Art Now features Trasov, Morris

trevor.kenney — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 15:45:41 +0000

The popular Art Now series has resumed for the Fall semester at the U of L, and the Wednesday, Sept. 29 edition features a pair of aoutstanding artists from British Columbia on campus.

Vincent Trasov and Michael Morris will speak at 12:15 p.m. in the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Recital Hall (W570).

In 1970, Trasov and Morris founded Image Bank, a conceptual vehicle for mail art projects, which featured collaborations with Eric Metcalfe, Gary Lee Nova, Ray Johnson, General Idea, and Robert Filliou. Further to this, Morris and Trasov, along with eight colleagues from various disciplines, founded and directed the Western Front Society, an artist-run centre developed as a site for the production and presentation of "New Art" in all disciplines, including performance and media arts
Morris attended the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Victoria and the Vancouver School of Art, and completed his post-graduate studies at the Slade School of Fine Art at London ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ in England, for which he received a Commonwealth Scholarship. He was the acting curator at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1966, and from 1967 to 1970 he organized art events and exhibitions at the Simon Fraser ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Art Gallery. Known primarily as an abstract painter and printmaker, Morris has also completed successful works in film, photography, video, installation and performance.
Trasov majored in languages and humanities at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of British Columbia. In 1969 he began making conceptual art, working with process, text and materials and later video work. In addition, Trasov assumed the identity of Mr. Peanut and with the support of the arts community, Mr. Peanut ran for mayor of Vancouver. As a marker of his artistic influence, he was selected by the Vancouver Sun in 1999 as one of the top 100 British Columbians who shaped the province over the past century.

Featured artist: Carl Beam (1943-2005)

trevor.kenney — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 20:22:11 +0000

Carl Beam was an internationally acclaimed contemporary Canadian artist of Ojibway descent, whose work will survive as a milestone in the development of the Canadian Aboriginal voice on the international art scene.

Beam was born in 1943 at M'Chigeeng (West Bay) on Manitoulin Island. As a child he was sent to the Garnier Residential School in Spanish, an awful experience that would influence some of the powerful imagery used in his later work.

Beam studied at the Kootenay School of Art, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Victoria (where he earned a BFA in 1974) and the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta. In 1986, the National Gallery of Canada was the first of the major Canadian galleries to recognize Beam's work with the purchase of The North American Iceberg. From 1983–1992 his work was included in all the landmark exhibitions that altered the segregation of aboriginal art in Canada.

Beam's works can be read as juxtapositions between long held perceptions and challenging alternatives. Early influences during his formal studies included Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. His well known, appropriated images (a pieta, an embryo, Abraham Lincoln, Sitting Bull, a crow, the Pinta and Maria, and Einstein, among others) were cross-cultural symbols that he utilized to convey a universal message about the environment and the relationship between man, nature and the passage of time.

With a linear pattern or formal grid, he tried to visually create the fourth dimension in his work, a spiritual space inhabited by a quiet intellect. That he was an artist of native and white heritage added to the scope of the complex subjects he chose.

Beam's work, executed in diverse media such as drawing, watercolour, etching, non-silver photography, photo transfer, collage, installation and ceramics, has been exhibited throughout North America as well as in Italy, Denmark, Germany and China. It is found in major Canadian and international collections including
the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Art Gallery and the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo, N.Y.

In 2000, Beam was inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts, and in 2005 he received the Governor General's Award in Visual Art and Media. He died July 30, 2005, of complications arising from diabetes.

UNews - Vancouver Art Gallery

Art Now features Trasov, Morris

Related Topics

Featured artist: Carl Beam (1943-2005)

Related Topics