HEY APATHY! GRAFFITI STREET ART
GRAFFITI STREET ART
GRAFFITI STREET ART
HEROES, VILLIANS, CARS AND COMMUTERS ATTEMPT TO CO-EXIST AS A TECHNOLOGICAL VIRUS INFECTS THE CITY OF GEARS! HEY APATHY!!! Walls murals, ink drawings, and live monster paintings in the downtown core! From small nihilistic ink scribbles to enormous metropolitan caricatures! In the earliest artworks the metropolis is announced as an ominous gear propelled by an endless sea of faceless denizens. In order to investigate the situation further I started painting, exhibiting , and discussing the artworks in the streets of Toronto. The anonymous citizens started to identify themselves. Creepy creatures, monstrous mechanics, men as animals, and the dreaded Machinehead! Today the city is still drawn as a giant gear, only now it is all the weird individuals, not unidentifiable cogs, who fuel the factory! Full chronology of these unusual Graffiti Street Art drawings and performances 2005-present.
PUBLIC PERFORMANCES
PUBLIC PERFORMANCE ART
WITH ALL THE CARS, SOUNDS, PEOPLE AND PROBLEMS, HOW CAN ONE POSSIBLY GET A WORD IN ... PERFORMANCE ART! The primary initiative of the “HEY APATHY!” artworks is to instigate a “Dialogue with the City” through a series of public intervention, exhibition, and installation processes entitled “The Unconventional Interview“. The initial concept being that in order to make artworks of social importance an inquiry into the lives, actions, and motivations of other people would be necessary. In order to put this theory into practice, the “HEY APATHY!” artworks were first presented publicly at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition in Sept. 2002. This showing permitted me to interact intimately and directly with the people and metropolis under investigation. Large scale public venues provided an invaluable and indescribable resource in the development of my illustrations & narratives.Performances 2002-present.
LIVE GALLERY PAINTING
GALLERY PERFORMANCES
LARGER THAN LIFE MONSTERS, APPEAR RIGHT BEFORE YOUR EYES! GALLERY, GALA, STROREFRONT DEMONSTRATIONS! Using a unique and practiced artistic process, the HEY APATHY! performances include live detailed large scale ink murals. The live paintings, created spontaneously and influenced by the surrounding environments and audiences, have been as large as 10 x 60ft. and created in a matter hours. The “HEY APATHY!” painting performances, although primarily derivative of the street displays, have been featured at Nuit Blanche, the Don Valley Brickworks, the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, on Gallery 1313’s fashion model runway , and in the store front window of the Hudson Bay Co. downtown Toronto. Since 2008, Experimental live musical accompaniment is in the works for both the painting demonstrations and animated adventures. Exhibits 2004-present.
GRAFFITI STREET ARTTHE UNCONVENTIONAL INTERVIEWAs a young artist I envisioned the metropolis as a fatally nihilistic sea of misdirected commercial and superficial ideologies. This meaningless anonymity was heavily reflected in the artworks. The first chapter of my investigation depicted an endless sea of conformist bubble heads marching infinitely through a tomb stone building skyline. However, despite my deep concerns, the intention was to relay warnings rather than criticism in hopes of inciting a positive exchange. Upon completion of the series I looked up at the giant graffiti art and considered how to go about filling the faces in. It was not a technical matter so much as caricatures go, but rather a question of research. How could I uncover the true identity of the metropolis?My first graffiti street art public exhibition was at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition in the early fall of 2002. The show was an incredible success in both weather and attendance. The open air art festival attracted viewers from all over the world, of all ages, and of all walks of life. I was overwhelmed by the diversity of my interactions which ranged from critical debates to dancing monster stories. To me the experience was an entirely collaborative one. Even though my it was the HEY APATHY! work on display, I felt that the audience was the real exhibition. Through this first public experiment I discovered the means to perpetuate the investigation. This meant hitting the streets. Relocating downtown, I started travelling around with my sketchbooks observing the chaotic carnival and strange socializations of the monstrous metropolis . The process moved from the parks to the cafes, and eventually to the bars. As time past I got quicker at sketching and started working gradually larger. Soon my techniques had outgrown the accustomed casual surroundings. At one time I found myself carrying a nine foot by 8.5 inch graffiti street scroll, which could be unravelled to work on at book size, from coffee shop to coffee shop. It was around this time I met some artisan’s who were selling jewellery on the streets. I figured that since I needed a bigger studio than the coffee shop table, and sat outdoors working all day anyways, that I’d join them. I started performing in the streets of Toronto in the spring of 2004. At first it was a small production involving some card board scribbles. However through constant practice and necessity the street display quickly evolved. The streets provided an unimaginable resource for my inquires. I discovered many strange faces, voices, monsters, ideas, religions , fashions, shapes, intellects, imaginary, surreal and extraordinary people as I “unconventionally interviewed” thousands on beautiful summer days. Each season the artworks got bigger, faster and more detailed in direct correspondence with the interactions they incited. Today the graffiti street art performances include a full line of merchandise, comic books and 10 x 15 foot intricate ink murals created in as little as 2 hours! As a result of the monster comics experimentation both my self and the artworks have changed immensely. Working in the streets and at festivals generates an immediate incomparable dialogue unlike anything I could have ever imagined. These process actually allowed to interact publicly, easily discussing topics of great concern completely random strangers. In more recent artworks the city is still depicted as a diabolical gear, only now it is all the unique and crazy people, not faceless cogs, spiralling through it that power the machine. By constantly creating and exhibiting in public, I have learned many things about architecture and others, and got to spend most of my time sitting outside in the sun! 
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