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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:

The latest group show from Phantoms in the Front Yard puts writing and painting on a collision course. Each artist in the collective has pursued at least one writer, to establish together a specific selection of words – a short story, poetry, lyrics … as a point of response for original art work. The result is an exciting new collection reflecting the group’s continuing dedication to realistic and detailed rendering, as pressed through various off-kilter processes of responding deeply to other artists’ written creations.

Sunday November 11 from 7pm
Guest Speaker on the topic of Text and Art
Jeremy Todd / Director
Jeremy Todd discusses his explorations of image/text relationships and his appreciation for the context and works within the exhibition. Many of the abilities ascribed to images and text can seem mutually exclusive – the arrest of time and descriptive language versus the activation of the visual imagination and durational narrative for example – and yet their interaction can also generate a plethora of insights concerning the authority and transparency of both. Image/text interactions are common enough within our everyday lives, let alone contemporary art (consider advertising and online social media). Do these combinations perpetually influence our understanding of things? How and why do they expand beyond the limitations of their parts? What questions are brought to bear upon our senses of self, meaning and value?

Jeremy Todd is an interdisciplinary artist, teacher, writer, curator and musician concerned with the role of artists and intellectuals in society, the formation of cultural memory and technologies of the self. He is a faculty member of the Vancouver Film School Foundation Department, developing curriculum integrating art history, cultural studies and creative process. He was Director/Curator for the Helen Pitt Gallery ARC from 2003-05, and in 2007-08 acted as the interim Director/Curator of the Richmond Art Gallery. Jeremy also organizes grassroots collaborative events in Vancouver as part of his ongoing Not Sent Letters artist project (notsentlettersproject.com) while maintaining a studio practice and performing in the new music group Payday Millionaire.