Derek Hodgson’s, who posed as our “adventure capitalist” (the man who capitalizes on autumn opportunities for adventure) on page 22 of the October issue, doesn’t just look dashing in canoe — he’s also an accomplished visual artist. The following is taken from Mr. Hodson’s biography at magic-pony.com.
Derrick Hodgson is a Toronto-based artist who’s paintings and drawings are renderings of complex social spaces crowded with familiar and mutated characters. Hodgson grew up on a farm and subsequently moved to Toronto. This progression from nature to urban provided the breeding grounds for the first seeds of mania. Using aspects of cartoon, graffiti and contemporary design, Hodgson created a style and environment that quickly advanced him to the forefront of contemporary art and character design. In the past few years Hodgson has exhibited his work in Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, Milan and Melbourne. In addition to this he was the first Canadian artist to be recognized by Sony Creative in Japan where his character illustrations were transformed into 3-D art figures and sold in gatcha-gatcha machines across Japan. This quick rise to success led Hodgson to be a key speaker at the Berlin Pictoplasma conference in 2004 and 2006.
If you want to see a collection of his work stop by the Magic Pony gallery in Toronto, or hit www.madreal.com.
Ending Sept. 26, Ottawa – This weekend is your last chance to take in the SAW Gallery’s special exhibition “Works of Art Made by Animals.” If the title of the exhibit is not sufficiently self-explanatory, this is a show consisting of dozens of works of art created by both pets and zoo animals. It may sound bizarre, but they are dead serious about it.
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September 26, 2009-January 3, 2010, Toronto – Starting this fall, The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is hosting an exhibition of portraits from venerable high society rag Vanity Fair. The magazine — whose history reaches back over 95 years – has amassed a broad and eclectic repertoire of portraits throughout the years.
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Polar Ice vodka is releasing its second Special Edition Canadian Aids Society (CAS) ‘art’ bottle this week, just as the search begins for innovative artwork for the 2010 incarnation. Polar Ice’s aim is for Canadian artists living with HIV/AIDS to speak out by spreading messages of hope through their design. With every bottle sold, Polar Ice will contribute $1 to the CAS (price point is roughly $25). Over the past two years, this initiative has raised over $100,000 for HIV/AIDS awareness and education in Canada.
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April 2 - June 21, Montreal—Have you ever wanted to spend the whole day in bed? Your motives were probably purely selfish. Not like John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who stayed in bed for you, me, and the betterment of all mankind. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts celebrates this momentous event which took place in Montreal at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in 1969 with Imagine: The Peace Ballad of John and Yoko, which was organized in collaboration with Yoko Ono
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Until April 19th, Montreal—Art lovers can visit Van Dongen, Painting the Town Fauve, in the first major North American retrospective of the art of Dutch painter Kees Van Dongen.
Coproduced by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Nouveau Musee National de Monaco, the collection ”brings together some 200 works, including over a hundred paintings, as well as forty rare drawings, prints and other archival documents and photographs, and, for the first time, a dozen Fauvist ceramics.”
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Apropos of nothing, an irregular visit to the outstanding digital art manipulation web site Freaking News yielded the above Photoshopped gem. FN classifies Cat Bath as a “merged painting,” offering the additional qualifier “strange.” Fair enough.
Sure, I railed on cell phones and email the other day. But sometimes technology can help us see with fresh eyes. Or hear with fresh ears.
Full merge painting, plus both originals, below the fold.
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The above image is not a wave function probability density for a hydrogen atom orbital, seen in cross-section. (Good guess, though.)
Rather, it’s a snowflake. Well, sort of.
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ENDING January 18, Montreal–Closing at the end of this week is Warhol Live: Music and Dance in Andy Warhol’s Work, a more-than-600-piece collection of the pop artist’s paintings, films, videos and photographs, in addition to various other items from the Warhol’s personal archives.
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January 16, Vancouver—Here’s an intriguing concept: photographic performance art. Running for a three-month engagement at UBC’s Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, the free exhibit “Action-Camera: Beijing Performance Photography” is a display of photographs and videos by over a dozen accidental artists.
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