Dr Sketchy’s Anti Art School
featuring Bettie Fever
February 21, 2017

 

Dr Sketchy’s Anti Art School is what happens when a simple question is asked: why can’t figure drawing be sexy? Part art class, part cabaret, join us at Hot Art Wet City for 3 hours of drawing and decadence! drsketchyvancouver.com for more info. Join the Dr Sketchy’s Facebook page to keep up to date and see pics >

Bettie Fever
Bad People: Portraits of the Punishable
featuring Phantoms in the Front Yard
March 2–18, 2017

 

In our fantasies and our phobias. Onto our streets and into our mirrors. Down our alleys and our angers, under our bridges and our skins. In the prisons we fear and the cells we can’t escape.

Bad people.

Celebrating the final exhibition at Hot Art Wet City, Phantoms in the Front Yard reveal their dirty little pictures.

Come see the worst, the naughtiest, the darkest, the damnedest, the shady, the skittish, the last and the least, yourself. We know you’ll take a thing or two away. With miniature pieces and their miniature prices, it may even be some art. Miniature works from $250–600.

Phantoms Members: Michael Abraham, Jeremiah Birnbaum, Andrea Hooge, James Knight, Paul Morstad, Jay Senetchko, Jonathan Sutton & Caroline Weaver.

With guests: Matt Bowen, David Haughton, Norman Yeung, Sara Khan, Ilya Viryachev, Maria Margaretta and Taizo Yamamoto. Curated by: Pennylane Shen.

Click her to see photos from the show on Flickr >

Michael Abraham began his studies in life drawing and compositional painting at the Ontario College of Art (1984-88). His personal coups have included sold out shows and shining reviews in the Vancouver Sun. He has had numerous one-man exhibitions, including at the Jan Baum Gallery in Los Angeles, and Gallery Jones in Vancouver. He has also won numerous awards, including his recent title of Senior Signature Status SFCA, in recognition of Extraordinary Achievement in the field of Visual Fine Arts.

Having studied Classical Animation at Vancouver Film School, Jay Senetchko apprenticed under Gideon Flitt for three years, and Odd Nerdrum for one. He has exhibited extensively in both group and solo contexts in Vancouver, Edmonton, and Berlin. Jay Senetchko also teaches film, painting, and drawing at Vancouver Film School and in his private studio. In 2011 he was nominated as a finalist for Canada’s Kingston Prize.

A practicing artist based in Vancouver, Jeremiah Birnbaum studied at the Victoria College of Art (2001-2003) before earning a Bachelor of Arts in Visual Art from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in 2006.  Since graduating Birnbaum has exhibited extensively in both public and private galleries in Vancouver, British Columbia as well as Edmonton, Alberta and Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 2011 he was nominated as a finalist for Canada’s Kingston Prize.

James Knight has shown a high spatial aptitude from an early age. Transferring a fluency with spraypaint acquired from painting graffiti into fine art practices has led to cutting edge visual renderings. Self taught, James now works out of his studio in Vancouver, having gained collectors internationally as well as across Canada.

Paul Morstad was raised in the Western Provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia. The landscapes, people flora and fauna of these places deeply influence his paintings and films. Having worked previously for the NFB in Montreal for ten years, he currently lives and works in Vancouver, exhibiting at the prestigious Gallery Jones.

After earning a BFA in Theatre from UBC, Jonathan Sutton worked as an actor, director, writer and producer in theatre and film for over a decade. The visual art practice that was to become his main artistic focus evolved through these media, and he continues to draw on dramatic, literary, and narrative influences. He has exhibited in Vancouver and Toronto, and won awards in both cities.

Caroline Weaver is a self-taught painter from Vancouver who has spent the last six years painting in and around the Americas. The ever-growing list of locations in which she has shown includes Ottawa, Calgary, Portland, Philadelphia, Montreal, San Luis Potosi, Philadelphia, Vancouver and some forgotten places.
Oil paintings of the, perhaps, secret lives of animals, how they might be arranging themselves, relating, and celebrating when we’re not looking.

Special thanks to:
CC-CrestRoad-13-Logo-w-tagline-CMYKPinnacle-Mountains-Blue-

by James Knight
Alicia Tobin’s Come Draw with Me
January 27, 2017

 

Join comedian Alicia Tobin and her special guests Aaron Read, Jacob Samuel and Sophie Buddle 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!

Come Draw with Me
Dr Sketchy’s Anti Art School
featuring Bee Appletini as Audrey Horne
January 17, 2017

 

Dr Sketchy’s Anti Art School is what happens when a simple question is asked: why can’t figure drawing be sexy? Part art class, part cabaret, join us at Hot Art Wet City for 3 hours of drawing and decadence! drsketchyvancouver.com for more info. Join the Dr Sketchy’s Facebook page to keep up to date and see pics >

Dr Sketchy's
Alicia Tobin’s Come Draw with Me
December 9, 2016

 

Join comedian Alicia Tobin and her special guests Graham Clark, Emma Cooper and Ryan Williams 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!

Come Draw with Me
Toy Babies
New works from Andrea Hooge
February 2–25, 2017

 

Doll-headed portraits will once again be filling the gallery for Andrea’s fifth solo show. “Toy Babies” marks a return to a theme Andrea drew upon for her first solo show at Hot Art Wet City, while building upon the subject by adding objects used in subsequent work. It’s in the details that a continuation of the use of personal symbols can be seen, with hidden jokes and meanings, and a few surprises! These portraits of mid-century toys are created using cutout shapes to feature paintings and scratchboard illustrations. Andrea takes her inspiration in part from vintage children’s toys and books, her cultural heritage, and the memories of her childhood understandings of the world.

Click here to see photos from the show on Flickr >

Andrea Hooge is an artist living and working out of her home studio in East Vancouver. She focuses mainly on figurative oil paintings and scratchboards, and while many of her works are on wood or hardboard panel, she also creates unique cutouts that move away from conventional shapes. These have been made to stand alone or to overlap and create larger and more dynamic pieces. In addition to her previous solo shows at Hot Art Wet City, Andrea has shown her work in various group shows within Vancouver. Andrea earned her BA from the University of the Fraser Valley, where she majored in Psychology and minored in Visual Arts.

toybaby
STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER
featuring Sherri Rogers, Bronwyn Schuster & Mandy Tsung
January 12–28, 2017

 

In this group exhibition, Strong Female Character, these 3 female artists look at feminine identity, both past and present, as defined within Western culture.

Click here to see photos from the show on Flickr >

Mandy Tsung‘s work revolves around the female figure. Having grown up surrounded by literature, magazines, and comics that depict captivating women, her impulse is to both emulate and subvert the imagery that informs her view of what it is to be a woman. This picture is made complex and, often, contradictory by the fact that she is of mixed ethnicity. The characters in her paintings are meant to be emotive; to communicate the depths of human experience through gestures and expressions. She was born in Banff, but spent most of her formative years in Calgary and Hong Kong. After completing a BFA in Sculpture at The Alberta College of Art and Design in 2007, she then moved to Vancouver where she now paints full-time. She has exhibited in numerous galleries in North America, Japan, Germany, and Australia.

In this show, Mandy Tsung presents a series of Bitchy Resting Face Portraits. They take their cue from Broken People’s “Bitchy Resting Face” video, which humorously highlights facial biases in our culture. The paintings bring light to female gender stereotypes, specifically that women & people with a feminine appearance are expected to display a smiling, pleasant demeanour to others, and to be cheerfully receptive even when absorbed by important thoughts or tasks. For this project, people were asked to submit photos of themselves in which they have a neutral facial expression that could be misinterpreted as anything from sullen to contemptuous.

Sherri Rogers is an artist based in Vancouver BC, and by day she works as a digital artist for visual effects in live action and animated movies. Her playful and narrative style has coupled with her study of film in this series, reflecting on how women contribute to the history and culture of storytelling in movies. Sherri works out of her east side art studio, William Clark Studios.

“Strong Female Character” is a film and TV trope for women who are represented in a literal or one-dimensional way — where a token woman is physically strong or powerful. Girls with guns, the warrior, the ass kicking action heroine are classic examples but machismo is not the only interpretation of the word “strong.” The women Sherri has chosen for her series of paintings are strongly written and represented as complex characters who have integral roles in the plot apart from their male counterparts. They are self actualized, independent and bonded in friendship with other women. These paintings capture movie moments with female characters who pass the Bechdel test:

  • The movie has to have at least two women in it,
  • who talk to each other,
  • about something besides a man.

Her paintings are 24×12 inches, matching the ratio of film. The colours are bold and simplified, similar to Mondo style movie posters. Like a film critic would use writing to explore themes in our culture, Sherri chooses frames of iconic movies to study a film director’s portrayal of emotion, friendship and narrative, capturing these moments in paint.

Bronwyn Schuster is an artist originally from the prairies of Canada, though she currently resides in Vancouver, BC. After traveling Canada and Scandinavia extensively, Bronwyn discovered a love the kind of creativity that is fostered in cold wet towns by the oceans. Her stubbornness to explore art through traditional media was fostered in her year studying at The Swedish Academy of Realist Art in Sweden. Her prominent work tends to examine stories centred around life, death and the journey. Three aspects often found in the fairytale formula.

The series that Bronwyn has been working on for “Strong Female Character” explores what femininity looks like through the lens of archetypes in myths and legends. Who are the Baba Yagas, the werewolves and forest creatures. The helpers and the heroes? Using ink and gold leaf, she mimics traditional illustration from fairytale books, but uses personal experiences and favourite stories from the models to display a darker and more adult content in the images.

by Sherri Rogers
Dr Sketchy’s Anti Art School
featuring Melody Mangler
November 15, 2016

 

Dr Sketchy’s Anti Art School is what happens when a simple question is asked: why can’t figure drawing be sexy? Part art class, part cabaret, join us for 3 hours of drawing and decadence! drsketchyvancouver.com for more info. Join the Dr Sketchy’s Facebook page to keep up to date and see pics >

DrSketchy's_Melody Mangler SQ
HOT TALKS: Eastside Culture Crawl 2016
November 9, 2016

 

Hot Art Wet City Gallery presented the third annual Hot Talks curated by Rachael Ashe. In partnership with the Eastside Culture Crawl, this was an evening of informative and entertaining talks by artists, designers, and craftspeople. The eight speakers represented a selection of the variety of artists participating in the 2016 Culture Crawl. Each speaker presented their work and shared the process behind what they do in a short “Show & Tell” style talk. Artists: Tristesse Seeliger, Vanessa Lam, Sherri Rogers, Bridget Catchpole, Anyuta Gusakova, Trevor Van den Eijnden, The Hive Printing, and Espiritu Design Studio.

crawl talks
Alicia Tobin’s Come Draw with Me
October 21, 2016

 

Join comedian Alicia Tobin and her special guests Kathleen McGee, Jane Stanton, and Dino Archie 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!

Come Draw with Me
© 2014 Hot Art Wet City