MONSTER PERFORMANCE ART
The conception of my “unconventional interview” theory (2001) led to the development of my first large scale “HEY APATHY!” environmental exhibition. At that time it was my supposition that a the construction of a life-sized cartoon cityscape featuring paintings, animations, comics, and musical performances would be a powerful means of initiating my experiments. I spent one full year creating the installation and presented the complete collection of monster drawings at the O.C.A.D. in Jan. 2002. The Atrium gallery was ideal for the installation as it featured large movable walls and a four story open concept ceiling from which a 150 x 200 foot hand-painted backdrop was hung. The exhibit was a great success in both attendance and response, however I couldn‘t help but sense something was missing from my formulated attempts to discover the knowledge and experience necessary to create artworks of social significance. Although I had been able to initiate a dialogue with many of my mentors and peers, and had engaged in many sophisticated discussions with artists and intellectuals, it troubled me that the conversations were primarily sympathetic as opposed to informative. The prospect of discussing concerns about architecture and others with a specific demographic of like-minded individuals, although often gratifying, proved redundant. How is one to study the city, the world, while confined within a studio and gallery’s walls? The first exhibition of “HEY APATHY!” artworks although technically and fiscally successful, remained incomplete. Determined to reach a larger audience, I decided to redesign the installation as a portable display unit and applied to the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition in the summer of 2002. Due to a city wide garbage strike the T.O.A.E. was delayed until labour day 2002, however my installation was accepted and the extra time proved useful in preparation of first my public exhibition. For the show I built a series of red wall panels which could be assembled as a 10 x 20 ft portable art gallery and decided on a reduced collection of paintings and smaller works from the larger exhibition.. Despite the minimalized installation, the public showing proved enormously successful. The outdoor venue provided an insurmountable audience consisting of people of all ages, from all over the globe, and of all walks of life. Over the coarse of the three day event I had engaged in conversation with hundreds of people I otherwise would never have known. The most intriguing and distinguishing aspect of the public forum, in comparison to the gallery setting, was the diversity of ideologies and the overwhelming attendance to the event. Literally thousands of collectors, tourists, pedestrians, families, and Torontonians, many of which had never been to art gallery, marched through Nathan Phillips Square during the festival. Through the showing at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition 2002 , I was finally satisfied that my hypothetical and unconventional “interview” had been properly executed.
The public venue provoked an indescribable inspiration and an immeasurable experience unlike any I had ever known. I was actually talking to the city and the city was responding. It was at this time that I decided to pursue the public venue more vigorously and determined a process by which the seasonable warm weather would be spent touring large public festivals researching and promoting while the winter time would be set aside for the development of detailed studio artworks. Such is the life of a Canadian Artist!
During the summers which followed I exhibited at numerous large-scale festivals including the Toronto International Comic Book Convention, The Distillery District, and at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition. In order to stay productive while working the booths and talking to people at events, I would often create small rapid studies. These quick drawings proved very useful as I was able to continually practice outside of the studio environment and found that people were very interested in observing the creative process. At first I would make simple images of “MONSTERS” and “ROACH” creatures in a style that I had perfected for painting unsanctioned wall murals. The drawings consisted of 3-5 quick brush strokes and a little bit of detailing, ideal for instantaneous creation. Over time, as my skills developed and as I grew tired of rehearsed imagery, the small “performance” drawings began to develop into unique and completely spontaneous inventions, increasingly inspired by my immediate environment and interactions.
At the end of each festival season I would retreat to my artist’s studio and proceed to develop large scale gallery artworks based on my public inquiries and subsequent revelations. However despite successful annual exhibitions and numerous interactions with prospective representatives, I found the gallery setting alienating and difficult in comparison to the public events. Two particular gallery experiences come to mind as exemplifiers of my problematic situation. The first such incident took place during an enormously successful exhibition of the “HARD RAIN” artworks in March of 2003. Despite an extraordinary attendance, primarily due to the front cover story in Toronto’s Now Magazine, I discovered that it was almost impossible to discuss the artworks with any one. A sea of congratulations, followed by rival art dealer propositions, and numerous inaudibly inebriated remarks interrupted every attempt to share narrations or engage in conversation. In contrast, the public forum tended to dissect the social barriers which separate the artist, as idol, from the audience he or she is attempting to investigate. This separation allows for an honest, accessible, and truly interactive exchange of ideas. The public interventions could incite a mass dialogue and an indescribable inspiration unlike any contained inside a studio or exhibition space. People would actually talk to me, ask questions, and exchange experiences, and absolutely no one was drunk. (Go to a Gala event sober and try to talk to someone, I dare you!) After the show I contacted some of the well known galleries who had approached me during the gala. The second anecdote of consequence took place during one of these “business” meetings. I was instantly surrounded by a large group of succubus’ who draped themselves around the chesterfield I was sitting on , offered me wine and champagne, and then proceeded to dictate the subjects and themes that they would have me paint next. Oddly enough these suggestions sounded a lot like requests for me to redraw images that I had successfully exhibited in the past. Needless to say I ran like Crumb outta Harlem 1. At this point I decided to temporarily cease pursuit of gallery representation as I felt it was in the best interest of the project to continue exploration by means of independent public intervention and outdoor exhibitions. Ideally, a time would come when more respectable galleries would take an interest in the work, and that I would eventually develop an unmovable language, confident enough to withstand commercial interference.
In the spring of 2004 I curated two independent art exhibitions. The first was a solo exhibition of my “MONSTER” drawings of despair in the “BASEMENT GALLERY”. This was actually my Kensington Market live-in studio apartment turned exhibition space. I held many salon-style all night parties there in which absolutely anyone was invited to bring artwork and participate in the event. The “Monsters” show was the first solo exhibition I held in the “BASEMENT GALLERY” and featured over 200 pen & ink illustrations of an animalistic holocaust. Following the success of the solo exhibition I booked the “MIND CONTROL” Gallery on Queen West and curated a multi-media & performance oriented group exhibition. “SYSTEMS OF CONTROL” opened in April 2004 and featured and wide range of interdisciplinary artworks including videos, performances, installations, illustrations, paintings, sculpture, and live music. The party encouraged performers to mingle with the crowd with an emphasis on interactive artworks. For my part in the exhibition I painted a live 12 x 30 foot wall painting featuring “the march of the war pigs” during the opening gala. The entire painting took approximately 45 minutes to complete and was my first live painting experiment ever. Using similar techniques as those I had developed for graffiti-type wall murals, the spontaneous creation was enhanced by audience interactions. The energy of the on lookers transmuted into discussion and a few people dug right in to assist in my creation, barking orders and adding their own touches. Pleased with the direction this performance had taken me in, I became increasingly interested in the prospects of producing artworks in the public forum.
The following spring I began exhibiting and performing live in the streets of downtown Toronto. Accumulating knowledge, skills, and experience from my earlier public exhibitions, murals, and performances, I finally had the confidence to put my work, and self, in the middle of the metropolis‘ eye. The original street paintings were generally created at poster sized but perpetually increased in both scale and intricacy in the years that followed. By 2005 I was painting instantaneous 4 x 12 foot street scrolls in front of large audiences on Queen Street West and at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition. Influenced and inspired by the constant exchange of ideas, insults, and exclamations provided by the public venue I continually pushed towards perfecting and reinventing my live story telling techniques. Since that time the performances have become aggressively enormous and are created at an almost inhuman pace. In 2007 I created 27, 10 x 15 foot live murals on the streets and at various festivals throughout Toronto. The overwhelming cartoon cityscapes were generally created in under 4 hours and were by far the most detailed of all my performance paintings. Following the successful 2007 street and outdoor season I finally graduated to performing at expensive gallery and gala events. These extravagant affairs included performances in Queen West galleries, at the Don Valley Brickworks, and were highlighted by a storefront window display and performance at Toronto’s HUDSON BAY Co. flagship Young Street location 2008. The extended development of my live painting performances, like all of my experiments since 2001, was collectively and organically instigated through constant trial , error, and observation in the public forum. By means of constant public presentation, and an increasing tendency towards outdoor exhibition, I discovered many things about architecture and others, ultimately initiating an intervention and performance based process unlike any undertaking that has gone before. Facilitated by the necessity to create while touring and inspired by interactive experiences with vast and varied intellects, my presentation and personal submersion in the project resulted in the addition of live painting performances to the “HEY APATHY!” mythology. For a more technical and intimate account of the evolution of my performance paintings see also “MONSTER STREET ART”
Live Painting at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, 2004
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