Field/Feld, 2016, acrylic paint, Concourse Gallery, Vancouver (Foto Credit “Field”: Nurzhan Kabdrakhman)

Excerpt from the exhibition statement of Loving Is Easy, That’s Why So Many People Do:

“I’m highly influenced by my surroundings. Therefore, as an experiment I accept the outside world as my internal world. All outside voices are inside voices, with no exception. My mediums are acceptance and distance. How can we establish active agency in our interactions with others and pursue what we need and what we want to see as an everyday practice? What are the social, psychological and systemic restrictions in establishing this agency? I’m not interested in trying to phrase why I want to see this, because I think it might lie outside of my capability and could be a futile, fruitless task. I’m more interested in observing how I react, consciously or unconsciously, to something that I want or don’t want. I wonder about myself and the audience: What do you want to see? What do you need to see?”

Eye Level/ Augenhöhe, 2019, sheet metal, wire and sand, Installed at the eye level of the artist, Michael O’Brien Exhibition Commons.

“Eye Level aims to reflect on sculptural presence in space and the role of authorship in an installation setting as the work is set at my personal eye level. What does it mean to meet someone at “eye level” and is this a utopian relationship goal ?”

Exhibition at Bingle Studio

Faces

Friday, Feb 18th – Sunday Mar 6th 2022

“Faces” brings together intuitive drawings of the artist’s notebooks from the past ten years. The installation is inspired by surrealist automatism, a technique of letting the hand move randomly over the paper with no specific goal highlighting unconscious thought and impulse. 

“Let’s walk on the very edge at which the imagined and the real blend, for we are visually at the crossroads of the mind and the physical world. Set into motion with the hand on paper now the “faces” come to life, have a conversation in space and across time, waiting to emerge from the sheets of paper to keep us company.

“This series explores sleep and rest as a psychological and physiological process that offers a withdrawal from habitual thought and wakeful consciousness, even if it is just temporarily. Painting these medium- large scale works became a slow meditation on time and perception, influenced by the heightened awareness that is needed while translating observation into paint. The subject matter are acquaintances and friends I observed in a semi-public setting.”