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>RECENT NEWS......As of NOW October 17, 2020....12:43 pm. More Than Words: Truth & Reconciliation | 2020 City of St. Catharines Annual Juried Exhibit My recent sculpture Birch Poem: Witness 2020 (fixative toner transfer, found object on birch branch) from the Birch Poem series, will bepart of this annual juried exhibition in St. Catharines, Ontario mounted at St. Catharines City Hall. Inspired by Ojibwe artist Carl Beam Birch poem: Witness is a visual poem in three graphic verses that reminds us that human presence in nature (and in this particular case settler cultures) always assumes the form of violation, abuse and the silencing of indigenous cultures and nature. Examples of this body of work can be viewed HERE.
_____________________________________ ......May 10, 2020....4:58 pm. TWO years since my last update and long overdue. My efforts and activities have been wildy extensive, wide-ranging and gleefully experimental. Instead of rolling chrono-style here (as someone smarter might), I've shared them in the following categories, so here goes:
Sound-performances ~ TZT
Badger-paw and lab. For five-ish years (well, in some ways its about 9 years but thats another complicated conversation) the TZT collective of artists/poets/musicians Gary Barwin, Gregory Betts, Devon Fornelli, Ben Mikuska and myself have regularly (and sometimes not so regularly) gotten together to engage in extended improvised text/vocal/sound/noise/musical excursions. We've also had the pleasure of hosting some amazing guest poets such as Lillian Allen, Christian Bök and Kaie Kellough at some of these sessions and have recorded all of them. We're currently navigating a multi-year project in which we hope to eventually release a collection of these recordings on vinyl along with a publication of some sort. It fairly hazy how this will ultimately play out and what form the finished project/product will assume but we have made much progress. While the TZT efforts have been historically studio-based we recently had the pleasure to venture out into the great unknown of live venues and perform for living, breathing beings in two amazing events over the past year. The first was a multi-venue music/art/etc. festival called Sonic Glow that was mounted September 19 > 22, 2019 by Niagara Artists Centre in St. Catharines. Our performance featured a solo set as well as collab-jams with the incomparable Lillian Allen & Kaie Kellough. Our second performance was at an amazing event celebrating the 80th birthday of Canadian poet-treasure Bill Bissett. billfest 2019: what fuckan brethday was an amazing event that took place in St. Catharines, Brooklyn and Toronto and was organized and participated in by too many amazing individuals to list. TZT performed an opening salvo/set for the November 16th event at the Niagara Arts Centre and for the rest of the night served as back-up band for a wide variety of "readers", all who read their favourite Bissett poems.
derek beaulieu put out a call for musical, sound and audio responses to his a, A Novel erasure project in 2018, click HERE for more information on this project at his blog. The collaborative glitch-score response by Gary Barwin and myself (mentioned in my May 18, 2018 NEWS entry here) was included in this project organized by derek beaulieu and Alan Dunn. (drowned out by traffic noise): a, A Novel features ten audio responses to the book featuring: The CD cover featured my artwork and was designed by 67projects. This is cantaudio047, 2018. Edition of 250, 60-minute audio track on CD in 215gsm card wallet finished with Gloss Machine finish, plus 1″ button badge. You can purchase this amazing recorded for £10 HERE!
_____________________________________ Publications > texts > exhibitions In addition to having my work included in five different Visual Poetry publications my recent efforts were also the subject of an excellent article by #artcriticfromhell Bart Gazzola that was published in STC The Sound and also in an expanded version on his blog, The A Word: Art, Culture and Criticism (Intents and Accidents: Arnold McBay. July 18, 2019). The article is also available to read on this site on the TEXTS page.
Collaboration with Derek Beaulieu.
Penteract Press anthology of visual poetry.
Knife Fork Book publication.
ToCall Magazine publication. In 2019 selections from my (O) series of ink works on synthetic paper were published in ToCall No. 7 (Rostock, Germany & edited by Petra Schulze-Wollgast). Examples of these works can be viewed on my gallery page.
Above/Ground Press publication. In 2018 selections from my collaboration with poet Gregory Betts Signs of Our Discontent were published in chapbook form by Above/Ground Press of Ottawa, Ontario (edited by Rob McLennan). Examples of these works can be viewed on my gallery page. Please click HERE to view a scan of this chapbook.
Transformations | 2019 City of St. Catharines Annual Juried Exhibit My recent drawing Wholeness #2 2019 (india ink on synthetic paper) from the (O) series, was part of this annual juried exhibition in St. Catharines, Ontario mounted at St. Catharines City Hall.
_____________________________________ Visuals > new works The Gallery page now features examples of the expansive range of work that has emerged from my studio over the past two years. The page features an over-view of the wide variety of experimental text-based works blurring the line between drawing and writing, a collaborative project with Gregory Betts, ink drawings on paper, wax cast relief sculptures, oilstick drawings on wood panels as well as a wide range of animated works. This past two years was easily the most diverse period of my 32 year long career.
mOvement is a blog that will feature the .gif animations of the work of visual poets that I've been making for the last three years. These works along with new animations and periodic musings on these works and processes will be posted periodically. And additionally I've added an animation gallery page here featuring a short-list of these Vispo appropriations. _____________________________________ .....May 22, 2018....2:57 The sound of news...in response to Derek Beaulieu's call for sound responses to his recent erasure book a, A Novel I created a translation/response to his book which extended from a .gif animation I created of the first 10 pages of the book (view the 10 page .gif HERE, and the full finished 150 page .gif animation HERE). The raw code language of the .gif was loaded into sound processing software which "read" the code of the .gif file and generated a sound translation of the .gif animation. I then shared this file with Gary Barwin who created a re-mixed/processed version of the file, which I then in turn mashed up further re-combining his remix with the raw code track. The two responses can be listened to by clicking on the links below: a, A: the texture of code. a, A: the textures of code. _____________________________________ .... April 4, 2018.... 9:55 pm. >RECENT NEWS...... Much news of late, including a couple of exhibtions as well as a recent publication: Still visual poetry excerpts from my recent .gif animation "Who Decides the Land is Sacred?" were selected by Professor Catherine Parayre in the Brock University on-line publication ti<. The works along with a project statement are viewable by clicking HERE. Click HERE to view the .gif animation. _____________________________________ A collaborative project with poet Gregory Betts titled "Signs of our Discontent: The Textures of Our Solitude" will be exhibited as part of the Kanada Koncrete: Material Poetries in the Digital Age conference at the UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA. Click HERE for more information on this event. "Signs of our Discontent" was also selected for presentation in the IN THE SOIL ARTS FESTIVAL. April 27 > 29 St. Catharines, ON. Click HERE for information on this event. _____________________________________ Three of my 2010 drawings will be on view in two different locations. Two will be on view for two years (and are now installed) on the main hallway (ground floor) of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine & Performing Arts (I call it Marilyn's Gift) just down the hall from a major tapestry by the amazing woman our school is named for. The third will be on view at the Art Gallery of Hamilton as part of the annual AGH Art Sale April 12 to 15. If you are in downtown St. Kitts or Hamilton drop by and say hi to them. Fun fact: the one in the Hammer is for sale. Click HERE for more information on the AGH sale, and HERE to view the work in question (Coming Through Darkness. 2010).
View of works installed at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine & Performing Arts.
Left: Right: _____________________________________ >PAST NEWS ITEMS...... >EXHIBITION a new work on plaster and panel was selected for exhibit in the 2016 Biannual Juried Exhibition at the Grimsby Public Art Gallery. 2016 Biannual Juried Exhibition >Exhibition Catalogue published< The exhibition catalogue for my recent exhibition with Duncan MacDonald titled Parallax has just come back from the printers. It features two wonderful essays, one by Julia Polyck O'Neill and the other by Emma German. Julia was one of my colleagues in my final year of grad studies at Brock who is now working on her Phd at Brock, and Emma was one of my students at Brock who is entering the Masters program at York this September. Julia and Emma are two bright and thoughtful young writers whose essays explore the work in Parallax from two unique perspectives that I know you will find interesting. Click HERE to download a digital copy of the catalogue. >Exhibit closing soon. Its difficult to believe that the Parallax exhibition with Duncan MacDonald is drawing to a close this week. The sum of 7 years of thinking and working all condensed down to a 2 month show and now it is exhibit strike time this coming Monday. I'd like to thank Rhona Wenger and her wonderful staff for all their hard work, the Ontario Arts Council for their grant support and my colleague Duncan MacDonald. >Exhibit A: PARALLAX< It seems like it was just a few months back that the Director of the Grimsby Public Art Gallery Rhona Wenger had visited an exhibit of my work that I was particularly excited about mounted at the Sean O'Sullivan Theatre Lobby. Our conversation was lively and our talk turned to how I was interested in putting together a show at some point in the future at the GPAG but that I'd ideally like to work with another artist. Rhona immediately suggested Duncan MacDonald and the rest is history. Shoot forward 4.5 years and our two-person exhibition titled Parallax launches in February 2015 and features a wealth of new works by both of us. Please click HERE to review some more detailed information about the exhibition on my gallery page. Another aspect of the project I'm particularly excited about is that the exhibition publication will feature essays written by Brock Phd. Candidate Julia Polyck-O'Neill and Brock Visa Graduate Emma German. PARALLAX Exhibit B: PRESENCIA While working on the Parallax show I developed a concept for my first video work. Stemming from the works, processes and materials I was working with at the time, this work also yielded a second version which I will be screening on the Digital Art Wall in the Matheson Learning Commons in the James A. Gibson Library at Brock University. This work is a short video meditation on the mystery and poetics of photography. An archaeological rumination on the thematic and subjective choices on the part of the photographer, it also reflects on the nature of perception and how we absorb or read these artifacts of presence. Presencia is also a video-poem that invites the viewer to ponder the function and magic of time and the senses. PRESENCIA >Master's studies complete< It is now official. As of October 19th, at Brock University's Fall Convocation I will have earned my Master's degree. My area of study was Studies of Comparative Literature, and the part-time project was a four year journey. My graduating project (an undefended Thesis designated as a Major Research Project) was a comparative study of the work of Canadian conceptual poet derek beaulieu and American conceptual painter Ed Ruscha, their works were analyzed via the theoretical writings of French author and theorist Maurice Blanchot and the American Art Critic & Theorist Rosalind E. Krauss. Many thanks go to my Project Advisor and First Reader Dr. Gregory Betts, and my Second Reader Dr. Leslie Boldt whose patience, erudite guidance, good humor and wisdom guided me through the final project. Additional thanks also to Brock professors Natalie Alvarez, Corrado Federici, Derek Knight, Catharine Parayre, Erica Reiman and Robin Whittaker, it was a laborious and pain-staking process and your brilliant guidance kept me pointed to true north all along the way, cheers to you all! >Work to be published in online journal ti< A recent hybrid digital work employing a found photograph and text was selected for publication in the Brock University online journal ti<. The issue is titled Braille/Babble (publication of the issue is set for mid May 2013) and is centred around the visceral nature of language and the point of intersection between it and the visual. Through the juxtaposition of image and text, elements which threaten to cancel each other out, my project probes the limits of textual and image representation. Through the conflation of image with text (or text with image?) one wonders if there is any structure, or merely a visual space for the viewer/reader to contemplate the collision therein. The piece features a sequential alphabet overlay which obscures a piece of free verse written a few years back: I sought words, haltingly, in order to describe the night but their slippery surfaces resisted my touch. Through them I hoped to trace the past and somehow feel the grain of time. Strange how the night gives me a sense of emptiness and fullness at the same time. Are these words as barren as I feel, as full? Click HERE to visit the journal, or click HERE to view a full resolution version of this image. Be patient, it is a big file. Impossibility.
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