I have lived in British Columbia for nearly three years now and I have been accustomed to being awe-struck by the natural beauty and ecology. I live on Vancouver Island, so I usually explain its wonder by telling curious folk that it’s as if I am living in Jurassic Park without the dinosaurs. Recently there has been some talk about pipelines transporting oil sands straight from Alberta/Saskatchewan to the Pacific ocean. Since the BP oil spill I have been very scrutinizing of all oil companies and their commitment to environmentalism. Can you image if the pipeline was built and for whatever reason there was an oil spill? Canada’s west coast and island communities would become a catastrophe. Now I’m not an activist, but I do what I can to illustrate my position on the matter. Canada needs to protect it’s unique ecosystems instead of running poison directly into its heart. The oil sands are not moving anywhere any time soon. Do the right thing.

Wonderland is a series of paintings that I produced for the beginning of September. The series of 18 is currently hanging in Tony & Adam’s Restaurant in Thunder Bay, ON. The subject matter was given free-reign, so I decided to get in touch with some classic literature. Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass are not my favourite novels; however, I always had an appreciation for the characters. In particular the subliminal characters aside from Alice, the Queens and the Knights.

There were a lot of experimenting going down with techniques, application and subject matter. Interpretation of the characters was the highest goal on my list. Influence from any Disney movie or made-for-tv spinoff was not my intent. The series can be seen in further detail here.

Well hello there,
Check out the stencil I made. It’s not your average graffiti project and I’ll tell you why. In January of this year I developed a project that involved the ecology of my neighbourhood. I wanted to try something I’ve never done before, so I threw my hat into the whole “urban-graffiti-tagging” scene and made 7 stencils.

I’m going to start by saying that I have a love-hate relationship with any type of urban artwork. It’s a paradox because urban art such as graffiti or tagging is supposed to be raw and spontaneous; however, the vast majority of the work out there has a major lack of concept, craft and/or originality. So where is the real median between spontaneity and conceptualization? What I’m getting at is, the amount of talented “street artists” are very few and far between, and it’s very obvious.

Enter my project. Since I’m a total noob in regards to street art, I came from a different angle in terms of execution. I replaced spontaneity with an absurd amount of preparation, and used biodegradable paint made of flour and cornstarch. First, I used biodegradable paint as a play on the permanence of traditional street art media like spray paint or tagging markers. Second, for those who don’t appreciate my work, it will degrade into nothing over time. So my legacy as a graffiti artist will fade away with the artwork. And third, instead of self-indulgently using my name as the artwork, I substituted some personal mantras as the message. The messages are short, to the point and I tried not to be preachy. I’d like to say that this artwork is selfless, but come on now. It’s graffiti and all graffiti always has and always will impose its will against society; even if the message is a positive one. Yet another paradox, hmm . . .

During the month of February 2011 I underwent a small self-imposed social experiment where I chose NOT to listen to music in hopes to understand how much music actually influences my day-to-day habits. For a long time I have been curious about whether adding music to my daily habits either improves or hinders my productivity. I recorded my thoughts and musings using photography and journal writing. The final product will be a 28 page accordion-style folded zine, which amalgamates photographs and personal reflections to create an interpretive representation of how I feel about each day without music. Sounds pretty wacky — I know. But I find these little side projects and experiments usually turn into something interesting and outside of my usual creative sphere. I’ll post the final product soon and try to synthesize the recorded information into an overall conclusion.

This is the cover illustration for the March issue of The Navigator. On March 10, 2011 Vancouver Island University Faculty went on strike leaving the winter semester up in the air until the strike reaches a resolution. As a VIU student I have heard both sides of the argument and I have to say that I understand the opposing perspectives. I’m not picking sides because I’ve never been very open about politics. It’s an unfortunate situation for all involved, especially the students who are essentially being used as bargaining chips. The illustration represents the VIU Faculty’s willingness to challenge the decision-makers who are responsible for the their futures. Solidarity! And as a wise man once said, “nothing good comes without hard work and sacrifice.”

I had the pleasure of teaming up with Jean-Paul De Roover once again to create the artwork for his new A Cappella album, Pitch Pipes. We thought it would an interesting concept to portray the raw, vocal aspect of A Capella music using raw materials and ephemera from Jean-Paul’s past and present life. We used a slab of drywall as the canvas and layered on top lots of old show posters, photographs, instructional diagrams, bubble wrap, tape and childhood ephemera such as Lego and Quadra manuals. I often find myself behind a computer, shifting between CS programs and maneuvering my hands over hot-keys and such. So getting up and moving was a great change of pace to keep my mind open to other creative outlets out there. Working on a large scale project was an interesting experience. You always have to be conscious of how the composition looks from near and a far. In many ways the process reminded me of how I learned to paint in College. This project was really fun and far from the norm. I’ll post photos of the physical album when I get my hands on a copy.

I’ve been working again with Jean-Paul De Roover over the Christmas holidays. Together we developed a concept for the theme and visual content of his most recent album. The new album features three a capella tracks from his previous album “Windows and Doors“. Our goal was to reflect the raw vocal element of a capella music through a collage of surplus show posters, schematic diagrams and scrap materials. The entire process was filmed and photographed. Jean-Paul put together a short video montage of the process, which can be viewed here.

The image above is a rendition of the mural, combined with an overlapping photograph of Jean-Paul, and also some textural elements. The entire process was incredibly fun. Being physically involved in projects such as this really sparks my imagination and ambition for future projects.