HEY APATHY! For many years I have hauled my shopping cart full of artworks and supplies all over the city in order to set up shop and perform. My full scale concrete assault includes live 10 x 15 foot ink murals ( the above still is of a completed 3,5 hour study, Queen St. West, Toronto) and full line of prints and t-shirts, comic books, small paintings, an umbrella attached to a bamboo rod, and never ending conversations with strangers from all over the world. However, the study and perfection of these renegade interventions developed slowly, yet naturally, ove a five year duration. This week asides from some online comics panels, my primary goal is to write up a 500 word artist statement discussing my overall practice and plans for the future.Of the sort who prefers images, I sorted through my files in hopes of stringing together a visual chronology to help me organize the text. The following pictures narrate a breif history of my progress as a stret art performer.
I started drawing in the streets of Toronto in 2004. Having met some vendors who had been selling jewellery and pipes illegally from their small carpets, and after experiencing difficulties mingling with the social politics of the local galleries , I decided to take my investigation to the street. The early 5 x 5 foot display featured pins, some cardboard sketches, and photo copied zines placed on a black cloth, depicting characters from my Monster (http://www.heyapathy-comics-art.com/MONSTERComics.html )and Diamonds ( http://www.heyapathy-comics-art.com/monster-comics2004.html )drawings. The whole thing fit in a small tool kit and I started off making roughly $25 dollars a day. The above photo is probably from late 2004 as it shows a very primitive black cloth display but has a large performance drawings above it. I didn't any live painting until late 2004and was still using a handmade bamboo quil to do the slow and tedious work.
In the spring of 2005 all of the jewellery and artison vendors that I had worked beside the previous season were replaced by a large group of artist. Joining me in my subliminal protest were numerous multi-diciplinary creators including painters,photographers,print makers, and illustrator and Toronto's Queen Street West was almost instantly transformed. It strange how a place can be a person, many people would stop and tell us pf other artists who used to work here dating as far back as the 70's but how it has been along time since anyone did it. The weird looking guy sitting on the left hand side is Neil Gibson, psycadellic artist extrodinaire. Neil makes the craziest black light installations I've ever seen and has been travelling the world showing his art for the past 5 years. 2005 was a wild time, I began painting 30 x 40 inch monsters with brushes and started to get really fast at it.
However, the more my display grew, the more difficult the streets proved to be. This picture shows Julii saving my display from a vivatious gust. One of many spontaneous and exciting occurences which differentiate the street from the studio. Did I mention bird poop?
To combat the wind, and step it up a notch as I gained more attention, I started matting my display with various framed art works in 2005. These were all little hand painted creations that I would do as a morning chore, and then ,as the streets got busier, I would do live drawing in the afternoons. At this time things really started to pick up. My little black tool kit was replaced by a large shoulder sack that I would fill up with frames each morning before setting up.
At the end of the 2005 season I made my first large scale public ink drawing. The entire work took me three days to complete. "THE DEATH OF A HERO" shown above featured a strange looking figure dancing with a ballerina in the sky above of Toronto . Below them a full scale military attack assembles to assassinate the flying dancers. Inspired by Vonnegut’s short story "Harrison Bergeron", the artwork measured 10 x 12 feet, and was drawn with brushes and bamboo using black india ink. By this time I was frequently taking two bike trips daily to collect frames for my display and eventually had to switch to using milk crates and public transit to keep stock on the small artworks.
In 2006 I did my first large scale live painting performance at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibiton. Following the success of this event I returned to the streets, but replaced all my small drawings with prints, published a new comic book, and started a regular line of HEY APATHY! t-shirts.
By 2007 I was able to create large street drawings, similar in size and intricacy to the 2005 work "THE DEATH OF A HERO" in under 3 hours. The streets were busy, the art was flying and I was having the time of my life, produced another comic book and new poster sized serigraphs and showed in several galleries. In 2008 things kept moving and I was invited to perform at several gala events including this store front presentation at Toronto's Hudson Bay Co. Yonge and Richmond Street.(above photo) . The fall of 2008 was highlighted by a commissioned clothing design I did for the Art Gallery of Ontario. The image featured many of the real and imaginary character's I'd met on the streets over the years.
In 2009 the city of Toronto suffered a hideous ailment falling victim to the wretched disease known as " a Garbage Strike". Although disappointed by the impossibility of returning to my routine performances, I took the incident as a sign that it was time to move on and get back to what I really want out of life...to make comics!!!!
Okay that's enough rambling hopefully this little exercise will help me in constructing my essay. Back to work.
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