gel transfer of a toilet, matchsticks, grommets and hemp to suspend, and made this branch frame.   It was a small disaster, had so many extra branches in the house that i knocked stuff off the walls, accidentally ripped down the bead curtains and cut my leg trying to remove the access.  (never do that again indoors)  Joey helped talk me down when I was panicking and threatening to skip my critique.

CAT POND!!!!!

 My cats always sit with their legs folded under them, and I often think they look like ducks.  I have wanted to paint kitty "ducks" for quite some time now.  In my collage class we were to combine 2 images in an unexpected way.  I went for a nice spring walk in wychwood park, took a picture of this pond, and then added kitty ducks.  On first glance of this painting they looks very much like swans.  I am hoping to work on this more in the future as I only had a couple days on it, but i'm pretty pleased with it.  Seems to make me, and those who see it smile.  :)
acrylic.. approximately 2 x 3 feet

Mike does Camilla D'Errico

 For an assignment we had to pick a contemporary artist, and try to make a painting that could pass for theirs, not a reproduction, more of a "missing piece of work"  I chose pop surrealist artist Camilla D'Errico from Vancouver.  Camilla's work always includes animals, so I chose 3 that i often use in my own work, and configured them into poses that she has used in previous works. - acrylic

the dangers of fire

so, i have a collage class... this was project number 1.  I stretched a transparent fabric over canvas, thought it looked very american flaggy, so i decided to go for a kenneth anger punk rock americana sort of thing. I sewed, used hair, buttons, pins etc, lit things on fire, threw a bunch of junk at it, pennies, matches etc, and am ultimately pleased. 
A bit of a statement on consumerism, the value of material things, and how they can be eradicated, also the damage of smoking, and a continuation of the matchstick house on fire, metaphor for my life kinda deal.

Because I felt like it

School has been out for a week or 2 now, and i have about another week or two until summer school starts. Not producing art makes me feel awful so i have been trying to stay motivated, this stuff has no "concept" but you know what? sometimes i just feel like making something JUST BECAUSE I FEEL LIKE IT.

I got my first ever rejection letter yesterday from the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibit, I didn't get in.  Oh well, there is always next year. So to celebrate my first rejection letter and to celebrate/survive the Canada Election Results I decided to get drunk...  I never get drunk... and I painted this Oil of RAJA.  He won Rupaul's drag race, which is one of my favourite shows, and used to be on America's next top model as a makeup artist (my other favourite show)

 

did this on a salvaged canvas so not sure how big.. like 3-4 feet tall i'd say

 

I posted this image at an earlier point of its evolution a post or 2 back, decided to sew details onto the painting and then sew the entire piece to a polychromatic screen printed piece of linen.

 

Hydrolines sewn into polychromatic screen printed fabric.  Awhile back boy taught me how to polychromatic screen print on fabric, and I had some scraps left over from previous school projects, and decided to make something of it.

 

a tall ship sewn into polychromatic screen printed fabric.

Life painting class

I took a life painting class with Peter Mah last semester, it was pretty good, we never had homework, as it was all in class painting from life models.  I have only ever done a couple other oil paintings before, so this was really useful in helping me figure them out. I'm excited to try more oil painting, but with more exciting subject matter.

 

this was my final piece for the class, we had multiple sittings, I am the most pleased with this one.   I think this is like... 36x48

 

this was the first week ... i dont hate it, but i will probably be painting over this. 30x40

 

I think i have lost my image for the second piece... this was week 3 i think. 30x40 meh... again i dont HATE it, but its not too exciting for me.

 

This one came next.  I think at this point I am figuring stuff out better, may try to figure out what to do to this so that its more interesting. 36x48

 

this was the second last model, I like this painting, all the chest hair painted with a really big brush was a bit frustrating for me... but its a learning experience. 30x40

Toronto the Grey

 

This piece was for my alternative painting mediums... or (something like that) class with shirley Yanover (she is the woman who did those cat sculptures at the entrances to kensington market)  ... AWESOME class... LOVED it, favourite of the whole year, totally my cup of tea.  Also... she was just really cute and sweet.

 

I believe this piece is roughly 4 feet by 5 feet?  canvas, uv active acrylics, spray paint, granola box + matchstick = buildings, scrap metal scavenged from the metal shop, a black bird lovingly donated by a friend, sticks berries, etc.  Hydro poles are made from matchsticks and dowels. Attached everything with fishing line and white glue.

certain details like the hydro lines are hand sewn into the canvas

ACCIDENTAL BEAR

 

This was a project for my LGBTQ (queer) studies studio.  The project was something about redesigning an institute, and intervention or something...  I had seen on tumblr that Mr. Mike Enders was looking for a piece of art for his blog.

 

ACCIDENTAL BEAR  ... so I figured... why not?  He had mentioned that he wanted a likeness of himself wearing a bear skin hide/ rug...  my initial thoughts were some kind of neo shamanistic mononoke sorta thing.  HOWEVER I knew that he really liked this vintage photo of Burt Reynolds.

 

So I decided to redraw this vintage image with a likeness of Mike Enders (seen below)  I sent the preliminary drawing to him, and he seemed to really love the idea.

 

Sent him this final image... currently waiting on feed back.   Its mostly watercolour, a little bit of ink on the tattoos and some acrylic in the background (i chose orange green and brown, because he seemed to wear alot of these colours in the photos I had to work from)