View Project

I am very proud to have been selected for The View Project, curated by Joyce Tenneson, a photographer who’s work has inspired me for many years. This is a traveling group exhibition of photographs that reveal something about the photographer’s inner life – images that are personal and powerful, yet perhaps not clearly understood, even to the viewer/photographer. The View Project will be an opportunity for each viewer to ask themselves what views, places, and moments in their own lives have left an indelible mark on them. Tenneson has also assembled a digital slideshow which will accompany the exhibition and will be projected in the galleries. …

Rising In Liverpool

Su-Chen Hung, an artist I shared a lot of yurt-time with in Mongolia, is showing her new work at: The Independents Liverpool Biennial 2010, from Wed. Oct. 27 ~ Sun. Nov. 28, 2010 at Wolstenholme Creative Space,  11 Wolstenholme Square, Liverpool, UK. Su-Chen’s piece is created with red sewing thread and 3059 sewing needles. Of her work she says: Are the four images echoing each other in their positive and negative forms or have the figures on the wall just arisen from the floor? This exhibition, curated by Priya Sharma and Caroline Smith, showcases the artists’ varying concepts and reactions to the unique environment of WCS. They …

NAVIGATE, night of all souls

On October 30th 2010, I created an installation for the Night for All Souls at Mountain View Cemetery to honour my father who passed away this year. My father loved sailing and so I made a boat and four sails which were installed in the Celebration Hall courtyard. The boat hung from a concrete wall; the bow faced the pond and the stern could be seen on approaching the building. It was at once, floating in the air and piercing through the wall. The basic form was constructed from Willow branches (grown in my yard) and covered with handmade paper …

Studio Garage Sale

Sunday October 3, 10:30 am to 6 pm, at Island Studio, 1551 Duranleau Street on Granville Island in Vancouver BC. #32 on Map I am cleaning out my studio and have many items that may be of interest to artists and crafters. I need to make room for storage and must get rid of the stuff i have collected over the years when i was doing more assemblage works. For example i have doll hands, plastic fruit, shoes, cast paper bits, masks, plastic moulds and wooden print drawers. I also have some picture frames and i have a booth structure …

Beijing Art

The abundant and vibrant art scene is what I really enjoyed in Beijing. Contemporary art is blooming in this smoggy overcrowded city and its energy is infectious. I visited the 798 gallery district, were we saw the Hope Tunnel installation at the UCCA gallery where the the train is a genuine artefact from China’s 2008 Sichuan earthquake, responsible for the deaths of 68,712 people. In the Chaoyang District I visited the Li-Space gallery and saw the exhibition Get Moving, which seemed to be critical of the art star complex of Beijing. At the Art Today Museum i saw the large photographs of Yan Zhixiong …

Mongolian 360 National Gallery Exhibition

The trip and installations in the Gobi were followed by a 3 day symposium and exhibition at the National Gallery of Modern Art in UB, where we were put up in a 4 star hotel. This was an extreme contrast to the camping situation we had in the desert but many of us were happy to have warm showers, electricity and green vegetables! The exhibition functioned mostly as a review of the installations in the  Gobi and consisted mainly of photos of the work. Some of us had additional work installed in the gallery. I for one brought my felt …

Modern 360 Mongolian

My second project was derived from the first one. The empty circles cut out of the felt spoke to me about the inevitable modernisation of Mongolian life; how the traditional Ger is being replaced by modern houses and apartments. This felt piece was purchased at the market and it was used, that is, it was once a ger covering. I hung it on the rocks as a temporary installation and then i had an artist, Megumi Shimizu wear it as a sort of house/cape. Megumi is a performance artist and she participated in several artist’s pieces on top of her …

Land Art project

My first project: East/West Fir This project was conceived in Canada and then adapted to the Mongolian landscape. It consists of three rings, which represent the diameter of old growth Douglas Firs. The smallest ring represents the size of Douglas Firs today and the second and third outer rings serve as a reminder of the giant forests, which were logged a hundred and fifty years ago when the white man first set eyes on the shores of Vancouver. By contrast the smaller the Siberian Fir tree native to Mongolia is symbolized by a series of circular felt pieces in the center. My …

Mongolia 360, first impressions

I arrived in Mongolia about two weeks ago but it seems like ages already. For a Westerner like me it has been quite a culture shock. First of all the language is so complex, with many clicks and sounds that resemble more Inuit than anything i have ever heard. Most Mongolians are hesitant to even tell you there name because they know you will make a dog’s breakfast out of it! The artists who arrived early like myself stayed in a Ger (yurt) camp outside of the capital of Ulaanbataar. the Gers are very beautiful but i was not well …

Mongolia 360 invitation

You are invited to join us in Ulaanbaatar for the 1st Land Art Biennial- Mongolia 360˚ Symposium August 16 – 19 Opening Reception Thursday, August 19, 5 p.m. at the  MONGOLIAN NATIONAL MODERN ART GALLERY Sukhbaatar square-3 / Central Cultural Palace “B” / Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia visit the Land Art Blog for more info on the installations in the Gobi Desert and the Symposium

HOPE PROJECT

The HOPE Project is comprised to 2 separate installations that relate to the glass half full/ glass half empty concept. The first installation is a “Grass Burn” of the word HOPE. Letters were place on the grass for a couple of weeks and then removed to reveal the dead grass underneath. It will take several weeks for the grass to grow back and the process will be photographed daily to become a time lapse video. This represents the HOPE-full part of the project. The HOPE-less segment will be done with ice, similar to my  past projects- See Justify. This project …

Denis Feser, Organic

This is pretty “heady” stuff but you have to love a man who wraps himself in lettuce! Watch video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kgr7gcwRrXE&feature=player_embedded Organic shows the artist participating in various actions, in which he “dresses” himself partially or completely in different plants or types of food. The Performancevideo “organic” (2007), and a fourteen-part image and text series, “colonial/desire” (2007), updates the drama about the simultaneous limitation and transcendence of the body, turning it into a strategy of colonial desire, in which the individual primarily seems to be the“function of an ethnological view.”. He transforms himself into a hybrid creature, alluding equally to Oswald de …