Art at harbourfront

Saw this piece by Marigold Santos on the weekend, terrific stuff.

I chose to load this pic as Annie kept getting in the way of the other painting.

Very large and engaging work.

The show is called other worlds, all the work is strong.

Guys caught in the Rain

These 2 Japanese guys were caught in the rain at Rooster Coffee House almost a year ago, they had great jackets for it though.

Here is the video of the drawing being made:

Sketches using Wacom Inkling

Here is a drawing I did about a month ago of Mimi sleeping. I used the Wacom Inkling, I am trying to use it more, I am still not used to drawing with a ball point pen. 

It is a hybrid of digital and analogue, I drew it in my sketchbook and it gives me a digital file that I can import into illustrator etc- I am still working on that part. 

Here is a little movie of the drawing process:

I will put some more up in the next few days.

Upcoming work/Ideas

I have been trying to get back into the studio and I have this very specific couple of ideas that I want to get to- One of them is an image of the Lovers card from the Tarot deck, specifically the Ryder set.

Like all of the cards, there is a great deal of stuff going on in the picture, I want to play with that a bit.  

Not that I know much about the Tarot deck. 

Back in the 90s though, I was back in school for my masters at the now defunct Bretton Hall University, my room mate, the good Stephanie (long story) was working on these large paintings of deck, creating her own interpretations of them. I don't have any images of her work but I do have some sketches I made during these epic late night drawing sessions ( she would routinely dye her hair with greens and reds from this brand Manic Panic -Live fast and Dye-your hair  It stuck with me. All fuelled by consuming large quantities of chocolate covered espresso beans, me with my long hair....It is right out of an episode of Portlandia) Here are some of those drawing/paintings-

We emailed recently, and neither of us has had a chocolate covered espresso bean since.

A Thousand Cuts

This is a painting from April of this year, I made a couple in this series as part of my RBC paintting entry.

They weave historical and personal elements together. The surface of Birch wood panel becomes part of the piece and I was thinking of the school tables I used to draw on in grade 5, scrawling LED ZEP, STONES and AC/DC in deep HB pencil, until I was caught and had to clean 40+ tables after school.

Here are some thoughts I had about it at the time: 

This plain white business shirt, is a memento of a personal violence against me, at times I re-interpret my memories, re investigate them as a victim, as a villian and as a participant, but what is truth, that has long seemed to shift away to emotional response.

I am fascinated by the subjective nature of truth, memory, how history itself is a collective memory constantly being updated and changed, restored and changed again by the participants and the interpreters.

This piece, A Thousand Cuts, has many different tensions and contradictions contained within it. The title itself can mean the ancient chinese torture, as evident by the destruction of this garment, or it could be something more mundane and bureaucratic.

The painting itself is static but the lines of the piece have a nervous care and detail style to them. , indicates a fullness, the lines seem been painted in intense style, the business shirt lies in tatters, it can suggest an end to a paternalistic system, echoed by the figure in the background or it can be more nuianced.

There is a tension in the piece, the business shirt, a symbol of something highly functioning is broken down. The symbol of something quintessintially masculine has a femenine shape to it. 

There is a tension between the figure in the background, perhaps one who would wear a shirt like this, the destroyed shirt and the confrontational way the figure gazes to the viewer.  

Monotypes

The prints were made in 2000, when I went back to my university for my graduation ceremony. I was not supposed to be using the facilities as I was all but graduated so it devolved into a cat and mouse game of me printing then hiding when the head of the program was looking for me. They would go around the studio centre, I'd grab my stuff from where I hid them, and make another print.

A tad bizarre process really. I'm trying to make prints about solace, loneliness and longing and I'm running around like a 5 year old, cutting shapes out and planning images in my head as I would hide in individual studios, washrooms etc.

Painting from 2011

Painting from this porcelain thing I loved when I was a kid, we got it on a trip to Andorra, classic European tchotchkes, for sure. Arm have all the pieces....somewhere.

Talking head original

I guess I was mulling this type of piece over a long period of time, I have made some images of fashion tzars with one liners, I found this in a notebook from 7 years back, it is quite similar to the Talking Head content.

Heraldic symbols

I love things like this, I spotted this at u of t. They are a short hand that is meant to communicate so much.

Maybe they are so great now that we have lost so much of the meaning of the symbols and they are just viewed stylistically.

I was looking at St. Malo's coat of arms, it's like a ermine or ferret w a swishy neck scarf! Awesome.

Painted in 1994

There is so much I can say about the subject of this portrait. So much in fact, I'll say nothing.

The canvas was made at a time I was really broke, I sewed several pieces together, and gesso'd it heavily.

If memory serves, I was savaged in my class critique. I was interested in colours and textures and from here I moved in to really subtle toned paintings- I guess some of the last of my figure work before painting empty spaces.

Boxed treats

Saw this on my street.

Beautiful design

I should have taken the book, but I already have enough damp books at home.

The image is just terrific.

New new

As many of my posts are occupied with, here is something I found interesting in my pile of junk.

Just the optimism of this statement seems so odd in today's world.

Hey! a great review in NOW magazine for my current Loop show. You can read it, NOW Thanks to everyone who has supported me with getting this show ready, and opening on time. Thanks for the support from my Sarah and our baby sitting Grandma/Meme team and the copious amounts of Coffee from Jet Fuel and Rooster.

Paint the Halls

Watching people and making drawings on the walls of the hospital, I guess that place is torn down now.

Large Japanese inspired folio

Boy, this was a pain to scan. The paper is 100 years old, I picked up this leather bound workbook in New Brunswick like a million years ago- wait obviously less than a million years ago as the book is only 100 years ago, I got it in 1997. Anyhoo, with the leather spine recently broken, time to use it for painting. It worked well too as I painted little sections at home on double paged sheets and then glued them together after. This painting is in part inspired by the Japanese series of woodcuts that show images of the heroic japanese Soldier saving a baby. As a dad, I guess the images struck a cord.

Paint the Halls

Fundraiser at women's college hospital, the place is being torn down and rebuilt. Toronto is certainly changing. My friend Margaret Cresswell was one of 75 artists who painted on the walls in a kind of 'paint off' Personally, hospitals are creepy places and to distract myself I took to sketching the patrons on the walls with a sharpie

The Selby

I may be the last person to see this, have you seen http://theselby.com/ ?

It seems like an interesting site that shows artist studios, this guy Todd Selby goes into peoples spaces and shows you the dynamic environment people create in.

Check it out!

Self portraits

Looking up from my kitchen table at the studio I was confronted with these two self portraits, I put the second one there to get out of the way of cleaning this week and did not really think about these 2, side by side- tucked in the frame of a queen portrait, you can see the details in her dress.

They are both pretty sombre, the one on the right was done in silver point on toned paper in 1994, the one on the left looks like 2007 in a perhaps not too happy a mood.

The start of something new

I've been working a lot in the last few months in the studio, and as a result seem to have done less posts, doing more tweets (@ericfarache) around my last show at the artist project. Anyhoo, I'm trying to forge something new these days, a bit a similar content but a different approach to the paper, going to try and really play with the whole space...which is ironic that I am posting a picture of this unfinished piece as it is mostly white space like my previous work- I'm playing with some abstract elements too.