The first screening of The Animals in Toronto was a really special night with readings by Amanda Jernigan and Ian Roy as well as music by Mike Feuerstack followed by the film. Thank you to everyone who came out. I am thinking of planning similar events in Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax. DIY theatre style.
!!!! The Animals is finished !!!! It will be shown at SappyFest this August. The Animals is my 25 minute film, shot with video and 8mm film. It tells a story of repetition and regeneration as human and animal characters traverse and explore a landscape in a world without houses and technology, looking for a sense of contentment and purpose.
Here is another moment from years gone by. 2002. I remember when the shippers came to pick it up. It is of my oldest daughter. My youngest daughter at the time cried and cried, “Why are they taking Charlotte!”
This one is from 2002. I had just turned 30. In a few months from now I’ll be 40. I was still painting with tar and furniture varnish. I had just started showing with Ingram gallery in Toronto and was living in Montreal. Seems like a lifetime ago.
Gazing at my navel recently I thought it might be fun to come up with a personal top five of my paintings from the last ten years. I soon realized that I am a terrible archivist and had a limited selection of jpegs to choose from. Its probably for the best. I ended up just choosing five paintings that seemed related and that I didn’t hate. Any way, these paintings date from 2003 to 2010.
Here is a new one from a series I’m calling cover songs. I am repainting old master paintings in the way a punk band might cover a top forty hit. In the process I am finding they very much become paintings of people I know.
On some level all of my painting deals with artifice, facade, and play acting and the idea that through disguise we accidentally reveal ourselves. Our you could say, “The opposite is also true.”
Here are two more stills from my short film “The Animals”. You will have to come to the screening in April to see the Sasquatch.
Here is a blast from the past. My son Ben was 9 when I painted this painting in 2003. I don’t usually consider my paintings to be portraits but this one certainly is, even though Ben wasn’t actually allowed to play with guns unless it was for an art project. Poor kid. Great record though.
This very interesting book by Valerie de Courville Nicol comes out Dec. 20th with one of my paintings from “Easy Evolution” on the cover. I love the title, it would be a good name for a series of paintings.
