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June 22, 2006
By JENNIFER MALONEY, Staff Reporter
BLANK CANVAS
Picasso didn't leave his legacy of paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings
by isolating himself in a European studio awaiting inspiration. The art
icon was known for collaborating with emerging talent who helped shape
his six periods of work. So when James Picard was approached by fellow
North Vancouver artist Steve Horvat, to collaborate with four other artists
on a blank canvas, his first thought was "this is a stroke of genius."
"This is something I think is missing in the art world," Picard explains at a Deep Cove coffee shop. "Most of us are isolated in our studios, working individually. We haven't done this in at least 60 or 70 years."
During a two-week period five local, accomplished artists will create a series of 15 paintings at the Seymour Art Gallery in Deep Cove. The idea is for the artists to inspire each other and propel one another beyond their creative comfort zones, as well as to discover what happens when a classically-trained artist like Picard meets a graffiti artist like Jordan Roberts on the same canvas.
"We're getting back to the root of how it all started," Picard says. "Artists don't interact this way anymore."
Horvat was attracted to the idea of the artists exploring each other's worlds.
He chose artists who've developed a sense of aesthetic and were educated in colour and composition, but more importantly they had to have the right energy and be open to his idea.
Socially, he also felt it would connect them to each other and the community.
Picard, Horvat and Roberts will be joined by Tania Gleave, a textile art and design graduate, and Natalie Vetrova, known for painting figures and faces in extravagant colour. During the creation period, they will display samples of their individual work so the public can view how their styles emerge. Local poets, musicians, writers, photographers and filmmakers who've expressed interest in the project will perform while the artists work on canvas.
The process from inception to completion is also being documented by five Vancouver photographers whose works will be displayed in the gallery during the exhibit, July 10 to Aug. 13.
On July 25, the paintings will be unveiled and put up for sale at the gallery from 7 to 9 p.m. Buddy Wakefield, a world poetry slam champion, will perform that night.
Horvat plans to take The Blank Canvas Collaboration Project to San Francisco next year, followed by Prague, with a return to Vancouver for 2010.
"In the end we have to have faith that people are going to respect
each other's work," he says. "Part of the beauty for me is the
essence of mystery involved in it. We really don't know what's going to
happen and if we did it probably wouldn't be as exciting."