Friday, February 4, 2011

LE 7

Just a quick note to announce that I'll be in a group show tonight here at LE gallery in Toronto. The show celebrates the seven year anniversary of the gallery, it's been a really great seven years...

details below.




Thursday, January 27, 2011

studio shots

Thanks again to everyone who applied for the internship position. I've hired two people for the time being, one person from the list of people who applied, and one person who I was already friends with. There is actually so much to be done that I am considering hiring a third person. Either way, I will be referring to the list of applicants when these people eventually quit or mess up bad enough that I have to fire them. For my next blog post, I will post their information, links, and some of their work. For now though, I'm just posting some studio shots and details of work in progress. I've said this before, because it takes me so long to do a show, there are huge gaps on this blog when I don't really have any new work to post, but I will try to do a couple of these updates along the way, and I'll be in a few fairs and groups shows as well...

So here are some shots and a few descriptions. This might be boring, you can click on any image to make it bigger...

My small drafting table and my computer desk covered in garbage.

A detail of an almost finished painting.

An empty checklist is really panic inducing...

I got this in the mail today, the new Kris Kuksi book. I met Kris through my friend Daniel, who did both of our websites. The book is excellent, if you don't know his work check out his website...

I listen to audiobooks basically every minute that I spend in the studio, unless I'm writing emails or reading real books. I just started listening to George R.R. Martin's series A Song of Ice and Fire. My two favourite things to do are drawing and listening to epic fantasy novels, so when I combine them I'm in nerd heaven. I've taken it so far as to print off the maps of the worlds that the novel's take place in, and tape them to my desk so I can follow where everything is happening. If Jamiyla reads this I'm afraid she might make me sleep on the couch tonight, but I'm proud of my fantasy audiobook dedication...

A drawing I am working on, it is 14" x 18", a grid of carnivores.

Our fish tank, most of the fish are hiding.

Anyone who has read my blog for awhile might remember Patrick, he was my intern a couple of summers ago. He just finished school, and is now renting a portion of the studio. Having him in here is awesome, we trade a lot of audiobooks and he always cooks spaghetti. I really love his work, he hasn't updated it in awhile but you can see his blog here. You can see the blog post I made when he started as an intern here.

The painting area.

A piece in progress.

This is my bike, it's a bit of an old man bicycle, up until this summer I rode a roadbike, but I fell off of it and hurt my hip, and couldn't really ride it for the rest of the summer. Then I needed money so I sold it to a friend, and when I could ride again I bought this guy.

I really like the front rack, I do all my grocery shopping and art supply shopping with it. The dumb thing actually cost more than my bike did...

This is what my hip looked like after I fell. I couldn't really move around for a few days, but the World Cup was on, so it turned out to be awesome.

This is the little room that all of the store orders get wrapped in.

Below are a couple of drawing on mylar, 24" x 24", that need to be painted for my show. The show is November in Paris.







This is the big piece that I'm working on in my apartment above my studio. I've been working on it for about 2 hours a day for about 10 months now, and it is going so slowly, it's testing my patience. It will be a grid of 10 000 vertebrates, the idea is that it will be the centerpiece of the show, but I'm going to have to really move on it. It's about 40% done.

A detail.

Ok, that's all. I thought this update would take about 20 minutes to do, but it's been about an hour and a half and now I'm sorta anxious. I'm going to plan some new mylars tonight, I hope to have about 9 mylar paintings in the show...

Another reason that I haven't been updating this blog quite as much is I tend to post very small updates on facebook, and sometimes forget or am too busy to post them here. If you want more news, or to just read the dumb stuff I post when i forget that people I don't know are reading or watch the rap videos I put on my wall, friend request me here.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Internship Position

Thank you to everyone that sent me an email regarding the internship position. I am a bit overwhelmed, I left my computer in my apartment, went downstairs and worked all day, and now I've returned to my computer to see that I've received more responses than I had anticipated. I'm going to take my laptop onto the couch and go through all of the emails before going to sleep, and I will email everyone a response tomorrow.

If you do not receive a positive response, please understand that it is just because I have received more people responding than I could possibly employ. If I could, I would have everyone come in and help out in the studio. Also, I imagine that an unpaid intern position will have a high turnover rate, so I will keep this list on hand and email more people as positions become available, or if I discover that I could use a second intern.

Again, thank you to everyone who contacted me today, I will send out an email tomorrow afternoon.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Looking for part time intern

Hey Everyone, happy new year.

Lately I've become really busy in the studio doing things like packing orders, packing art, scanning stuff, and I've been having a hard time actually getting in full days of drawing. My solo show is looming closer and closer, and I'm getting more and more freaked out. Anyway, because of this, I'm looking for a part time intern to help me out with these tasks...

Ideally, I'm looking for an art student that is looking for some studio experience. The work is unpaid, but it is only half a day a week. I would like a student because I feel a student could find some value in this type of experience, seeing how an art studio is run and learning along the way. I did this type of work when I was in college, and I did find the experience useful. Tasks would mainly include packing and shipping online orders, preparing my surfaces for drawing, and documenting my pieces. The studio atmosphere is pretty fun and laid back.

If you are interested, email me at mediumphobic@gmail.com and we can set up an informal interview.

Happy 2011!

Friday, December 10, 2010

A few random things

Here are a few things I've been meaning to post...

First off, I've started doing some work with a company in France called Skinizi, adapting some of my mylar drawings to skins for things like laptops and Ipods... If you are interested in these, you can check them out in English or French.

Also, tonight is The Unicorn, a group show happening at Narwhal Art Projects. If you live in Toronto, you should stop by. A bunch of my friends are involved in it, including Jamiyla Lowe, Adrienne Kammerer, Andrew Remington Bailey, Stephen Appleby-Barr, Jennie Suddick, and Jacob Whibley, plus a bunch of other great artists. The night is also doubling as a launch for the catalog for the show I was in there in the fall, The Dazzle. I'll post pics of the catalog once I get a copy...
Lastly, thank you to Scott Sawtell and his 3rd year painting class at Brock University for inviting me in to do an artist talk and guest critique earlier this week. It's not often that I get to leave the city for a day, and I saw some great art... Downtown St. Catherines sorta scared the shit out of me...

Ok, that's it for now. I've been working hard on solo-show work and work for the fairs coming up in the spring, I'll post some of it and some studio shots soon...

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

2 New Prints Available

Hey Everyone! This is a quick post letting you know that I have just released two new limited edition gicleés, which are available from my website.

The first is a 11" x 14", signed and numbered gicleé, edition of 100. It depicts an Apocalypse Toad, a creature capable of breathing air, water, or through photosynthesis, perfectly suited for survival in harsh environments where the air quality is suspect.

It is printed on Canson Arches Aquarelle rag, 240g/m², and is available for $50 plus shipping.


The second print is a 13" x 17", signed and numbered gicleé, edition of 50. It depicts a species of tortoise perfectly suited to blending into a desert environment. As it moves from place to place however, it is often pursued by large numbers of bats, which feed on it's nectar and reveals its presence to potential predators.

It is printed on Canson Arches Aquarelle rag, 310g/m², and is available for $125 plus shipping.

If you would like to purchase either of these prints, you can do that through my webstore, HERE.


I'd like to thank my good friend Daniel Barber of Aleph1 for doing so much to help me with these prints, they wouldn't exist without him. You check out some of the other work he has done on his website.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Facebook Community Page

I found this a few days ago on facebook... at first I was a bit confused because I didn't know who made it, but now I think they may be semi-randomly generated... anyway, if you are on facebook and want updates on things like interviews and new work, 'like' it...


I've been working hard in the studio on a new body of paintings, lots of amphibians and fungus are finding their way into the work lately... I'll post some studio shots soon...