Acrylic and ink on wood panel, 2012 (36” x 48”)

WORLD CLASS: these words, intensified in large, blue Plexiglas letters, would arrest my vision every morning I'd walk through the employee entrance at an American luxury retailer I was working at. These words, also shouted during rallies like an incantation, were smashed into our brains daily as if to convince us we weren't playing with small Canadian potatoes anymore. We were ditching Chatelaine for Cosmopolitan.

That entrance was completely outfitted in words, actually— loads of them in different fonts and sizes all running down the length of the hallway; all declaring some kind of corporate turn-of-phrase geared toward sales and customer engagement ("Be Shopper Obsessed"; "Ambition Makes Commission").

Things that, for all the concern given to the customer experience,  would never brace an employee for the inevitable displays of subservience and indignity they’d have to endure to please the tacky denizens of the Vancouver luxury market.

One day, after a few years, all of that inspirational garbage was taken down. Always on the scrounge for discarded store fixtures, I correctly assumed the display was now being hawked out front the Visual department. Piled next to a queue of naked mannequins, the bags full of lettering called out with the alluring words “$10 FINAL SALE” scrawled across the sides in red marker.

Later that evening, I turned my living room floor into a massive word search. After sorting the letters into their various fonts and sizes, I went into a trance-like state; somewhere between spirit medium and shithead, I reckon, and began to find spooky "hidden messages".

Normally, if signage material (like Letraset, for instance) is on hand, I prefer to construct things like buildings or bodies out of it. Maybe I'm uneasy with how direct language is, or maybe I get bored with text-based art; I don't know. This time, it felt like I was receiving transmissions from somewhere; like the zeitgeist.

Stuff about populism. The erosion of the middle class. Paranoia. Othering. Getting offended. Not feeling seen. Surveillance. Endless consumption...

The idea you could find stuff like this bleeding out from scrambled corporate slogans made it an irresistible idea to go with, so I didn't mind treading on Jenny Holzer's toes this time around. It felt like automatic writing; the constraints of the character limit reminded me of Oulipo. It felt a lot like the cut-up method William Burroughs and Brion Gysin were conjuring ugly spirits with, like a cosmic Beavis and Butt-Head.

If there was any truth to automatic writing being able to uncover hidden meanings, I seemed to be witnessing it.

Plexiglas lettering, textured gel medium, and acrylic on wood panel (30” x 30”)

Very soon, I began mounting these “spooky messages” onto wood panels, like store signage. This was reminiscent of the display in the employee entrance, but I gave the panels a monumental air by setting the words in cement; an application that underlined and deepened the subject matter's apocalyptic tone.

Resin lettering, textured gel medium, and acrylic on wood panel (20” x 20” each)

Resin lettering, textured gel medium, and acrylic on wood panel (16" x 20")

As the panels were made (I'm still making more), I thought about how they'd be displayed. Naturally, hanging them in a hallway like the employee entrance came to mind, but a hallway could be anywhere. The work needed to be somewhere, conceptually speaking; likely somewhere here in town. So, I spent a night looking through my photos trying to locate that place.

Eventually, a few photos I took of some relics from Expo '86 caught my attention. There are some dented sculptural accents from an old pavilion sitting in a parking lot next to the Plaza of Nations, itself a relic of Expo awaiting its eventual development into a lavish waterfront community (a false waterfront, being on False Creek).

What struck me about this place were the vibrations of a fairground long since passed. I felt a sense of sadness recalling old news footage of the event; the optimism, the excitement of Vancouver introducing itself to the world. It all seemed so earnest; so egalitarian.

Plexiglas lettering, textured gel medium, and acrylic on wood panel (14" x 18")

The City of Vancouver is possessed by an insatiable urge to distance itself from any perception of being a sawmill town. Even if it wanted to embrace that aspect, the local eco-nuts would never allow for it, or any industry other than bum-steering international students or selling real estate to shell companies.

Vancouver desperately emulates San Francisco by wooing tech firms like Amazon with the promise of a work force pre-conditioned to work for chump change. It cosplays as Los Angeles under the dull moniker Hollywood North, using police resources to close down entire districts so culturally significant projects like Turner & Hooch: The Series can be produced.

Most obviously, it styles itself as a playground for the wealthy by way of fairground attractions like Expo ’86, The 2010 Winter Olympics, and, come 2026, FIFA World Cup.

Many of these endeavours have come loaded with socio-economic costs, like the squeezing-out of the working class, homeless encampments, drug overdoses, public defecation, machete attacks, theft, vandalism...

Globally speaking, no other city guzzles the neoliberal Kool Aid quite as, well, liberally, as Vancouver. When referring to itself as a “green city”, that green is cash. The city’s M.O. is driven by the inherent need to catch up with the in-crowd of those bigger, better cities the one percent have come to love and gentrify.

This city is itching to kiss some world class ass.

Acrylic and ink on wood panel, 2012 (36” x 48”)

The Plaza of Nations, an Expo graveyard, struck me as the perfect place to situate my arcane declarations. Of course, it wouldn't be practical to hold the show in the parking lot, so I made some very matter-of-fact paintings based off the Plaza photos for the show.

I stuck with the awful colours chosen by the architects who designed the condominiums surrounding the grounds. The colours remind me of football jerseys or candy wrappers; there is no feeling of permanence in them whatsoever. These bright exteriors will be filthy and streaked by the constant rainfall, and will certainly look like shit by their fifth year.

These buildings look like they were created by holding the enter button down on a floor plan someone designed in AutoCAD, so I decided to try painting these panels with the same amount of soul as that.

Resin lettering, textured gel medium, and acrylic on wood panel (top 12” x 24”; bottom 9" x 12" each)

To achieve a unified look to the show, I figured it would be alright to paint the word panels in the same terrible colours as the condominiums.

Plexiglas lettering, textured gel medium, and acrylic on wood panel (24" x 30")

I don't have any real misgivings about working for the department store. It was solid work in a fairly sane environment, though having to kiss up to rich people wasn't so great. In a lot of ways, Vancouver kisses up to rich people, too.

"World Class" critiques the performative gestures of both individuals and institutions vying for wealth and status. Just as retail workers are conditioned to present a polished, subservient front to affluent customers, so too did the city during Expo or the Winter Olympics, dressing itself up in a façade of opulence for international spectators.

This relentless pursuit of wealth and status drives us to the edge, reflected in the neurotic, fragmented "messages" pulled from the scrambled signage—fragments of a collective anxiety that reveals the deeper toll of this endless striving.

Through these works, I explore the absurdity, tension, and madness in these dynamics, reflecting on what we discard, what we value, and what we pretend to be.

More to come..

Digitally edited Hi8 video with stereo soundtrack, 2024

One minute clip from 30 minute full length.

Mixed media on wood panels, 2018 (6” x 12” each)

In 1963, Ernest Pintoff and Mel Brooks made an animated short called "The Critic" that lampooned the animated shorts of Norman McLaren. The film consists of boldly coloured shapes dancing around the screen in a pretentious way, during which we hear the commentary of a cantankerous old man. Adamant he’s been swindled out of an honest $2.00, he proceeds to disturb his fellow audience members with a disdainful play-by-play of the action: “The fella that made this must be over thirty if they let him do this kind of thing, right? Why he waste his time with this? A fella like that probably can drive a truck... do something constructive... make a shoe...”

Mixed media on wood panels, 2016 (two 8” x 8” panels)

I'm a junk enthusiast, so naturally the film left an impression on me. It reminded me how so many everyday working people tend to see art as something frivolous; something appreciated primarily by the privileged or the educated.

My workplaces are full of junk, and most of it ends up in the trash. Sometimes I save it from being tossed out in hopes of using it. Typical magpie behaviour.

Mixed media on wood panels, 2019 (8” x 8’)

These adorable panels (contraptions, as I call them) are made up of fast food wrappers, old bedsheets and dress shirts, as well as hooks used to merchandise socks, among other things.

As objects, these panels could be considered decorative junk. However, if you value time to daydream, they could be quite useful. Never underestimate the restorative powers of a good Rube Goldberg machine.

Mixed media on wood panel, 2019 (11” x 14”)

All of this probably amounts to a bunch of reheated Kurt Schwitters at the end of the day, but there's a lot of fun to be had turning garbage into art. Hopefully, people will pick that up whenever they see these pictures.

Acrylic on wood panel, 2021 (30" x 60")

Ink and acrylic on wood panel, 2013-2014 (24” x 48”)

Ink and acrylic on wood panel, 2015 (24” x 18”)

Source material: the light fixtures at Olympic Village SkyTrain station, the clock tower on West 4th and Cypress, a metal staircase casting a shadow in Burnaby, and neon arrows at Save On Meats.

Mixed media on wood panel, 2013-2015 (24” x 48”)

Mixed media on wood panel, 2013-2015 (24” x 30”)

Mixed media on wood panel, 2016 (two 11” x 14”panels)

First, we set up a cardboard donut shop in my living room, but eventually the production made its way out into the common areas of the apartment building. Everything ran smoothly until we realized we'd accidentally locked ourselves out of my suite, prompting a visit to the caretaker in full costume.

The narration and oven sounds were later mixed into music composed on a Nintendo patched through various synthesizers.

We were thinking of Paul McCarthy, Felix Kubin, and The Kipper Kids.

This additional silent video in which we wore nylons full of donuts was made later that year for a show at Skylight Gallery, Vancouver.

The wooden attic we shot in reminded us of a whelping box, so we tried to move like newborn puppies.

These videos were also screened in 2014 at The Artery in Edmonton for Nextfest, and at Cineworks Vancouver.

Photos from the Skylight Gallery installation, 2014

Mixed media on wood panel, 2012 (two 8” x 8” panels)

Finding time to make art is hard to do when you have to go to work, do the dishes or take care of children... It concerns me that as a collective we probably have a "daydream deficit" that accumulates the more we preoccupy ourselves with making a living. For the lower classes, this deficit is especially felt. A full time employee of a low paying job, having endured a likely fraught, abusive shift, doesn't have much mental bandwidth left at the end of the day for reverie, other than what can be conveniently (brainlessly) accessed through Netflix.

Mixed media on wood panel, 2012 (five 5” x 7” panels)

I have the curse of being both working class and a creative type. This means, basically, that I don't fit in at a warehouse or at an arts institution. If I'm too much of a dreamer to be a foreman, I'm also too boorish to be a curator.

Still, I must create. I'll even do it on company time, scribbling ideas down on the backs of receipts... hiding from management with my 35mm camera out...

Acrylic and ink on wood panel, 2012 (18” x 24”)

There's always calling in sick. You can't do it too often, but if there's an idea that's really tugging at your coat, why the hell not?

I am sick, after all-- sick of that environment. I need a day of isolation to reclaim my soul.

Need to get some of that self-indulgent bullshit out. Have to squeeze it out in a corner somewhere, then examine it. See if I'm still healthy.

Ink, acrylic, and Letraset on wood panel, 2012 (16” x 20”)

Ink, acrylic, and Letraset on wood panel, 2012 (16” x 20”)

Acrylic on wood panel, 2011 (two 7” x 7” panels)

These paintings were made on "isolation days". I'm not sure who they were made for; maybe just for me. A little test to see if the lights were still on inside.

Isolation Day as it appeared at Blim Vancouver, May 2012

Acrylic on canvas, 2009 (36” x 36”)

It's not much fun being the arty person in the warehouse. Your coworkers will make fun of you. They hate that you can't talk about sports, and they get pissed off when you put that arty music on the stereo.

I was living a double life where I wore coveralls by day and dressed in drag by night. I'd sink a couple of beers on the train ride home; maybe I'd go to an art show or a dance party, but most of the time I went home and made stuff.

Acrylic on canvas 2009, (two 24” x 24” panels; one central 24” x 36” panel)

Warehouses are not glamorous. They're filthy and dangerous. So, I did everything I could to make my home everything the warehouse wasn't. Maybe it was the funhouse version of it I was making.

Incorporating elements of the warehouse into what I was doing was probably an attempt to create some positive associations for my job-- the spoonful of sugar. All that brightly coloured graphic design the shipping companies used (Purolator, DHL); that certain industrial orange colour of the racking, or the blue from my coveralls was taken into consideration, as well as the international packing symbols I'd see on the cardboard boxes.

Whenever possible, I tried to bring a sense of absurdity to the actual warehouse from time to time. Taking note of the hundreds of empty packing tape rolls our shipping area produced as a byproduct, I packed them up and took them home. Which, I suppose, was a pretty absurd thing to do.

Acrylic on canvas, 2009 (12” x 24”)

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Most of the tape rolls received a thick coat of acrylic paint, with a few left in their "raw" state for contrast. When stacked, the rolls give off a real chromatic presence, like a rainbow made of Lego.

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I was known as "jerk du soleil" to my neighbours.

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"Brash Play", as I called the show, is a visual ode to tossing off the work boots and going a bit crazy. It was my way of "thinking no more of Inco" as the shitfaced boys did in "Sudbury Saturday Night" by Stompin' Tom Connors.

Acrylic on canvas. 2009 (two 12” x 12” panels; one central 24” x 48” panel)

I think 2009 was a big party year for not only myself but for a lot of millennials. 2009 was basically the saturation point of all-things-hipster. it wasn't terribly expensive to go out back then, and DIY culture was still in full swing with fun art and music festivals starting up.

Artwashing wasn't much of a thing yet, so you didn't have Instagram friendly Alegria murals everywhere. This was more a time for the kid with the felt pen and the guitar than it was for the kid with the phone.

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Brash Play photo booth at Olio Festival, Astoria Hotel, Vancouver 2009

Social media was around, but hadn't yet taken full hold of everything the way it has today. It was still okay to post drunk photos on Facebook.

Acrylic on canvas, 2009 (four 16” x 20” panels)

Acrylic on canvas, 2009/2015 (36” x 36”)--airplanes were added in 2015.

I don't like romanticizing that time. I drank heavily, and was generally unhappy back then. Funny to look back on.

Brash Play at Yactac Gallery, Vancouver 2010

Mixed media on canvas 2008 (12” x 12” each)

Mixed media on canvas 2008 (12” x 12”)

Mixed media on canvas 2008 (12” x 12”)

Mixed media on wood panel, 2010 (5” x 8”)

Mixed media on wood panel, 2010 (16” x 16”)

Mixed media on wood panels 2010 (two 12” x 12” panels)

Two panels specially made for display at Blim Vancouver.

Mixed media on wood panel, 2005/2012 (11” x 14”)

Mixed media on canvas, 2007-2008 (two 6” x 6” canvases, one central 5” x 7” canvas)

Mixed media on canvas, 2009 (8" x 10”)

Mixed media on canvas, 2007 (36” x 36”)

Mixed media on canvas, 2008-2010 (36” x 36”)

Mixed media on canvas, 2005 (two 6” x 8” canvases)

Mixed media on canvas 2005 (8” x 10”)

“Schlemmer-Rodchenko, bob-lace and crochet/clockwork pachinko triadic ballet”

Mixed media on canvas, 2006 (8” x 10”)

Reticent Work as presented at Blim Vancouver, October 2010

Mixed media on canvas, 2005 (18” x 18”)

Mixed media on canvas, 2004 (15” x 30”)

VInk, acrylic, and acetate on canvas 2004 (14” x 18”)

Mixed media on canvas 2004 (10” x 10”)

Mixed media on canvas, 2006 (10” x 20”)

Mixed media on canvas 2004 (20” x 24”)

Mixed media on canvas, 2005 (14” x 18”)

Mixed media on canvas 2004 (15” x 30”)

Mixed media on canvas 2003 (14” x 18”)

Mixed media on canvas, 2003 (15” x 20”)

Mixed media on canvas 2004 (16” x 20”)

Show poster and handbill for Harcourt House, Edmonton 2005

Acrylic and acetate colour copies on canvas 2000 (10” x 20”)

(clockwise)

“These Hands…”, photo prints, acrylic, and Letraset on canvas 2000 (9” x 12”)

Untitled, photo prints and acrylic on canvas 2000 (9” x 12”)

“Fiction”, photo prints and Letraset on canvas 2001 (8” x 10”)

Untitled, photo prints on canvas 2001 (16” x 20”)

Photo prints on canvas 2001 (9” x 12”)

Photocopied acetate and Letraset on canvas 2001 (9” x 12”)

B&W photocopies on canvas 2000 (9” x 12”)

B&W photocopy on canvas 2000 (left 9” x 12”; right 12” x 16”)

Mixed media on canvas, 2001 (24” x 36”)

Mixed media on canvas 2001 (18” x 36”)

Mixed media on canvas, 2001 (24” x 36”)

Mixed media on canvas, 2001 (8” x 10”)

Acrylic and pencil on canvas 2000 (15” x 30”)

Mixed media on canvas 2002 (14” x 18”)

Mixed media on canvas 2002 (8” x 16”)

Mixed media on canvas 2000/2003 (18” x 24)

Mixed media on canvas 2000-2003 (30” x 30”)

Mixed media on canvas 2002-2004 (16” x 20”)