Available works at the studio show and sale

I'm having a show and sale of my blue and white panel paintings at my studio on Duncan St. I hope you will get a chance to drop by and have a look and a drink. I've recently switched to working on paper, so these will be the last panel paintings for some time. Friday Dec 2  5 - 9pm, Sat & Sun  2 - 6pm. See you there!

Canadian Art online review

Richard Rhodes wrote a very incisive review of the 'Other Worlds' show at the McLaughlin. I'm really impressed, its a great take on the work, have a look here. Richard has a incredibly deep understanding of what is essential to the art experience. He is an absolute treasure in the Canadian art world.

"the images are fixed and formal and sign-like, akin to the hieroglyphs of an Egyptian tomb; in Walker’s case, a planetary tomb seems more relevant. He has made a work where time comes measured in eons and contemporary painting is best seen in the light of cave painting."

Too Tall? at Harbourfront Visual Arts Center

I have some pieces in a architectural group show at titled Too Tall? at Harbourfront Visual Arts Center. I'm honored to be in such great company, the other exhibitors are the architectural firms of RAW Design, architectsAlliance, and Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg. KPMG did the TIFF Bell Lightbox, one of my favourite buildings in Toronto.

Many thanks to everyone at Harbourfront, especially curator Patrick Macaulay, Marlee Choo, Kathrin Hyun, and Carly Waito.

The opening went well, here are some shots and a link to more info.

Opening at the gallery

I'm happy to say that the opening went well.  Corinna Ghaznavi gave a great introduction to the work. I was glad to see that so many people made it to the gallery. Thanks to all who came. The show is up until November 6.  Heres a few photos, there are more up on the McLaughlin facebook page here ...        www.facebook.com/thermg

Lighting done

Lighting the works was not an easy task but Jason Dankel, the galleries preparator did a fantastic job, eliminating the hot spots while making the images pop. The room looks great, a very nice presentation.

Installed

We finished installing today. This is the first time I've really had a chance to see them. I've had large sections up in the studio but never the whole thing so it was really great to finally have a good look at them.

Jason, Linda and Corinna

Sonja and Jason

Today we also hung #954 in the Eaton lounge which is just off the main room. Many thanks to David and Beth Angelo for loaning this piece to the exhibition.

Installing at the gallery

We've started installing and things are going well at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery. Today we roughed in the whale, and with luck, we are looking forwards to getting a basic installation done tomorrow.

Sonja and Jason from the RMG installing at the gallery.

Other Worlds

Other Worlds is an exhibition of 3 large paintings of a moon, whale, and face. Together they form a painting installation meant to entirely cover one wall at The Robert Mclaughlin Gallery in Oshawa. There are images of the work in progress in the posts that follow. Some time ago I did a exhibition of large folded paper paintings at MOCCA and since then I've wanted to revisit that format. I've always been interested in murals and how technique and style must adapt to the greater size. When presented with this opportunity to work large I began to think how I might adapt my methods to this new scale.
These  new paintings are some of the results of that investigation.
The show is curated by Corinna Ghaznavi and Peter Dykhuis who will write the catalog essay when that comes out sometime next year. It has been really great to work with them, they have been totally supportive and have really given me confidence to try out something new. The show will travel to Halifax at the Dalhousie Art Gallery in March 2012 and to BC at the Kelowna Art Gallery  in 2013.  I'll be doing a group of new paintings in the same technique for the Halifax show as the walls at DAG are not as large as those in Oshawa or Kelowna.

Heres the invite card with all the info.

Oshawa is about an hour's drive from Toronto. For a GO train schedule, please see below. Of course it would be great to see you, but if you cant make it no worries, I'll have finished documentation and installation shots up on the blog soon.

Douglas

A train leaves Union station and arrives Oshawa 1:08pm, another leaves Union at 1:23 and arrives Oshawa 2:08pm.

The Face is done

Finished the face last night, looks good so far. I'm looking forwards to seeing these pieces up at the gallery so I can get some distance on them.  Lots of photography and assembly to do yet but that's things pretty much done.

With many thanks to...

That was a big project.  Each section had to be cut off the roll, primed, prepped, cleaned, cut down to size, numbered photographed, photoshopped, and the whole assembled into a installation 14 x 77'. On top of that there was the computer mock-ups, all the painting tools and jigs that needed building, the studio had to be set up to handle the large sections, and there was the day to day paint mixing, errands to run, it just went on and on. I was so lucky to have capable help with all these tasks. So with very deep gratitude I wish to thank those who helped......

Amanda Nedham, 2009 OCADU graduate and medal winner.

I started working large on paper back in May 2010. Amanda Nedham was helping me out as an assistant back then. She did a great job, there was lots of work in getting setup and figuring out how the large paper series might work. Amanda shows with LE gallery, shes a very talented artist making some amazing drawings whose career is really taken off. She is getting lots of attention lately and she really deserves it, its great work.

Filip Anton started later that winter. Filip brought a real inventiveness to sorting out the process. He came up with many innovative solutions to how to get this whole thing going. Filip is going back to OCAD this September to finish his degree. We are wishing him all the best in his 4th year.

 Jen Aitken worked here a few years ago when I was getting started on the blue and white series. Since then she moved to Vancouver, got her BFA from Emily Carr university, and now is back in Toronto. I was glad to have help out in the spring when she first arrived back. Now she is spending lots of time in the studio making some totally great sculptures. Jen has already developed a significant body of work that is smart, deeply involved and expressed in a totally original vocabulary. Have a look at Jen's work on her website here.

Micheal Abraham helped out too. Micheal is a talented artist doing some really nice looking work in plastics. In these objects there is a delightful play between formal composition and subtle material effects.

Jarrod Wilson came in to help with some of the computer graphics programs. He set the whale up in Cinema 3-D  and the face in Poser. Jarrod is totally skilled on a Mac but is making his mark in the art world as a painter. He is represented by Neubacher Gallery and we are looking forwards to seeing his new work there. I was impressed by Jarrod's keen sense of aesthetics, it really shows up in the work, have a look.

 Here's Heather removing crackle from a section of border. Note her expert bottle-wielding technique.

 Heather Roblin and Sarah McCaw joined me this spring when I really began to get started on the 'Other Worlds' show.  The 2 of them became my main assistants, starting out part time and then as the workload increased they worked pretty much full time throughout July & August. They have been absolutely fantastic, just really pushing through the gazillion things that always needed doing. They both quickly grasped what needed to be done and took over the logistics and made the process their own. It was so great to be able to hand off responsibility like that and know it would be well handled.
Heather is entering her 3rd year at OCAD where she is majoring in jewelery design. With her solid work ethic and good eye I'm sure she is going to do well and I wish her all the best luck with her studies.

Here's Sarah numbering squares for assembly and enjoying her 6th coffee of the day.

Earlier in the spring Sarah graduated from OCADU from the sculpture/installation program. Right off the bat she won  a public art competition sponsored by First Capital Reality. Here's a photo of the work in progress.

Wax casting for "FRIEND" installation before it was sent off to Skara foundries.

What a great piece, I just love it, its really going to liven up its Oakville location. She is going to install the work in a few weeks at the plaza by the intersection of Cornwall and Trafalgar Rd. I'm looking forwards to seeing it set up. I know its going to look great. Sarah has an  excellent ability to problem solve and keep things on track so I know that the complex process of building and installing a public art installation will go smooth. Its not easy to keep a personal vision fresh with all the technicalities involved but Sarah has managed it perfectly. Here's a young artist already making her mark.

The synchronized napping team makes an appearance.

The artist wishes to acknowledge the support of The Toronto Arts Council, The Ontario Arts Council and The Canada Council for the 'Other Worlds' exhibition.

Assembling the Moon

Just finishing the borders for the moon. I did a test assembly of a couple of sections and it made this cool corner image. Its just parts of the moon jammed together in a corner but it certainly gives me ideas for another painting.  The corner effect is really cool.

Here's Heather working on assembling the moon.

El Jefe

Face Studies

Now that the moon and the whale are finished, I'm doing some studies to explore the portrait painting. Jarrod has made a wire-frame poser file which the face was based on. I used that sketch to improvise these tests from. The image resembles a mask, which I am very happy about.

A first pass,  later I decided against the hat.

Some of the tests, like the one above, reminded me of an image of something that I had seen before. I thought about it and remembered a photo I saw of an ancient Chinese jade burial suit mask.

Finished Whale

Finally the whale is done. I did it in sections, took about 2 weeks in total.

Copy Stand

We built a copy stand to shoot the large paper paintings. We cut the paintings up into squares and shoot them on the stand. Then they are reassembled with canvas and glued into sections. The copy stand is great in that it produces big files of each square. The problem is that the finished image is sooo huge. We are looking at the best way to deal with these big files, so far we haven't figured it out, its why I have no finished images at this point. Another problem is that the stand immediately became a cat roost. Boo likes to roost in the accessory tub but the Princess likes to think of it as her royal perch and is resistant to any suggestion that it might exist for another purpose.

"I'm not quite ready for my close-up, I need some kibble and a nap first"

Other Worlds: Whale Middle Section

Things are moving along. Just finished the middle section last night but I think it needs some tweaks...

There's a lot of work to be done, but it goes fast when you have help

Other Worlds: Progress Photo

The whale is moving along nicely. Just finished the tail section and I'm happy with the way it looks.

Whale Studies

I'm getting started on some tests for the whale. I'm trying out different textures and lines for the whale.

Moon is Finished

The moon is finished. I'm very happy with it. Its not so much the earths moon as it is a moon of another world. Maybe its the place where all the other stuff, the other images happen. I still have to finish the blue area around it and to do its border, but the main work is done.

Moon Studies

I'm getting going on the moon. These are large studies. I'm learning to work fast. The paint is open for only a few hours so there is not a whole lot of time to get things done. Doing these big ones really helps to get a rhythm going for the night.

This is a smaller study that turned out quite nice, lots of variety in the textures.

A-748. A version of the moon.