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.
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.
