Interview with Vancouver mixed media surrealist Mia Dungeon
MUSIC: “Wavy Glass” by Podington Bear
INTERVIEW, VIDEO & EDIT: Chris Bentzen

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Two faced. From the simple meaning of being ambidextrous, marked by deliberate deceptiveness especially by pretending to have one set of feelings and acting under the influence of another. Sophia Ahamed explores emotion and expression through portraiture and structural form using a combination of painting and illustration methods in her digital work, produced as prints for the show. Jose Rivas explores social behaviour through colour, spacial tension and animal imagery. Art for the series is done in acrylic and oils on stretched canvas.

See all the work from the show on Flickr >

Sophia Ahamed is a graphic artist living in Vancouver, BC. She is a young creative who has worked internationally on a wide rage of projects and has had her work featured in various publications. Her illustrative work is a balance between hand drawn, digital renditions which creates beautiful contrasts of colour and depth through out each piece. Only through pain can we begin to understand what happiness really is and allow our selves to feel it without hesitation. Science has given us the ability to understand our own minds and bodies. Art has given us the ability to communicate these findings with others. The goal is to create a different kind of healing process, one that stems from the artist and to the viewer.

Raised in a household of Spanish heritage, Jose Rivas only started speaking English at the age of five, after distinct impressions were made on him by his family’s culture of origin. Over the years his eccentric personality and affluence of artistry was primed through Capilano University’s Illustration and Design program (IDEA). Jose’s work is described as representing ‘the chaos of life, juxtaposed with its underlying beauty, expressed and complimented by saturated, alluring colours, and repetitive gestural strokes.’ His paintings often speak of his attraction to the complexities of life and that which we impose on ourselves to make life colourful.

In our first collab with Winsor Gallery , we interview Vancouver artist Angela Grossmann. More from this interview on Vancouver Is Awesome.
MUSIC: “Cloud 9” by Podington Bear
INTERVIEW: Alex M F Quicho
VIDEO & EDIT: Chris Bentzen

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Erica Lapadat-Janzen & Organ Armani bring their selfies to the gallery. As a co-curated project between two internet artists, Selfie explores a subculture of micro-celebrity, virtual gaze and narcissism. See photos of the show on Flickr >

Critical praise for Selfie:

“Imagine the Statue of Liberty could take a Selfie.” — Kim Asendorf

“Selfies get easily lost, but a true Selfie though, a true Selfie happens once in a lifetime. Organ & Erica know this. They are their selfies, like Britney is the wind.” — Emilie Gervais

“Their work is like a calm wind of ideas observing a daydream; where thoughts materialize and create something oddly real.” — Toast McFarland

Erica Lapadat-Janzen is an independent new media artist and curator based out of Chinatown, Vancouver. For the last two years she has been a full-time working artist participating in media art projects around the world including The Wrong-New Digital Art Biennale, Gallery Online, Money.us, Kein Thema 23 Glitch Net Digital Art Festival (Germany), and Fantasia Mutante at Espacio Byte (Argentina). During this time she has curated numerous community led initiatives, art projects, and site specific events both independently and in collaboration with galleries and artist run centres. Some projects include: Camera/whore produced by On Main Gallery, a new media performance photo party that streams media to the internet; and Accumulator at Gallery 1965, a crowd-sourced new media showcase with live virtual gallery installations on rotation. Lapadat-Janzen’s artistic current output focuses on ideas of constructed identity, narcissism, and social representation in flux, in online space. She creates her work by utilizing and experimenting with tools such as web cameras, cellphones, digital photography, and various pirated programs.

Organ Armani is an artist living & working on the Internet. Organ has exhibited internationally, online and offline, and during his spare time, Organ lives in Vancouver. Organ Armani’s online practice is primarily social, and his subject matter draws from his network relationships. His work is technically rooted in painting and aspires to create a theatre of mass communication, concerned with verisimilitude, social branding, sexuality, and fashion. Throughout 2013 Organ made a pointed effort of placing the Selfie at the centre of his online practice, and applied his focus with philosophical zeal to the influence of the homegrown celebrity status of the everyday internet user. In 2014, Organ continues his practice, placing greater emphasis on dissolving the distinction between online and off-line identities.

KA-POW!!!
Art by Char Hoyt & Stephen Wimbush
July 3-12, 2014
 
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s KA-POW!!! Stephen Wimbush and Char Hoyt are Vancouver painters exploring the comic book genre, deconstructing and re-shaping it into two compelling bodies of work. See photos of the work on Flickr >

Stephen Wimbush appropriates advertisements, panels and typefaces, emblazoning them in vivid oil paint, silkscreen, spray paint and marker. Stephen‘s visual style is at times chaotic with multiple stimuli and techniques, or intensely graphic with a singular focus. Stephen’s work embraces the nostalgia of the subject matter and contemporizes it with bold, innovative techniques.

Char Hoyt explores the space where comics and oil painting collide. Reviving favourite characters from her comic strip Assballs (Nerve Magazine 2002-2007) Char brings their sweet and twisted world to life in portrait paintings and collaged sketchbook drawings.

This is a show 30 years in the making with art inspired by movies from 1984. It was an impressive year for icons of pop-culture filmmaking. We’ve got art inspired by: Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Gremlins, The Karate Kid, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Purple Rain, The Terminator, Revenge of the Nerds, Repo Man, Neverending Story, Breakin’ 2, Red Dawn, Dune, Paris Texas, Love Streams, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Blood Simple, Spinal Tap, 1984, Firestarter, Supergirl, Ninja 3, Element of the Crime, Company of Wolves, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, and Sixteen Candles!

50 artists in the show: Erin Gibbs, Chris Bentzen, Qaqtis, Jeremy Okai Davis, Raman Samra, Raymond Striegler, Roxanne Gagnon, ARGH, Heather Souliere, David Granneman, Jason Gauthier, Mika Senda, Christina Norberg, Gary Lee, Scott Peace-Miller, Exploding Haggis, LJ Throstle, Cang Nguyen, Rachael Freedman, Shannon Pawliw, Talent Pun, Gary Nay, David Camisa, Dylan Moore, Fred Chevalier, Heather Szilagyi, Hannah Myers, Nicole Steen, Sheri Alexander, Stefan Tosheff, Allison Koberstein, Rupa Wood, Sadie Scott, Katie So, Sherri Rogers, Jennifer Chernecki, Ted Wilson, Dusan Postolovic, Michael King, Jackie Klobucar, Jessica Wiebe, Kirsten Hatfield, Hailie Beaulieu, Amy Tom. Lynda Marguerite, Breanna McGowan, Clem Chen, Andrea Hooge, and Lok Him Fung.

Check out more photos and a review of the show on Vandocument >

Art: “Start-Something-New Man” by Lok Him Fung

Shannon Hemmett was born in 1982 in Vancouver, Canada. She worked as a photographer and graphic designer before pursuing painting and illustration in 2012. Adopting influences from classical animation, the works of Jim Henson, and American pop art, Shannon’s paintings blend nostalgic, mass culture references with a dark comedic viewpoint. Her series “Thirteen Masks” is a study of disguise and the theatrical dimensions of personal identity. Masks have been worn since antiquity for ceremonial and practical purposes. They are used universally because their mystery and transformative power endures for the wearer and the spectator. Thirteen Masks is Shannon’s first exhibition of illustrative artworks.

Kevin McBride is an artist originally from Victoria B.C. and now based in Vancouver. Kevin’s visual style consists of large scale and highly detailed ink illustrations, with influences such as tattoo art and historical design. These constitute two main subjects: the representation of the under-represented, and the confrontation of personal and societal norms.

Click here to see photos from the show on Flickr >

Electricks is a group exhibition featuring new paintings and prints by illustrators Mark “Atomos” Pilon and Laura Bifano, and t-shirts by Luc Latulippe. Electricks is a carnival of seductive technology and persuasive robots who dwell in a Tesla formed world of electricity and mystery. Deceitful machines. Which seems timely, given this era of Snowden leaks and high tech surveillance. We now live in the science fiction world we had predicted years ago, only not always the inspiring one we had hoped for. But like any good science fiction story there is a hint of hope and new discoveries. This is Electricks.

Click here to see photos from the show on Flickr >

Buy, collect and trade the art of fifty artists reproduced on trading cards. Sold in mixed packs of five random cards for $5. Want a specific card? Trade with the other people at the party! How bad do you want it?! To see art from past shows and for more info go to hotartcard.com.

Click here to see photos from the show >

Featuring: Aaron White, Ali Penko, Alison McLeod, Andrea Hooge, Andrew Ferneyhough, Ben Worth, Brandi Rawluk, Carelle Dunn, Chelsea Lawrick, Cherry Thompson, Chris von Szombathy, Dacosta!, Danielle Borisoff, David Camisa, Doug Savage, Emily Galloway, Exploding Haggis, Flavia C, Gary Nay, Hanne Loosen, iHeart, Indy, Jackie Dives, Jenn Brisson, Jenna Milsom, Joanna McDonald, Joni Taylor, Karyn Wong, Kathy Lea Moyou, Kazimir Simpson, Laura Zerebeski, Lera Nyukalova, Lok-Him Fung, Megan Majewski, Mika Senda, MW Bowen, Nomi Chi, Olliemoonsta, Patricia Pinsk, Paul Antony Carr, Peter Ricq, Phresha, Qaqtis, Sherri Rogers, Sophia Ahamed, Stacey Hamilton, Syx Langemann, Taryn Langemann, Vince Hemingson, and Winnie Yiu.

To mark 100 weekly interviews, this week it’s the owner of Hot Art Wet City blog and gallery Chris Bentzen.
MUSIC: “Keep Your Eyes Open” by Tortue Super Sonic
INTERVIEW, VIDEO, EDIT: Trevor Jansen & Marina LeClair