The Cool Creaps Into the Air

Autumn. I love this time of year. There's a moment in the fall when you realize that summer has truly passed. Maybe you hadn't noticed the crimson creeping into the scene, or a smell in the air... And then, it hits you. It is a melancholy moment, but strangely you nearly always look forward to it, and are glad when it transpires. Perhaps it happens via a gust of wind that carries with it a crispness you haven't felt in some time, or a moistness that's been lacking of late. You take notice of all the usual signs: the changing colours in the trees, the growing darkness that comes more quickly in the north, the bigger more dramatic clouds & rain. We spent the weekend in Victoria and all of these things came to pass. Just that much closer to the vast Pacific Ocean, we witnessed the wind gusting familiarly, recalling old memories. It reminded me of going to school in September as a kid and the cool, damp walks to school through the neighbourhood in the mornings. Back then, there were still the last solemn plots of land with orchard trees standing silent in the suburb, like they were maintaining some kind of vigil. Halloween was special. There's a great White Stripes song "We're Going to be Friends" that I think captures aura of it. Does anyone let their kids walk to school anymore? Mateo in his little sweater and vest, running in the park against the wind, his laughter floating on the gusts, picking up fallen leaves... I tell you man, pure happiness. And I didn't even mention the fresh apple pie!

More Great Work by Ben Reeves

My long time buddy and fellow U.B.C. Fine Arts alumni Ben Reeves has just had a very successful show in Toronto at Jessica Bradley Art + Projects. This work represents a virtuoso impressionist influenced splash of colour an texture from Vancouver's painters' painter. I'll leave the rest of the pontificating to this well written review from The Globe and Mail.

Smoke and cream pie: the ultimate cover-up

By GARY MICHAEL DAULT
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Ben Reeves at Jessica Bradley Art + Projects

Painter Ben Reeves seems quite taken with the idea of superimposition. In the case of the painting reproduced here, for example, his Car and Petals, the Vancouver-based artist has very convincingly offered up an image of a tomato-red Volkswagen Beetle, delicately covered with fallen pink Magnolia blossoms. There are two pictorial elements in dialogue, in dynamic equilibrium: one that covers, and one that is covered.

Curiously, though, the artist's winning new exhibition (Smoke, Flowers, Cars) at Jessica Bradley Art + Projects (his first solo show in Toronto) doesn't begin with the artist's determination to cover something with a second something. In fact, you get about half way through it before the impositions begin to happen. The paintings in the first room, which seem only to be about Reeves's exquisite paint handling, are entirely imposition free: That is to say, they are about one thing at a time, and not about two things at once.

Reeves's big Ice Breaker, for example, is just that - a lush, sensuously brushed painting of an ice breaker, negotiating frigid, thickening seas. Why an ice breaker? Who knows? Except that there is something about the ship's hard, hulking form, and the bright, thin sunlight falling all about it, that serves Reeves's purposes well - one of which, at least, is to slather on the oil paint in a way that carves his chosen subject from the canvas's blank space with the kind of exuberant, painterly abandon you don't see much any more. On the wall opposite Ice Breaker, there
is another lushly painted but imposition-free work, called Smoke (Close Up). Like Ice Breaker, it's a painting with a lot of brio - but that's really all. (The atmospheres of other famous paint-handlers, by the way, lurk within its churning field: Willem de Kooning, for example, and Richard Diebenkorn, and even Britain's Frank Auerbach.)

But when you round the corner into the second gallery, past a curiously listless painting called Broadway and Oak (Magnolia) - the only purpose of which may be to introduce the upcoming imposition idea (blossoms fallen on the grass and sidewalk) - you suddenly find yourself in another painterly world: Here, Reeves crackles wildly into life - and immediately proves himself to be a funny, caustic, inventive and highly original painter.

For here, in this second room, imposition reigns supreme. This is where Reeves's smoke paintings are. Three smoke paintings and one cream-pie painting. The four of them are, in fact, nearly obliterated by Reeves's having muffled up the first element of each painting (a portrait) with a second element (smoke, cream). In Smoke 1, Smoke 2 (golfer), and Smoke 3 (girl smoker), the beautifully rendered faces of Reeves's subjects are almost obliterated by the "smoke" - which is made of big, fat, wet-looking globs of grey pigment that the artist has exuberantly and wickedly troweled over the finished painting beneath. In Cream Pie, the same thing has occurred, with globs of "cream" instead of "smoke." This is imposition with a vengeance. And yes, there's a certain slapstick quality to the proceedings (smoking begins to look as silly as being winged with a pie). In the end, though, it is the artist's paint-handling that astonishes. Heavy clouds of "smoke," splatters of "cream pie," it doesn't matter. Reeves has found a way to pile up the paint in such a way that leaves you uncertain whether it's the subject of the painting that counts here, or the way the paint is handled. The balance between the two is brilliant, funny, irritating and disturbing. It's virtuoso stuff.

Walshman Takes On Morning Traffic & Wins!

PRESS RELEASE

Walshman Sustains Pre-G.W. Injuries, Survives!

Vancouver, B.C.

In a dramatic incident not unlike the 2005 Yan Ulrich pre-Tour training crash, it was confirmed today that local Vangroovey Clydesdale Class road cycling champion "The Walshman" sustained non-life threatening injuries during a routine training lap of the city's storied Stanley Park.

Having jostled with morning commuter traffic through the rain-slicked historic Gastown neighbourhood, The Walshman was preparing to "hit the jets" and fly onto the Georgia St. viaduct when he was abruptly brought to a metal twisting halt by a 2005 Toyota Corolla. Stunned on-lookers watched as The Walshman's 230 lb frame crumpled the feeble import in an impressive display of athletic violence.

Although The Walshman felt he had extolled "sufficient vehicular damage" in retribution for having been cut off by an indecisive intersection foible, the incident does not come without its costs. "I was feeling primed for a top performance at this year's Gentleman's Weekend Ball Hockey Bruiser Blowout" claimed a blood soaked Walshman as he waited for paramedics to remove glass from his forearm on the picturesque downtown sidewalk, "now my hopes are dashed. I don't know what to say, I feel like I let me line-mates down."

When hearing the news, an admittedly dejected Coach Pearce, who this year had spent much personal time priming "The Clydesdale Cannon" as he is known in roadie circles remarked, "The Walshman was building towards this moment for several seasons, he was in top condition, I've never seen him so potently athletic."

The Walshman has vowed to push on at this year's Gentleman's Weekend. recalling the heroics of The Legend of the Red during past Ball Hockey Bruiser Blowout Championships. "The Legend was an inspiration as he hobbled about the rink" said a reflective Walshman while he lay on the doctor's table being stitched, "I only hope that I can live up to his tremendous geriatric athleticism."

Security video camera footage to follow.

-end-

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

The official film website is up now for "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium." The shot pictured here is one that I supervised on-set with Raymond Gieringer from Intelligent Creatures and was composited by Ian Fellows. This show has been a long haul for Image Engine and had its fair share of ups and downs as most projects do, but overall I am really glad to have been a part of it. I can't wait to see the final product! Better yet I have worked on something that hopefully some day Mateo will watch and enjoy! Who doesn't love a magical toy store right?

Sleepy Hollow... Again!

Every once in a while I will catch a few moments of a film on television in the evening, and somewhat rarely these days, I am inspired. Although in summation, Tim Burton's take on "Sleepy Hollow" didn't live up to my expectations... The rushed and somewhat silly ending, the odd choice of jokey lines here and there... When I see it now I almost always respond the same way. "God, that's gorgeous!" The film is an absolute triumph of art direction and production design provided by Rick Heinrichs and crew. My mind spins immediately into a myriad of personal projects I might undertake to explore that look and feel. There really are so many amazing aspects to the way the world of the film is created and unified throughout. From the physical town location that was actually built, to the forced perspective backdrops on the huge stage sets, to the spectacularly realized forest set - I love it all. It is a film that truly takes advantage of that which only film can deliver, the visual authority of a history painting, only one better - because the image moves! And tonight, having been reminded of a few stunning moments during this film, my belief in the medium is restored. If only for a night. Thank you Mr. Burton!