News

Ontario-based painter Robert Marchessault is featured in The Toronto Star Homes, in an article by Carola Vyhnak about custom fine art commissions. 

The article profiles the Oklahoma home of Greg and Lisa Reagon Love, who commissioned works by Marchessault to accent the architecture of their home. 

Click here to read the full Toronto Star Homes article

VIEW WORK BY ROBERT MARCHESSAULT

Michelle Nguyen sat down with Violette Leigh of Montecristo Magazine to discuss her painting practice. Shedding light on the significance of literature in creating her compositions, Nguyen notes the viewer's experience in relating to the different figures populating her canvas is of particular interest: 

'The painter gets to know the viewer by who they identify with,” she explains. By tagging oneself in a painting or identifying with a particular character (maybe the elegantly dressed woman sprouting a demon arm in Cassadaga or the woman devoured by butterflies in Gorgoneion), the spectator is given an indirect opportunity to share vulnerable thoughts. Nguyen believes society has an increasing need for empathy, and she tries to create it with her stylized communities of humans, demi-humans, and non-humans. “I love how when people are looking at these humanoids,” she says, “we’re always trying to relate to them in that way and anthropomorphize, personify, and empathize with them.” This act makes relatable what may have first been perceived as foreign.

Click link to read the full Montecristo feature

VIEW WORK BY MICHELLE NGUYEN

Sylvia Tait will receive the 2018 Distinguished Artist Award by the FANS Society at the Tribute to the Arts Event on Friday, November 2, 2018. The artist will share this special recognition with author Claudia Casper.

The Fund for the Arts on the North Shore is a registered charity managed by the North Shore Community Foundation. The Fund receives donations, bequests and other funds from arts supporters in the local community, which all go toward the building of the Fund’s capital account. As the only public art event of its kind on the North Shore, the FANS Tribute to the Arts presents a unique opportunity for the community to participate in the recognition of outstanding artistic achievement by North Shore artists.

Click to read more about FANS

VIEW WORK BY SYLVIA TAIT

1. How do you go about photographing your street scenes?

I rarely go out specifically to look for photographs, they usually land in my lap while I’m getting around town doing things. The locations I shoot are mostly in and around East LA and Palm Springs. Once I find a cool looking situation, I’ll park the car and take a look. Sometimes I get to the location and decide the light isn’t right or there is nothing really there, and sometimes I take 5 rolls of film. It’s a very inexact science.

2. What is your day like? What do you like to look out for?

My day-to-day life is pretty varied and depends mainly on what commissions are due and whether I have an exhibition I’m working towards. During the week I like to get out of the house by 830/9am. I recently got myself a studio at Werkartz, which is a multi-purpose art studio / gallery space in Chinatown. This has changed my life considerably as I’m now able to split my professional life from my home life and possibly made me more productive. During the day I’m either there working or running errands in the truck. The roads in LA become asphyxiated by traffic after around 3pm so the challenge is to get everything done by then. So I’m basically either working towards a series for a show or printing work for private sales.

3. How do you think Instagram has changed your eye as a photographer?

The key thing about Instagram / iPhone photography, for all its short-falls; its free, easy and quick. It’s an incredibly good way to practice seeing and taking photos. This benefited me (as an artist 5 years ago with absolutely no money), as I was suddenly able take thousands of photos and practice what I was doing + get real time feedback and validation at the same time, for free. I then applied these refines skills to my film photography practice.

In terms of how its changed the way I take photos, I think it more just helped me refine and explore a type of minimal urban aesthetic I’d been practicing since the very first time I started using cameras – but this time in color.

4. How has Los Angeles changed since you first started photographing it?

Aesthetically not a great deal but culturally yes very much. I arrived in 2010, when the city was still recovering from a terrible  recession. In the 10 years I have been here LA has bounced back with a vengeance, it's booming on all fronts and has gone through a sort of cultural renaissance. 

5. Why LA?

I really love LA as a city & I’ve have always found the landscape particularly beautiful. Its raw aesthetics are all washed out pastel planes, run down low-rise 80’s architecture. It’s kind of playful and post-apocalyptic all at once. I think it’s primarily the light, the air and the buildings and the fact that there are so few pedestrians that you get to see things really clearly and unimpeded. It’s a strangely captivating place.

6. Who are some other artists whose work actively informs your practice? What is it about these artists that interest you?

I am always inspired by all the great masters but of late I’m really loving the work of my contemporaries: Patricia Treib (for her color and form), Lilah Lute (for her concept and process) and Brian Lotty (for his story telling). Please look them up!

7. What sort of skills do you think is important for an artist to have?

Durability, focus and the odd good idea.

Bau-Xi Vancouver is proud to host the launch of Tom Burrow's Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery retrospective catalogue on Thursday, September 27, 2018 from 6 to 8pm. The reception is open to the public and the artist and curator, Scott Watson, will be in attendance.

The retrospective on one of the most influential artists in the West Coast art scene over the past forty years, Tom Burrows, and the exhibition that preceded the book, presents work by the artist from his early career to the present. The book is a timely refocusing of attention on an artist who has made an immense contribution to the development of art in Vancouver, not only as an artist but as an educator and activist as well. Burrows’s work, which demonstrates an interest in process and new materials, has encompassed a number of disciplines including sculpture, early performance art, video, painting and iconic hand-built houses on the Maplewood Mudflats and Hornby Island. Currently most well known for his innovative monochromatic cast polymer resin “paintings/sculptures” produced during the last forty-five years, the book examines the full breadth of his career with works from the Belkin’s permanent collection as the basis with other works from the artist, collectors and public institutions.

VIEW MORE WORK BY TOM BURROWS 

Bratsa Bonifacho's paintings will be on view at the Belgrade City Museum in Serbia for a special exhibition titled 'Hidden Messages'. The Museum houses 24 works in their permanent collection spanning several decades (1979-2015) by the Serbian-Canadian painter. The exhibition celebrates Bonifacho's artistic contributions to the cultural landscape of his place of birth.

The Opening Reception of 'Hidden Messages' takes place on Friday, September 7th at 7 pm, presented by the Ambassador of Canada to the Republic of Serbia, Her Excellency Kati Csaba.

In anticipation of his latest series DISTILLED, we sat down with West Coast artist Anthony Redpath to learn more about his practice.

Bau-Xi Gallery: Can you tell us about how your initial ideas for a piece or a series are sparked? 

Anthony Redpath: Ideas are sparked all the time, both in my mind and from visual reference. I could travel past an industrial site and see surfaces or shapes that interest me. If the subject allows a political, environmental, social, or societal comment to be made at the same time as meeting my aesthetic concerns, then it will be in contention for an artwork.

BX: Your images are so beautifully complex, and you have an incredibly technical process. Where do you start? What is your planning process? 

AR: I’ll start on an idea without delay if I feel it is a strong one. I’ll just as quickly stop working on that idea, and move on to the next if I feel it isn’t translating well into execution.

The first step is always to obtain permission to shoot in locations where the general public is not allowed. This often requires negotiations and can take many months or longer.

Next, I’ll look at visual research of similar subjects and do a lot of online research. I'll create sketches, take test shots, and roughly composite the images together, to make sure that I can get the composition that I am imagining.

For the final shoot, I have to put together all the photographic equipment I need and book assistants. 

BX: Your process is so meticulously planned out. Which aspects are the most methodical? The most exploratory?

AR:  The beginning stages of my process are the most exploratory; realizing the potential in an idea by visualizing it in my mind, deciding on which concepts to execute, making the first compositions, then making the first broad strokes in regards to post-production.

This is the most fun part of the process of image making - deciding on a composition, and figuring out how to make it work. 

Most of my process is highly methodical, but especially the shooting process. I am very meticulous when if comes to capturing all the visual information; I make sure I have everything needed to make the highest resolution image possible. 

BX: How much do you feel your process and methodology should contribute to the meaning and interpretation of your work?

AR: The extraordinary amount of detail tells stories within the overall composition. The surfaces would not exist if it were not for the century-old technology industrial sites where the images are taken, and the effect of the coastal environment over time on the surfaces. The textural breakdown of the surface is a visual metaphor for the effects of the industry on the surrounding landscape.

At the same time, the surfaces are beautiful, seducing the viewer on a strictly aesthetic level.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE COLLECTION