Yesterday we attended another opening, this time “Tis the Season!” at Art Beatus, featuring the works of four artists, including friend and printmaker Taiga Chiba. Taiga’s works are part of a series using the traditional Japanese Sumi-e painting technique (painting with black ink on rice paper). All the works were black and white, including the etchings by Toru Sugita, and photographic-based media by Kumiko Yakusawa, and Qin Feng’s ink paintings and looked very strong against the stunning pink-orange walls.

Taiga is a past member of the Art Institute, Printmaking at Capilano College and is very well-known in Canada and internationally, having won awards in several international print exhibitions and participated in many artists’ residencies in several countries.

Well worth visiting, this exhibition is on until January 8, 2005 at Art Beatus, 108 – 808 Nelson Street, in Vancouver, BC. Hours: Mon – Fri 10 am – 6 pm

Chris posts a long list of reviews at Zeke’s Gallery, including two in the Globe & Mail about the current exhibition of works by Montreal artist Betty Goodwin at the Sable-Castelli Gallery in Toronto.

Sarah Milroy writes that this “may well be the artist’s last in Toronto. At 81, her health is failing, and her production is finally, after decades of consummate grace, beginning to falter.”

Gary Michael Dault calls it “An unabashedly moving experience”.

Reading these reviews sent me to find my precious copy of the catalogue of Betty Goodwin’s traveling exhibition from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts that came to the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1987. Looking again at the drawings, prints and paintings brought back the powerful feelings her work evoked in me when I first saw them in the VAG. I wish I could go to Toronto to see the current show! I wish there was a website devoted to Goodwin’s huge body of work. Here are a few links where one can see some examples:

– Sable-Castelli Gallery
– Canada Council for the Arts – Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2003 with high resolution images – scroll down to “Betty Goodwin”.
– 3rd Biennale de Montréal 2002
– at Artnet

Thank you, Chris!

Another exhibition coming up is the recent work of Biliana Velkova, a recent member of the Art Institute, Printmaking at Capilano College. Here is her show statement:

“Paris Hilton wearing a stretch cotton pantsuit by Dolce and Gabana, Kirsten Dunst wearing a Cloe emerald silk dress, Natalia Vodianova in Dior holding a pink flamingo, these are some of the inspirations behind this collection of drawings. I am interested in appropriating these images into obvious knock offs, which in their own way become original works of art.

The ads themselves portray a fantasy setting or a certain mood, which I am interested in further exploring by omitting the brand itself. The models look out of place, oddly familiar but still misplaced. Similarly, the labels, which are so easily recognizable, feel empty when taken out of contest. Still, the logo is familiar enough and one can easily make their own associations with it. This warholian approach to branding carries my fascination with popular culture and its social applications. What do labels mean in western society, how do they shape our cultural references and where do these high class brands fit into art are some of the questions I try to raise with Knock Offs.”

That’s at the Capilano College Gallery, Studio Art Building 2055 Purcell Way, North Vancouver, Oct 18-30, 2004, Opening October 18 at 7pm.

UPDATE Jan.07.05 Biliana has a website now: Biliana Velkova