Lots to talk about! I’ve been quite awful keeping a consistent log of goings on here, so here’s a recap post, with a little news of upcoming projects for good measure.

going big

First, murals! Starting with a sesh on a donated wall late last summer with Mony Zakhour, Chris Perez, and Tongson Chen, and most recently another collab with Mony on Hale Coffee’s offices, I’ve been getting busy doing some wall work. I also had the pleasure of executing a colourful joint in local Toronto climbing gym and bouldering mainstay Boulderz.

In between murals, I’ve been doing some work with downtown community organization Jamii Esplanade (as seen in my previous post showcasing the timelapse portrait). In addition to having some fun painting their new mobile community theatre/arts-mobile the Kisani Hub, I had the pleasure of spending last week’s Multicultural Day doing live portraits alongside two other local artists Alison Garwood-Jones and Alicia Herbert. While sitting, subjects were entertained by musicians and storytellers – everyone bringing a bit of their own culture to the table.

angles

Finally, I had my second solo exhibition, Angles, just wrap up, June 27 – July 2nd. The show was hosted at Our Gallery in the Junction Triangle here in Toronto. For me, this show marks an important close to a chapter – in my personal practice I’ve felt somewhat aimless the last few years. Many of the works at Angles were one-offs for group exhibitions, or explorations probing for a way to communicate themes that were important to me. One area I’ve consistently struggled with is the battle between the portion of my mind honed and shaped by an education in commercial art and my love of many of the more consumer-driven forms of art, and the quest for a more purely expression-driven and personal approach to creating – external and internally driven work, you could say. On that front I’m feeling more confident than ever in the direction i want to go with my personal work, and it felt good to push myself to simply collect the work I’ve been staring at for couple years to show myself and others some of this progression.

On that note, this will be a last opportunity for anyone interested in owning any of these pieces – I’ll be listing them on my shop for a limited time, and re-purposing any that don’t find a happy home for new and exciting projects.

And on that topic – some of you may have seen glimpses of new pieces on insta or dropping by the studio, and I’m very excited about them. I can’t wait to share more and see what kind of dialogues and conversations it stirs up. As always, thanks for the support and taking the time to read! And shout out to my sis for coming to my opening all the way from the west coast – congrats on the new job!

Peace!

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