LE Cinq

This Friday I'm in a group show to celebrate the first 5 years of LE Gallery, my gallery here in Toronto... I didn't have a chance to do a new piece for the show, but the director is showing one of my larger mylars from his own collection... Anyway, come on out and see, there should be some good work in the show... The info is in the flyer...

Toronto

I'm back in Toronto now and once again settled into working away in this studio... I like my studio here a lot, I have a massive drafting table, a bunch of smaller tables, a million books, a bathtub, and a couch to sleep on... So I'm working away but I thought I'd post on here because its been awhile...

I don't have a lot to post... I was at that Carte Blanche 2 book signing and took a bunch of photos with my phone, but my phone broke since then so they are gone...

I did a Road of Knives page a little while ago, its not the best drawing in the world but it makes sense within the story... We are approaching our 100th page, and I think we might release the first volume in book format soon...


Also, HandMade Posters in Norway has just released a 6 colour screenprint of one of my images. Its an edition of 100, and is available for sale through the HMP site here.


One last thing, I got a profile posted on Blogto, you can see it here. Check it out if you want to see some studio shots and a little write up...


Ok, thats it for now, now that I'm back I'll be posting a bit more often I think... I'm going to take some studio shots if I can borrow a camera off one of my buds...

Carte Blanche Exhibition and coming home...

Hey All,

A few months ago I was lucky enough to be chosen by the Magenta Foundation to be included in their new book on contemporary Canadian painting entitled Carte Blanche Vol. 2. This Saturday Nov. 15th will be the book launch and an accompanying exhibition featuring a bunch of artists from the book... It will take place Saturday, November 15, from 8-10pm @ MOCCA [Queen/Shaw]...

The font changed. Why did the font change? Anyway, unfortunately I won't be able to attend, as I'm still living in Brooklyn. However, I won't be here for much longer...

Awhile ago I posted about having my wisdom teeth removed... One tooth was actually left in, its a long story why and I don't want to type it all out here. Basically another dentist in the past tried to remove it without taking proper x-rays, couldn't, so he just cut it in half and sewed me back up.... Well, a few weeks ago that side of my mouth started to kill... then the top of my mouth started to kill, then my tongue, then I couldn't really use my mouth anymore, and then I developed a fever and was dizzy all the time... I went to an emergency dentist one night at 11 pm, got x-rays, and that tooth is now sitting right on the nerve in my mouth, and it was severely infected. Its not infected anymore, but it still feels like a non-stop kick to the face, and dealing with it for a month has made me a little crazy... On the 23rd, I'm coming back to Toronto to have the little bastard removed...

People who read my blog regularly might think I have wicked teeth or something because I have brought them up like 3 or 4 times, they actually look really normal and are clean and shit... Its just that my wisdom teeth are evil and after 2 surgeries to try to have them removed they still manage to fuck up my life in incredible ways... A lesson to the youngens: when you are a teenager and your dentist tells you that your wisdom teeth need to come out, listen to him! He's probably not making it up... I was a paranoid kid and I thought my dentist was just trying to get money out of me, and now look what happened.

Anyway, I am looking forward to coming home though, I miss Toronto a lot. As much as I love New York and it is such an amazing place to make art in, I think I prefer to live and work in Toronto... more on that later though, I will post some thoughts on my move once I am back home...

To anyone that I wanted to see and didn't get to while in the city, my apologies, I did not realize that I would be leaving so suddenly, and I'm not in much of a state to be going out right now...

Ok, book launch. Oh! Then on the 30th of November, which is a sunday, there will be a book signing at David Mirvish books that I will be at... I'll post on that closer to the date...

Andrew Wilson Solo Tonight!

I should have posted this earlier. Tonight is the opening reception of Andrew Wilson's first solo show... For those new to the blog, Andrew is my great buddy / assistant. In the beginning he was just my assistant, and over the past 5 or 6 years we have become really close. Anyway, if you are in Toronto today, go to the show! It will be great, I'm a little upset I have to miss it...

Here is the info:

Opening Reception:

Thursday, Nov. 6th, 7-10pm
Artist will be in attendance

Location:

Magic Pony
694 Queen St. West
Toronto, ON, Canada
416.861.1684

Exhibition Dates:

November 6th - 30th, 2008

Event Description:

Magic Pony is pleased to present A World's History, a solo exhibition of new paintings and drawings by emerging Toronto-based artist Andrew Wilson. Exhibition runs November 6th to 30th. Opening reception is Thursday, Nov. 6th from 7-10pm. Artist will be in attendance.

Chronicling the mysterious history of an alternate world, Wilson's fantastical abstracted landscapes suggest the possibility of other worlds occurring simultaneously with our own. Past, present and future coalesce within this imagined topography. Futuristic architecture and geodesic domes crown primordial geological forms, while abstract shapes collide. Elaborate, mixed media resin-coated paintings encapsulate vast mountain ranges, crystalline forms and volcanic interiors. Both gesturally inspired and carefully constructed, Wilson's paintings combine contrasting layers, textures and colours to subtly create depth.

A World's History also features a series of meticulously rendered ink drawings. While Wilson's geometric landscapes and utopian architecture evoke the future tense, his drawings explore an imagined past. Medieval villages and church spires are nestled into mountainsides, while enigmatic faces materialize in organic, Arcimboldo-esque illusion. Quietly beautiful and vaguely haunting, Wilson's imagery resonates with the vision and mystery of the fantasy genre, yet leaves definitive narrative open to personal interpretation.

Press Inquiries:

Please send an e-mail to contact@magic-pony.com.

September update

Hey All... Of course I haven't updated this blog in a long time, I'm so bad at keeping up with any responsibility that isn't drawing... Although I think I'll get a chance to update it much more often now; I deleted my facebook and myspace accounts recently... It kinda hurt, I had a lot of contacts on there and it was great for sending out show invites, but in the end they ate up a lot of time, time that I should spend drawing because I have such a busy schedule coming up...

A lot has happened since my last update, the biggest event being my move from Toronto to Brooklyn... I don't think I'll be here for very long, until the new year I think, but no longer... depending on how I like it, I may move back more permanently, or I may stay in Toronto, I haven't really decided yet...

Also, I have a group show coming up in Oct, Zak, Shawn and I will be displaying what we have done so far with "On the Road of Knives" in the back room of Zaks solo show... did that make any sense? I can't tell, I'm really exhausted and I sorta feel that nothing I write is making sense right now... Um..ok, I'll make everything quick: I also have a fair in October and right now I'm working on an upcoming solo show.

ok, I'll leave you with a few flicks of the book signing at Magic Pony back in August... Thanks to Magic Pony for putting the whole thing together, and to everyone who came out... I was really happy cause I thought no one would show and it would become one of the saddest nights of my life, but luckily that didn't happen...

Next update I'll put up flicks of my little studio in Brooklyn, info about the group show and all that... bye!













The last photo isn't of my book launch at all, its my friends and I on a roller coaster at the fair...

Magic Pony Book Launch

This thursday (August 7th), I will be doing a book signing at the Magic Pony, one of my favourite shops in Toronto...

If you are in the city, and free, come on out! There will be beer.

here is the link to their site.

here is the link to the facebook invitation.

Here is their writeup about the launch:


OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday, August 7th, 2008 - 6 to 8pm

Magic Pony Gallery - 694 Queen Street West

Magic Pony welcomes acclaimed Canadian artist Nicholas Di Genova for an exclusive exhibition and book signing on August 7 from 6-8pm. This special event celebrates the North American release of 'DY005: Nicholas Di Genova' and marks the first solo exhibition of Di Genova's limited edtion prints at Magic Pony. Di Genova has also created a limited print Gocco unique to Magic Pony to be included with the first fifty copies of 'DY005'.

'DY005: Nicholas Di Genova' is the fifth book in the Die Young series; a collection of books documenting emerging international artists, illustrators and designers, published by Spanish magazine Belio. 'DY005' charts the last three years of Di Genova's impressive taxonomy of biomorphic, hybridized creatures. With a highly-skilled, intricate technique, Di Genova works with ink and animation paints on mylar to render a fantastically magnificent menagerie. A compilation of remarkable sketches, paintings and sculptures, 'DY005: Nicholas Di Genova' is the Audubon guide for the post-apocalyptic terrain.

Monkey's Paw

Its been awhile since my last update, I've just been working away on my upcoming show, working away on the comic and doing some other miscellaneous pieces... This friday at my favourite bookstore in the city, The Monkey's Paw, I'll be showing some of those miscellaneous pieces... A bunch of us designed shelf labels for the store, nothing too insane, but they were a lot of fun to make and I'm looking forward to the reception... Come by, look at some reaaaaally small drawings, browse through the stock of old, rare, and bizarre books...

Below is the press release and scans of what I drew...

Also, another update is coming soon, it will have some more drawings, new comic stuff, photos of piles of firewood that I chopped at my parent's cabin... Also, I just decided that I'm moving to New York in September for four months to work on the center piece of my upcoming show... I'll be there all autumn, if anyone wants to meet up or see the studio or whatever, email me cause I imagine I'll be a bit on the lonely side while I'm there...

Ok, here is the press release, I hope everything that I wrote makes sense, I just woke up a few minutes ago and my brain is still in idle...

---

13 NOTABLE ARTISTS CREATE WORDLESS SIGNAGE FOR PECULIAR BOOKSHOP
July 23 - August 10
Reception: Friday, July 25, 5-9 p.m.

Next week, Toronto's most idiosyncratic secondhand bookshop hosts an unprecedented site-specific group art show: the Monkey's Paw Section Label Project.

Responding visually to the cultural content of an entire bookstore, 13 Toronto artists have created (very small) section labels for all 52 subject categories throughout the Monkey's Paw. Their work will be mounted on our shelves and on view from July 23 to August 10. A public reception will be held at the shop on Friday, July 25, from 5 to 9 p.m.
THE ARTISTS
All participants are regular visitors to the Monkey's Paw, and bring to the project first-hand knowledge of the shop's aesthetic and cultural bent. In style, they range from literalist illustrators to austere conceptualists; but all share a demonstrated fondness for whimsy, pathos, and subversion. They are:
Stephen Appleby-Barr
Katie Bethune-Leamen
Diane Borsato
Shary Boyle
Nicole Collins
Nicholas Di Genova
Kristan Horton
Michael Maranda
Olia Mishchenko
Jenn Murphy
Lauchie Reid
Derek Sullivan
Jacob Whibley
THE PROJECT
The Monkey's Paw differs from other bookshops in a number of ways, not least in its imaginative organization and complete lack of signage. Although the books on the shelves are carefully arranged by subject, the shelves themselves are not usually labelled. Nothing interrupts the organic flow of one section into the next, so browsing becomes an act of exploration and discovery: "bookshop as narrative."

The Section Label Project sets out to interpret, or re-interpret, that narrative. These thoughtful works add new dimensions of significance and mystery, and deepen the complexity of the relationship among books, browsers, and environment. They look damned cool, too.

All 52 section labels are available for purchase at a uniform price of $150 apiece. In addition, the Monkey's Paw is publishing a full-colour Section Label Project catalogue in the form of a limited-edition poster/shelf map. Both the original artwork and the catalogue will be offered for sale beginning Wednesday, July 23. We hope you can join us for this uncommon event

We remain,

The Monkey's Paw
1229 Dundas St. West
Toronto

416.531.2123

---

Ok, here are the tags...sorry the scan is so bad, but it does get bigger if you click it...

open studio + tokyo

A couple things going on... If you are in Toronto on Thursday, I'll be working with a technician to produce some screen prints during the Open Studio open house (in the 401 Richmond building). I'm not sure exactly what is going on, but from 6 - 9 theres a silent auction, selling off some of the Open Studio members' prints, and I think the technician and I will be making some of my screen prints on the spot... I'm not much of a pro at screen printing, so we'll see how they turn out. I guess thats why I'm working with a technician...

If you're not familiar with Open Studio, go to their website. I'm not TOO sure what goes on in there, its a massive room filled with every printmaking device I knew existed, and they have memebers, and they make prints...

I'm not too sure what I'll be printing, I was thinking one of these two images that I drew last week:



The second one is a small pen and ink version of the crocodile image from my show in September, the first one is a iguana finch of some sort... the originals are both draw on the same page, and make up a larger composition... man, I just typed so much boring stuff in a row..

I typed that stuff this morning. Now it's night. I met the technician today and he seems like a really nice guy, he and Jill, the woman that asked me to participate helped me out a lot with preparing my image today... Working with nice people is pretty great...

Here's the flyer for the night..


OKok, Tokyo. I'm in a group sow in Tokyo on December 2nd. Tomolennon, a Tokyo born artist living here in Toronto is putting on a group show of Toronto artists in a gallery in Tokyo that he co-directs. The gallery is located within a bath house, which I think is pretty awesome. I went to he website, and its a bunch of Japanese text I can't read, and photos of people getting massages.

And like the people at Open House, Tomolennon seems like a really great guy, he was really courteous and patient when we met...

So yes, I'm excited, this is my first time showing in Tokyo, I get to show with a bunch of artists that I have a lot of respect for, some really strong Toronto talent. I won't post my work on here again, I sent a set of the grid prints that I've already posted on the blog twice, so you can scroll down and see them if you are interested...

ok, here is the link to the space: tokyoganbanyoku

And here is the press release:

Art x Life gallery, Tokyo Japan is pleased to announce "Toronto Underground" An art exhibition of Toronto's most promising emerging artists.
If you know of someone who might be interested in this information, please pass this note on to them.


Art x Life gallery in Tokyo presents
Special exhibition
Toronto Underground
Selection of Toronto's most promising emerging artists

-tomolennon
-Fiona Smyth
-Kirsten Johnson
-Christopher Hutsul
-Nicholas Di Genova
-Harvey Chan
-Gregory John Hern


Art x Life gallery will present an exhibition introducing, for the first time in Japan, 7 of Toronto's most promising emerging artists at a crucial time in their career.

Toronto is the largest financial, cultural and entertainment centre in Canada, named by UNESCO as the world's most multicultural city, but the city's native culture is still unknown. Diversity of race, religion and lifestyle help define and set Toronto apart from other world cities. Toronto is considered one of the world's most diverse cities wherein over 100 languages are spoken. The nature of Toronto's multiculturalism is reflected in its wonderful mosaic of distinctive neighborhoods, a global village of Mixed EWorld Heritage.

Now, for the first time, Japanese can experience the rich cultural diversity of Toronto through contemporary art. The exhibition includes work by tomolennon, a Japanese-born artist well known for his large-scale figurative portrait series called Sleeping Beauty, innovative in its approach of combining art and fashion. With more than 21 years of experience, Fiona Smyth is a leading representative of Canada's contemporary art scene. She was born in Montreal and moved to Toronto in the late 70's and became an all-round artist, making paintings, illustrations, murals and comics. Kirsten Johnson is a Toronto based visual artist whose work appears in private and public collections all over North America, Europe and Australia. Her work often involves a fusing of her visual work with her strong background in performance. Christopher Hutsul is a British Columbia native artist, writer, and emerging film director. His humorous but "cutting-edge" quality of drawings appears everywhere around the city from local galleries to newspapers and magazines. Nicholas Di Genova is a recent graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design. He is known for his illustrations of flora and fauna that　will populate this planet millions of years after the Apocalypse. Harvey Chan is a Hong Kong native. After graduating from Ontario College of Art and Design, Harvey pursued his career as an illustrator. He has illustrated many children's books and has been short-listed for the Governor General's Award twice in his prestigious career. Gregory John Hern is a young Toronto born photographer, just graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design. He is best known for his large domestic tableaux using himself as the family archetypes.


Toronto Underground
Curated by Cojac, Centre of Japanese Arts and Culture
Guest curator Rafi Ghanaghounian

toronto underground

Exhibition date: December 2nd, 2007 to January 31st, 2008

ART x Life GALLERY
Tokyo Japan
Sponsored by TOKYOGANBANYOKU


Address: Pearl Center 2F, 1-36-4 Sanko bldg., Asagaya Minami, Suginami-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Hours: AM10:00~PM10:00
TEL: 03-3311-8211
Website: http://www.tokyoganbanyoku.jp/
Media contact: (Tokyo) Saeko Ando shop@tokyoganbanyoku.jp
Media contact: (Toronto) Studio 2/artic info@tomolennon.com


[Art x Life gallery]
Located in the Tokyoganbanyoku, the largest, exclusive and luxury SPA center of Japan, Art x Life gallery is the newest concept contemporary art gallery offers programmes of changing exhibitions and supporting events to increase interest, understanding and involvement in contemporary art.
Art x Life gallery adds the exciting works of contemporary artists to Tokyo's thriving cultural scene.

[COJAC, Centre of Japanese Arts and Culture]
Centre of Japanese Arts and Culture (COJAC) formed in 2005 dedicated to generating new bonds of understanding of Japan and the Japanese through art and cultural programs. COJAC contributes to local communities culturally and socially by supporting artists who introduce and share Japanese culture with local communities, and by creating a place for artistic activities through the organizing of exhibits, educational programs, and providing networking services. This contribution helps to foster a mutual understanding of one's own culture while it also promotes the creation of culturally active communities.
It is our intention to support various Japanese and non-Japanese artists whose work relates to Japanese culture by affording the artists the opportunities to exhibit or perform their artistic activities.

TIAF this weekend

The Toronto International Art Fair is this weekend, I'm showing some work with LE. Gallery in booth 922. The fair is at the Convention Centre and runs until Monday, if you are in the area you should check it out. I'm going to go take in some art on Sunday I think...

http://www.tiafair.com/

The Road of Knives with Zak Smith and Shawn Cheng is starting up again... I finished my page tonight, um.... go easy on me, I'm not fantastic at drawing comics. Thats an understatement, I actually suck at drawing comics, but theres only one way to improve I guess...

The link on the side of this page won't take you to the road anymore, we have revamped the old material, cut more than half of it out, and are rebuilding it in pieces... Once we have the new stuff compiled I'll toss a link to it...



Here are a couple of drawings...





If I take good photos on sunday I'll post them here.

Catching up...

Birds are Terrifying Creatures comes down next week, thanks to everyone who came out. The opening went well, art was seen, booze was drank...Here are some images of the work in the show... I didn't take any photos at the opening, but my buddy Rose did and I'll post them once she sends them over...

It was a crazy summer. Carolyn and I went our seperate ways somewhere along the way, Andrew and I crashed in the studio almost every night, I eventually moved in with my buddies Team Macho and I'm just getting settled in now... When I'm working hard on a show I tend to neglect every other element in my life, so now I'm done, but my phone has been shut off, I missed the last 5 months rent on my studio, and I've got 2 collection agencies calling me up. Well, they were calling me up before my phone got cut off, now they are mailing me letters. The letters are getting kind of scary, the latest one just says this:

WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY WE HAVE NOT HEARD FROM YOU.

PLEASE ADVISE YOUR INTENTIONS.

I don't even know what that means! When you call the phone company, the music that they play when you are on hold is really relaxing love song type stuff. When you call the collection agency, they play terrifying German horror music. But yeah, this is the fourth summer in a row that I have had a solo at the end, and the fourth time this sort of thing has happened. But once some payments come in from work things sort themselves out usually...

First off I want to thank my co-op student Nicolina Cloutier, shes an illustration student from Sheridan College. She worked really hard this summer helping Andrew and I in the studio, and did all of the shitty jobs that we didn't want to do and barely even complained about them. I'm hiring her on as an assistant starting this week, so now she gets to do a whole bunch of shitty jobs around the studio but she gets paid... But yeah, she was awesome to be around and pretty funny and I'm really excited that she'll still be around the studio this fall...

Here is a photo of her buying me socks and underwear from Winners:



I'll spare you the boredom of a million random studio photos, but heres a good one... A week before the show had to be finished Andrew got hit by a car. And not just a little hit, but face-smashes-the-windshield-missing-teeth sort of hit. I'm not sure if "hit" is the proper word, I think "smoked" is more accurate.

So he gets knocked out and when he comes to, he finds his teeth, puts them in his pocket, and immediately calls me and says: "um...I'm not sure if I'll be able to come into work today. I just got hit by a car. I'm about to go into emergency, but I'll give you a call as soon as I get out. Depending on what time it is maybe I can still come in and get some work done." What a selfish guy, he should have came into the studio FIRST, finished his work for the day, and THEN gone into emergency...



What a beautiful face...

okok, so here is a bunch of images of the work from the show...











The piece that looks like a grey scale doesn't translate very well, its actually a grid of 7780 bird portraits. I've posted the last image of the grids before, we released limited edition offset lithos of them at the show...

After the show I relaxed a bit, drew a bit, and went "up north" to chop some firewood...here are a few random photos of "up north":












As soon as I got back from the cabin, I got an email that my friend Crystal Yin ( www.flapflapfly.com ) and her sister Michelle was in town. I use the term friend loosely, we like each others work and have been emailing each other off and on for a few years, but had never met, but get along pretty well over the world wide inter web. What I wasn't prepared for however was her being the prettiest girl in the world and I had just spent 7 days in the woods and i was totally thrown off... I tried to show them the city but I was really nervous and tripped a lot and made long rambling sentences that made very little sense. Worst tourguide ever. But yeah, check out her site, her and Michelle make Sweet Toofs, they are really quite cool...

I didn't really get any photos, except for photos of their backs of them looking up at the CN Tower. Since 1976, it has been the world's tallest free-standing structure on land, though it will most likely lose this title to the still under construction Burj Dubai, which surpassed the CN Tower's height on September 12, 2007. The tower is the signature icon of the city, attracting more than two million international visitors annually. I took that whole last part from Wikipedia...




Ok, so that catches everything up to yesterday... So this time for sure, I'm going to update once a week! Except a drawing takes more than a week to complete so I don't know what I'll write about...I guess not every post will be art related...