C.A.R.T in Baltimore Sun

Here is an article in the Baltimore Sun about the C.A.R.T exhibit currently on at Current Space Gallery in Baltimore. .....and they used one of my pictures for the article!

TABLE SPACE

Every day I have a billion things to do....or is it that I have a billion things to do and I just do as much of it as I can every day? Anyway, I was reading the morning paper and I came across this image (bottom) which somehow grabbed me and made me look and look. The squares, the color, the divisions...I saw beautiful geometric form, and thought I needed to explore this and create a piece of art. 

Normally I would have torn out the image and kept it on my desk and put it on my list of things to do. Then eventually it may have turned out to be not so important to do as I have so many other apparently important things to get done. And Like a dream that was relevant and fantastic when you first woke up, eventually fades into nothing as you go through your day.  But this time, I said, "Look Robert, you know it's not going to take you long to do it in Illustrator, so just do it now! Besides, you've been procrastinating on your real work all week now anyways, so here's your spot." That's what I said.  And this is what turned out. (above) I was pretty excited about it. Hope you like it too.

  

Robert Venosa Visionary

January 21, 1936 - August 9, 2011

It was with a saddened heart to learn of the passing of one of the true greatest visionary artists of this time, Robert Venosa. 

Just as I was being turned on as a surrealist artist, Robert Venosa had already accomplished an incredible journey of the soul and mind. He was one of the few figurative artists that I was seeing in a magazine called Omni. Venosa along with Henricott, Helnwein, Fuchs and Dali, really made a switch in my mind in viewing our body placement in the metaphysical world. Robert has and will always be a beacon light post on my journey of enlightenment.

  

REAL POLLICKS

My friend Ken Gregory has been working on some candy projects lately and since he was in the process, he offered to help me out in making some real POLLICKS lollipops. He had already made a mold for the base white candy part, so all we had to do now was make up 4 separate batches of candy. WOW I was amazed at how simple it was to dribble on the hard candy and how quickly they looked just like my fake Pollicks. These edible masterpieces will not be available anytime soon for the consumable masses, but check out my painted Pollicks Lollipops available now. They come with an old-school popsicle-styled silk-screened wrapper. Nakfactorium!

 

OUTDOORSTALLATION

For this weekends Brandon Folk, Music and Art Festival, I set up a little display of cosmic proportions on the festival grounds amongst the trees. My first time really doing something like this.  It shows the a scaled down version of the exact scale between the sizes of the Moon, Earth and sun along with the correct distance that they would be from each other. 

I wish it could be more hands on, but that would have been I bit too delicate in this environment.  I do have available, a simple model kit that I manufacture, that contains this delicate orbital structure. It's an excellent educational device. 

  

Shopping C.A.R.T.

Tomorrow is the opening of an enormous group show I am happy to be part of at Current Space Gallery in Baltimore Maryland. At least 70 artist's interpretations of products and packaging in this store set-up 'art of commerce' ( or is it the groceries of art ) show called C.A.R.T.. The show continues to September 4th.

I am very happy to be part of this show as I get to display more of my art novelty items and it also gives me the impetus to create more! Not that I don't create on my own but I just seem to do even more. I seem to be only one of two Canadians participating, the other being Emily Comeau from Montreal.

I have 13 items in the show, with varying quantities of each. Some of the other items include:

-Top Secret Message

-Picture Cigarettes

-Loose Leaf Doodle Pages

-Post Surreal boxes

-Oxygen Capsules

-Admit It tickets

-Sgt.Smokes

Most of my items are not so much food related at a lot of the other work I've seen so far. It's all AMAZING! Some clever and talented folks out there.

   

WIDE OPEN SPACES

30 YEARS OF PAINTING!

Wide Open Spaces May 1981, 24" x 26", acrylic on canvas

This month 30 years ago I was just finishing up High School at West Kildonan Collegiate when I painted the above work. Nobody at school ever really saw my work nor did I ever really show it. In my last half of grade 12 I only had half a day of school. I suppose I spent some of that free time doing art at home or at the Forum Art Institute. No sooner than I finished the painting a dentist by the name of Dr. Sidney Fleisher bought it for 150 bucks. He had lent me a set of teeth for reference after not being able to find an illustrative brochure with a perfect set for me to draw upon. So he said when I had the painting done and upon returning the teeth he wanted to see it. He had a hundred paintings up in his practice making it an alright place to get dental work done.

So now I will show you the three paintings that came before Wide Open Spaces.

Communicative Travel November 1980, 20" x 20", acrylic on paper canvas

This is my first painting I did while my brother and I enrolled in painting classes at the Forum Art Institute under the tutelage of Nickola Bejelejac in the old CPR Station building. What a place that was! Everyone was was twice our age or older. Some were really old by our perspective and have been painting there for years. But boy could some of these folks paint. And there were all sorts too from smooth surrealism by Dan Gregg (one of my favorites) or the rich impasto scenes or the organic flows from a syringe needle by Vicki McBain.  This wasn't really a place to learn to paint as much as it was a place to hang out to paint. I learnt by watching everyone. Yes the instructor had lessons if you wanted or cared, or you just went on your own pace and Nick was there to question and guide you to a finished work. You could not sign a piece until he said so. That's funny.

This first painting was made from a first assignment which my brother and I both thought was pretty cool. It consisted of drawing a series of four squares then adding various lines in each one to divide the space. We then chose our favorite, put it aside, then added more lines to the remaining three squares. Then once again choosing our favorite and putting it aside and continuing to add more lines in the two left and so on until you were left with four drawings you liked. Then you colored them going through this same method of pleasing elimination. So by the end you had four colored drawings that you liked. But now, you had to choose one and do a painting of it. 

But how do you paint? Nobody showed us. You had to figure it out for yourself. If this first painting was going to be a jumping in the deep end learning experience, then I though if I was going to learn something I would give myself a challenge and try to think about the various ways that I could possibly do shading with acrylic paint. Earlier on when I was working with grahite, it was really important for me to know how to shade to give objects a 3 dimensional quality, so I wanted to learn to do this with paint. In this one painting I tried three different blending styles. Wet on wet, thinning with water and dry brushing. I liked dry brushing the most and is the method I would mostly use in years to come.

   

Metal Stones December 1980, 24" x 36" acrylic on canvas

This is my second painting finished just before my 17th birthday. I still really like it! I had been interested in science fiction, fantasy, surrealism and architecture so I guess it kind of got all rolled into this one. I saw a picture of the ruined buildings in a National Geographic magazine and it really sparked the idea. From old to new and having the juxtaposition of the architectures.

 

Hope For One April 1981, 20" x 30", acrylic on illustration board

This is my third painting. I was really quite a loner in school and pretty quiet to. Though my friend Sam was always around and tried to crack my multiple shells I pretty much kept to myself and my thoughts. It was always the end for me in many ways and I suppose this painting illustrates this inner feeling of isolation and of being trapped and held onto, of being at the end of my rope or at the end of the world. I suppose that if I was going to be stuck here, there was still hope for my spirit. "Your spirit shall set you free." One of the first artists that I loved and felt a connection to was Roger Dean of Yes album cover art fame. I had his first book called Views and I loved it, I loved it, I loved it. There is some of him in the rocks and land.