re: upcoming art exhibition in Kelowna!!!

hello friends, fans, foe and lovers,

i've got an exhibition coming up very soon, as in tomorrow is the opening night, haha. if you're in the Kelowna, BC area, do come say hello and meet myself and other artists from the Arbour Collective Marvin Strange and Kast. We'll be around for chit chat and i'll be playing guitar as well as doing a brief artist talk. it'll be controversial apparently but not as bad as the last show i had at Alternator Centre, where i had 2 death threats for my Jesus Coyote show and there were plain clothes officers there just in case.

in the meantime,

i'll included the text for the curatorial statement:

God save the Underworld:

Is a place most people never see, it represents art created on the fringes of society by artists that are on the edges of outsider art. It is art created for people who may never have or will step in a gallery or museum or pick up a book about contemporary or traditional art. It is art without boundaries because the artists never cared or bothered to learn about them, and are freely creating art for an outside and underworld. Street art is often vilified and tied to tagging and vandalism, but the artists of the underworld have moved beyond mere words and are creating socially relevant art. They wrestle with injustice, alienation, poverty, missing aboriginal women and men and other social issues that afflict our society, moving beyond ego and “getting up,” as the slang goes to a graffiti artist only concerned with getting their name and ego known.

http://www.kelownanow.com/watercooler/news/news/Kelowna/15/05/27/Graffiti_Art_in_Kelowna_Bringing_Up_Controversial_Topics

This is art made far from the eyes of a society that no longer seems to care about anything that doesn’t affect them personally, it is art made in dangerous places under dangerous situations because it is misunderstood and criminalized. It is lumped in with vandalism even though it’s created underground and on abandoned and crumbling buildings and infrastructure. The simple act of painting and making art is a dangerous business for the artists of the underworld, broken glass, needles and people on the fringes who are homeless or addicted are often near where they must go to make art. Sometimes they are friendly and sometimes they are hostile to the artists, but it’s a risk they are compelled to face to create the art they need. Perhaps it's a need we carry over the thousands and thousands of years since people have been painting in caves dating back 30,000 years or more. An urge to leave our mark, tell our story and to be remembered, perhaps this is what drives the artists of the underworld.