An upcoming show I am participating in
My first show outside of art school will be in Have In Mind at the ANZA Club in Vancouver, organized by Leigh Christie and curated by Zoe Peled. It’s a show outside of a gallery setting meant to surprise, inspire and encourage art in unexpected spaces. Zee Kesler will be installing work as well for this show. It will be a one night only show in the evening, with drinks and a DJ set by Leigh Christie. Upgrade is affiliated.
I’m very excited/anxious/nervous wreck because I like to put lots of pressure on myself. I love to dream about all the potential for a new work, but accompanying the dreaming comes all the fantasies about all the things that could go wrong. I’ve now come to expect this anxiety as a part of creating and I know how to ignore the fear. I realize everyone experiences this fear when dreams are manifesting in reality, it shows how important whatever it is, but if one succumbs to the fear, nothing will ever get done. So, onto another adventure with minimal amounts of money and time, lets see how this work will turn out! I love my life.
My Artist Statement for the Show;
What if everyone in North America disappeared from the streets and for centuries highways and streets went uninhabited? If a new race reclaimed our urban spaces and began investigating our civilization, what would they make of our traffic markings and our street signs? What kind of history could they construct for us with our traffic signs and symbols?
The installation for Have In Mind is an exploration in constructing a narrative through popular contemporary North American street signs. These signs and symbols dictate the rules of the street but also create a certain aesthetic through their form and use of colour. These symbols are meant to be clear, visible and concise in order to be read without any confusion. By obscuring the clarity of the sign through playing with scale, hybridizing, manipulating, pairing and arranging different symbols, new ways of viewing the standard symbols becomes articulated.
The installation will be viewed in the dark. All the work installed is created with retro reflective paint and when a light source hits this material it is illuminated. This the same material used for the lines on streets and highways. Each viewer is asked to actively participate in searching for the work in the space through the darkness with the aid of headlamps and flashlights. The viewer takes the position of the light source leaving the responsibility on the viewer to illuminate the work and to light the space. Without the viewer the work has no source of light and no meaning.