"Shout it out/ or better yet sing"

New screenprint designs for the CA/CO based electro/acoustic musicians Lynx and Janover. A 3 layer version is headed to print.. can’t wait to see what it looks like screened on fabric!

Deepwater Horizon: Ink, watercolour, copper powder, spraypaint and airbrush on wood panel. 2010.

This piece was painted live at Lightning in a Bottle in Irvine, CA May 28-30 as a part of the Lightning in a Paintcan project alongside 28 other rad painters. I worked three 6-8 hour days on it in the company of some of the most incredible visual and sonic artists this side of the abyss.. I chose to depict the Deepwater Horizon oil spill as a gesture towards dialogue on the subject.. we are all responsible for this environmental atrocity. I was so inspired and horrified simultaneously by photos of the spill and its impact on the shoreline.. this painting is but a reminder of the events taking place in the gulf- a spectacle that is all too conveniently forgotten in the midst of an immaculately engaging, beautiful gathering of creative powers in the hills outside LA.. it is imperative that we recognize that even in our displays of ‘alternative’ culture, we are very much dependent on, and consumptive of, that sticky black enigma.. in our insatiable quest for this increasingly scarce nonrenewable resource, we are complicit in the trampling of practically everything and anything that stands between our economic system and its most precious commodity.

What might a new paradigm look like? How can we model best practices in the midst of this cathartic global transformation? Plagued by such paralyzing questions, i figured the least i could do is paint that mess. so hideously gorgeous, i dont know whether to swoon or wretch.

This painting was created as a part of the Lightning in a Paintcan project. here’s the deal:

“Lightning in a Paintcan will be raising thousands of dollars that go directly towards purchasing art and music supplies for under-funded schools.

Here’s how it works: Scattered throughout Lightning in a Bottle will be dozens of live painters creating with 100% used and recycled paint. During the event we will hold a silent auction where you can bid on your favorite art piece, and hopefully take it home with you.

Proceeds from this project will go to support Sonic Muze, a non-profit organization that helps supply musical instruments and art supplies to local schools in need. By bidding on your favorite art you will be helping us support the next generation of artists!”

45W Mural on Unurth Street Art , Wallfarmers.ca , & the Dirt Floor

The mural was painted at 45 West Hastings (alley entrance wall) in Vancouver, BC- a collaboration with east van painter Jordan Bent. The mural was  supported by the 45 West performing arts studio, David Duprey and the City of Vancouver’s Great Beginnings initiative. This was the second mural that mr. bent and i have teamed-up on, the first was an indoor wall at the Burnaby Centre for Mental Health and Addictions.

I decided to include a construction crane, however banal and inconspicuous, in the mural to speak to the current state of social and economic ‘renewal’/gentrification of the immediate area around the mural site. The crane is at eye level, and right near the doorbell- hoping it might catch a few eyes over time.

As we were painting in the alley way, we found ourselves working in what felt like a precarious place between poverty and relentless development. While the alley was still frequented by local residents (some of whom came to tend to their addictions, ALL of whom were incredibly supportive and positive), right next door construction was underway to erect shiny new market-price condos.

As artists, it is important to recognize the role we play in the gentrification of marginalized neighbourhoods. While we may not catalyze the upheaval that gentrification causes, we certainly are complicit in it, and in some ways we arguably help facilitate that process, right? by making all the public surfaces look beautiful, we are paving the way for more pervasive forms of development in the street-level public sphere- it makes the neighbourhood more attractive to wealthy people who want to live amongst creative people.

But what if the creative people, current residents, and community that makes up the downtown eastside cannot afford to live in their neighbourhood any longer, once rent and property value and the cost of ammenities increases dramatically after more affluent new residents move in? What happens when the creative people who make the DTES the most vibrant community in the city are forced out by the invisible hand?

Reflecting on all of that, i decided to stencil in the crane that was busy building sparkly concrete things nextdoor, and pay a little homage to the uniquely ironic time and place that we found ourselves painting in, for better and for worse.

Thank you to the people who live and work in that alley, and with the cooperative performing arts studio at 45 west, for your permission and support! We hope we offered a positive contribution to the visual narrative on the zero block of W hastings.

Built-in Obsolete
Showcase installation for the Mid-Forms Festival 09
(Great Northern Way Campus, Vancouver)

Medium: immersive assemblage/ trash sculpture

Built-In Obsolete was a refuge created some time ago, an obsolete sanctuary to protect us from an imminent disaster that never arrived. Whenever it was thrown together, it was outfitted in all the latest cutting edge gadgets- dusty treasure and weathered wood, rusted-out contraptions and outdated inventions- a curious assemblage of technological oddities long forgotten, operating in ways they were never meant to be.

This installation juxtaposes the contemporary and antiquated, evoking a metaphysical fiction wherein the ordinary tools of today- the technology that we take for granted – may be considered in an extraordinary light.

A collab piece with Meta V of thatsnotmypenguin.com. thats her cat, qBUNK, staring down some really big crows.

The Mountain Pine Beetle, indigenous to western North America, has taken a grip on the forests of British Columbia. In the past, the cold Canadian winter has acted to regulate beetle populations, but with global warming driving up winter temperatures, this equilibrium has been breached. Surveys show the beetles, in just the last few years, have grown to overtake 21 million acres and killed 410 million cubic feet of trees in B.C. Studies consistently verify a direct correlation between warmer winter climate change and the spread of the beetle infestation. The Canadian Forest Service calls it “the largest known insect infestation in North American history.”

From the vantage point of the metropolitan city, these developments can seem deceptively intangible. The daily monotony of routine city life- the same monotony which stifles our imagination and saps dry our creative passions- also provides a convenient façade of stability, progress, and normalcy in which we may continue to carry out atrocities on the natural world. The consequences are simply swept under the proverbial rug, and the apocalypse is postponed to a date more convenient, someday in the future. This process of habitual detachment and alienation impacts not only our relationship to the environment, but the relationships we have with others and likewise, with ourselves.

If anything, THE PINE BEETLES ARE COMING is simply an exploration of these issues, in the form of a site-specific installation. Perhaps also, it functions to critique the prevailing economic and social customs which make possible the aforementioned perversions. Probably more likely, it could just briefly bring you out of your daily rut and cause you to reconsider what is actually possible given an old room, some garbage, and an impending sense of doom.

Insect biologists and other discerning attendees may notice that the beetle image used in the show is not very anatomically correct. Indeed, it is not a pine beetle at all, but a scarab, or dung beetle. This discrepancy might be completely overlooked by unfamiliar city dwellers, which in itself would be a telling statement of disjuncture between cause and effect. However, the conceptual link between the dung beetle and installation materials (all found thrown out or abandoned in dumpsters and back alleys) is conscious, and meant to reflect on our notions of what is sacred, and what is waste- what belongs in a gallery, and what belongs in the trash.

Note: No pine beetles were harmed in the making of this production.