instagraham
Graham Clark presents… INSTAGRAHAM
May 13, 2016

 

Take a tour through comedian Graham Clark and friend’s Instagram accounts. An experimental free-wheeling evening of comedy based on the best app around.

VIBF
The Vancouver International Burlesque Festival
TIT TALKS: TEACH. INSPIRE. TRANSCEND.
May 5, 2016

 

An intimate evening of TED-style talks presented by esteemed performers, academics, and producers including Vancouver’s very own Lola Frost. Unique perspectives, ideas, and stories pertaining to the burlesque realm will be shared at Hot Art Wet City.

Canadian Heritage
Graham Clark presents…
Canadian Heritage Minutes
April 29, 2016

 

Remember the Canadian Heritage Minutes? Join Graham Clark as he provides running commentary over those classic bits of Canadiana. Plus, a guest appearance from Alicia Tobin!

Nikki Pecasso
The 4th Annual
BOOBIES + WIENERS
“Four Play”
October 7–29, 2016

 

Our annual dirty and immature nude art show Boobies + Wieners returns for a fourth year! “Four Play” features Serena Bon-Binky, Gwen D’arcy, Vince Hemingson, Erica Lapadat-Janzen, Gordana Ristic, Aleshia St Cyr, Pandora Young and Nikki Pecasso. Plus, submissions from Aimee Young, Alan Jacques, Alex Stewart, Amelia Smart, Anita Rudakov, Becca Williams, Ben Everyman, Brenna Mackinder, Bret Taylor, Bronwyn Schuster, Cayley Carlson, Chris Bentzen, Christina Wightman, Corinne Leroux, Daniel Audet, Daniel Duncan, Divya Nanray, ER Gott, Flavia, Jean-Paul Langlois, Jennifer Chernecki, Jesse Davidge, Jessica Blaquiere, Jillian Evin, Jim Hoehnle, Jon Gant , Katy Springer, Kay Slater, Kelly Baker, Kimberley Howie, Kirsten Hatfield, Lara Hjorthoy, Maddy Gill, Mandy Lau, Marina LeClair, Mark Konytowski, Meaghan Iverson, Nigel Elliot, Oliver Harley Munsie, Sara Molcan, Sara Wilson, Sean Moxley, Shampoo, Shary Contrary, Sherri Hodder, Sofia Hellstadius, Stéphanie Gagné, Susanna Leu, Tayt Modern, Tim Bauer, Violet Patrich & Siena Locher-Lo, and Zox Svetorovich.

Click here to view the photo album on Flickr >

In addition to the main show, we’re hosting mini-exhibit Art or Bust. Curated by artist Jenn Brisson, breast casts of nine breast cancer survivors are turned into works of art for a silent auction. 100% of funds raised go to Rethink Breast Cancer. Artists: Diego Pacheco, Jenn Brisson, Morgane Billault, Kinsey Deakin, Mia Dungeon, Evie Katevatis, J Lord-Purcell, Ivan Louey, and Bronwyn Schuster.


Flyer art by Nikki Pecasso

Hot One Inch Action
The 13th Annual HOT ONE INCH ACTION
October 1, 2016

 

Conceived by Jim Hoehnle and Chris Bentzen in 2004, Hot One Inch Action is the original, one-night only show of button art and social interaction from Vancouver, BC. The tiny art of fifty different artists reproduced on limited edition one inch buttons and sold in random packs of five for $5. Didn’t get the button you want? Trade with the people around you… how bad do you want that button?! That’s when the hot action starts. hotoneinchaction.com

Click here to see photos from the show on Flickr >

Artists: Alex Pelletier, Amanda Weedmark, Amy Tom, Andrea Alcaraz, Andrea Hooge, Box191, Brian Bredonia, Bryce Aspinall, Cam Thorpe, Caprice White, Daniel Duncan, Deniz Bilgin, Dylan Moore, Erika Medina, Ethan Hunt, Flavia, Francis Bantayen, Gabrielle Ng, Hazel Cheng, Heather Curtis , Jackson Smith, Jaclyn Lord-Purcell, Janice Cheng, Jason Beange, Jenn Brisson, Jennifer Chernecki, Karla Monterrosa, Katie Moerman, Kimberly Parker, Maggie Chan, Maia Boakye, Mandy Lau, May Wa Leng, Megan Majewski, Mike West, Morgane Billault, Nigel Elliott, PH Woo, phresha, Sarah Thompson, Sean Moxley, Serena Bon-Binky, Serena Chu, Sidne Marat, Solaleh Kazemi, Tania Hennessy, Taylor Krulicki, Tessa Joyce Riecken, Toxic Treats and Vincent Truitner.

Jenn Brisson
Cosmic Sea
featuring Jenn Brisson, Kristian Adam & Phresha
September 8–30, 2016

 

When your mind has gone deep space fishing, what creatures will it encounter? Cosmic Sea features new works from Jenn Brisson, Kristian Adam and Phresha. The nautical and metaphysical theme sets the stage for the many colourful new works by the three artists. Invisible sea creatures, extra-terrestrial ocean babes, jellypurrrs and octophants, magical coral reefs, an army of lollipop licking dolphins floating through the milky way. Oh, and don’t forget…. SPACECRABS! These are just some of the amazing things you soon may witness. Both plants and animals first evolved in the sea. Now they must evolve in space and the deep sea of our minds!

Click here to see the show on Flickr >


Jenn Brisson started her art career in Classical Animation working on kids’ TV Shows and films for many moons. All that time drawing cartoons mixed with an interest for the macabre has brought equal parts strange and saccharine to her art. Jenn loves to paint pictures that tell stories and showcase characters that rule in far away places; nature’s mysteries and curious beings that long to learn more about life and the viewer that gazes upon them. These mischievous creatures live upon textured backgrounds made with mixed materials, such as spray paint, stencils and ripped paper. They will draw you in with their hypnotic eyes, soft contours and calming colours, and hope to enchant you so you may dream of other places where magic still exists. Jenn’s work has shown in galleries across Canada and in the US and has also made an appearance in Vancouver’s local street scene. Her work has been published in comics, kids’ novels and various art books, was showcased on CBC’s TV Show “Crash Gallery” and has recently been exploring mural painting. Last year she completed an 8×54′ mural for Downtown Vancouver and has just finished a collaborative 600sf mural in New York City. Currently living in the Vancouver neighbourhood of Mount Pleasant, Jenn continues to chase magic beings and is living life to the fullest.

Kristian Adam is a Canadian born artist. He exhibits regularly throughout Vancouver and in galleries around the world and has been featured in books and television. His paintings often combine themes of nature and invention from the humorous perspective of animals which he refers to as “NymNums.” Dr Seuss’s body of work and a book called the Codex Seraphinianusóbrilliant books filled with surrealistic and organic Rube Golberg-like contraptionsó have helped serve as inspiration to creating his more recent landscapes and devices. Born 1978 in Edmonton, Alberta, Kristian grew up on a small farm near Grande Prairie. Recurring themes of nature in his work are inspired from his childhood living in the country.

Phresha was born with a crayon in her hand. This mischievous child of colour that grew up in Toronto currently resides in Vancouver BC. Her work can be described as vibrant and playful organic flows with seductive female forms and whimsical undertones. Sultry, mysterious vixens are often found frolicking with feral kittens and other wild creatures. Currently, Phresha is focusing on gallery shows, commission work and sampling all the delicious sushi down the coast. “As a visual artist, I am fascinated by the female form, as the embodiment of Mother Nature and her many manifestations. She is the divine goddess, an ethereal warrior, the seductress and the mistress among her many incarnations. A creature of mysterious beauty and allure, she frolicks with whimsical creatures in the planes of my imagination.”

Phresha

Kristian Adam

Come Draw with Me
Alicia Tobin’s Come Draw with Me
April 22, 2016

 

Join comedian Alicia Tobin and her special guests Kevin Lee, Amy Goodmurphy and Gabe Liedman for an evening of drawings, laughings, sharings (not too much sharing) huggings (no way, gross), marker sniffing, and friendships. Part comedy show, part art class… well, probably not. No talent required. Supplies provided. Fun times always had. Come draw with us!

Rape is Real
Rape is Real and Everywhere: A Comedy Show
April 21, 2016

 

Rape jokes are everywhere. But who are the people telling them? Are they ever OK, let alone funny? What if the people telling rape jokes were survivors? Rape is Real and Everywhere is what happens when comedians who have survived rape share their experience and joke it out. Prepare yourself for hilarity, cathartic honesty and old-fashioned vulnerability. Produced by Heather Jordan Ross and Emma Cooper, hosted by Emma Cooper and featuring some of Vancouver’s best comedians including Vanessa Woznow, Mark Hughes, Tia Jeannette, Amanda Smith, Shane Clark and Jane Stanton. There’s a slick piece of East Van graffiti that, in elegant cursive, reads: “Rape is Real and Everywhere.” It is, and we can talk and joke about it openly, together.

by flavia
Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down
Aug 4–27, 2016

 

Featuring Flavia, Christel Chan, Jane Q Cheng, Minjoo Kim, Chelsea O’Byrne and Rachel Wada, Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down takes an inquisitive look at how nostalgia serves as a point of reference for both identity and art. The six local artists explore how memory provides an ongoing context for all of our thoughts and ideas, despite paradoxically being an unreliable source of information. Drawing from their own individual memories, they aim to find vestiges of the past hiding in the darkest corners of the present.

Click here to see photos from the show on Flickr >

Thanks to the Fox Cabaret for hosting our afterparty.


Ever since Flavia could hold a pen, she’s been drawing rainbows, hearts, and cats with spikes. Her kindergarten teacher suggested she attend Emily Carr University of Art & Design. And that’s just what she did. In 2015, Flavia graduated from Emily Carr University of Art and Design with a major in illustration. Her childhood included a large amount of time vegetating with a gazillion picture books (which were stored in an unplugged fridge) and her beloved television set. The TV and pictures from the pages of children’s book fueled her imagination and continue to inspire her today.

Jane Q Cheng is a Vancouver-based artist. Her interests focus on creating dialogue between illustration and contemporary art practices and finding spaces where the traditional and experimental overlap. Through various topics, she takes advantage of what she sees as illustration’s central yet peripheral standing in contemporary art discourse.

Christel Chan is an illustrator and designer with a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts (Illustration concentration) from Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, Canada. She spent most of her life in Hong Kong but moved to Vancouver to pursue her interest in art and design. In her paintings, she enjoys creating fantastical worlds by mixing the ordinary and the magical.

Rachel Wada is an interdisciplinary illustrator currently based in Vancouver, BC. She is a recent graduate of Emily Carr University’s Bachelor of Fine Arts program with a focus in illustration. Her artistic practice involves intricate illustrations executed in a variety of mediums from watercolor, ink, graphite and gouache. She also utilizes digital media and silkscreen printing to produce her 2D illustrations. Her inspirations include traditional Chinese painting, ukiyo-e painting, tattoos and editorial illustration. Rachel has participated in a handful of art exhibitions around Vancouver, and her piece has recently been accepted in the Society of Illustrators: Student Scholarship Competition, where her piece was displayed in the student exhibition in New York.

Minjoo Kim is an illustrator based both in Seoul and Vancouver. In her illustrations, she captures the moments and the feelings that pass us by unnoticed. She believes that the most mundane moments can be the happiest moments in life, once stopped and looked closely into. She wishes to create illustrations and stories that enable the viewers to enjoy that moment and to help them revisit and cherish their own stories that they have missed in their life.

Gwen D'arcy
The One That Got Away
New works by Gwen D’arcy and Aaron White
July 7–23, 2016

 

The myth of the tattooed woman is of her wildness and unpredictable nature. The idea that “innocent” untattooed woman are the “better” choice for intimate partners… it’s bullshit of course. Relationships are built out of something deeper than what’s just below the skin. Perhaps you’ve missed out on someone amazing by not looking deeper. These are portraits of all the beautiful, tattooed women that “got away.” The One That Got Away features watercolour works of tattooed female subjects from Gwen D’arcy and Aaron White. This show also hosted a live flash tattoo event from Studio Nest on Saturday July 9.

Click here to see photos from the show on Flickr >

Gwen D’arcy is a self taught Canadian artist Who grew up in Scarborough, Ontario. Her past shows include the “31 and Under” artists showcase at Gallery 223 in Nanaimo, BC in 2012 and a limited showcase at Make Studios also in Nanaimo, BC (2013). After a long break from the gallery scene Gwen is making a strong come back with vibrant surrealistic images of tattooed women bound to make you fall in love. When she’s not drawing or painting Gwen is the Brand Cordinator for a fast scaling company, mother to two beautiful children and a proud dog owner. Gwen now lives in Vancouver.

Aaron White graduated from Sheridan’s Classical Animation Program in 2004. He spent a few years working on Saturday morning cartoons before moving on to the video game industry. Since 2007, he has been a concept artist and FX animator for Nexon, Acronym Games, and Roadhouse doing work for Disney, Fox, Activision, Tecmo and Capcom. Happily settled in Vancouver with two carts, a glowing bicycle and as much art as he can fit into the week. His personal work focuses on painted portraiture of alternative and burlesque.

© 2014 Hot Art Wet City