Many Moons

Here’s one of James’ more recent paintings.

Many Moons by James K-M, 24" x 24", acrylic and stain on plywood

For more on his work, go to his artist site.

Inadvertent National Exposure

James K-M’s art got some inadvertent national exposure during the CTV coverage of the Canadian leadership debate last week. Students from SFU were gathered in the Teck Gallery space at Harbour Centre to give their feedback. Watch as the camera swings to the left: there are his paintings adding some flash and colour to the environment. To see more, go here to his site.

Video Talks from James K-M’s Opening

Here are the remarks from James’ Cave Paintings exhibition opening at SFU Teck Gallery in Vancouver from Bill Jeffries, James K-M, and Oldhands.

Harvest and Moon

A Cornfield by Moonlight with the Evening Star by Samuel Palmer. Watercolour with bodycolour and pen and ink c.1830.

James K-M’s Upcoming Show

Image: Hearing Bone (detail), stain and acrylic on plywood, 24” x 24,” 2007

James K-M: Cave Paintings, September 2 – November 22, 2008.
Opening: Friday, September 5, 8 – 9 pm. Open daily during campus hours.

Please join us for the exhibition opening at the Teck Gallery, SFU Vancouver Campus, 515 West Hastings St, Vancouver, BC. The artist will be in attendance. Opening remarks at 8:30 pm.

Artist talk: Monday, September 15, 7pm
The artist will present a talk titled “Is There Anything Old Here?”
Room 1600, SFU Vancouver campus

Phone: 778-782-4266 Web: sfu.ca/gallery Email: gallery@sfu.ca

James K-M is a Vancouver-based painter who has, since 1983, created a vast series of hard-edge, optically charged works. These paintings reference primordial languages, the linkages between aural and visual phenomena, as well Op Art—a key historical avant-garde movement.
The question of how the social is contained within abstraction has been raised in many arenas over the twenty-five years since the first of these paintings were made. This exhibition addresses that societal role, while querying the rationales that continue to exist for new work in hard-edge abstraction. – Bill Jeffries, August, 2008

Publication: This exhibition is accompanied by a 24-page catalogue with essays by Eric McLuhan and Bill Jeffries.

Presentation of the Pillow

James K-M, Murakami Pillow, Andrew Jordan

Andrew Jordan just returned from New York where he saw the Murakami exhibition. Here he presents James K-M with a gift of a Murakami pillow. The energy is so exciting that the photo is blurring with enthusiasm! Side 2 of the pillow shows a smiling sleeping face, so the mood need not always be totally exuberant!

Do You Hear Voices?

Something terrific coming up at Western Front this week, so I thought I’d amplify it here in my blog post. William Burroughs was really into this stuff in the late 50s. Here’s the release, and for more, check that Western Front link.

Western Front Media Arts | Darsha Hewitt workshop | APR 20
—————————————————————-
Darsha Hewitt
Artist Presentation
Instrumental Transcommunication: Listening Through Your Electronics (Hearing The Dead)
April 20, 2008, 2 PM
FREE

In her talk, Hewitt will look at inventions created during mid 20th century that were used to communicate with the dead. The term “instrumental transcommunication” describes communication between spirits and the living through any sort of electronic device such as tape recorders, fax machines, television sets, or computers. The talk will end with a demonstration of sensitive daemon detection devices created by the artist.

Workshop
Ethereal Computing: Homemade Sensing Devices for Invisible Matter
April 23, 2008, 6 – 9 PM
Registration:  $20
Register before April 15, 5 PM by emailing media@front.bc.ca

The artist will lead a hands-on workshop that takes a hobbyist approach to electronic experimentation for anyone curious about electronics, sound or the invisible noise of nature. Hewitt will introduce basic antenna and radio theory, and concepts like induction and electronic crosstalk, and will focus on how natural phenomena such as skin resistance, body capacitance and ethereal interference can affect and control electronics. Participants will look at examples of how early electronic instrument inventors, artists and electronic enthusiasts have explored, harnessed and exploited these invisible forces.

By tinkering with radios, scrapped domestic electronics and handmade audio generating devices, and using leftover wire, participants will learn how to piece together amateur antennas to unleash the power of ungrounded electronics and pick up on the invisible information of our atmosphere. Additionally, Hewitt will go over safe and practical discarded electronics salvaging techniques, and participants will learn what to look for and what to scavenge from electronic devices they find in the alley on garbage day.

About the Artist:

Darsha Hewitt is an Ottawa-based artist experimenting with electronics in order to capture traces of the invisible ethereal realm. By handcrafting, rebuilding and cross-wiring basic electronics, the artist intervenes with the commercial obligations of today’s ubiquitous electronic products, and exposes them to the noise of an invisible realm. She often draws on the formulas and aesthetics found in vintage D.I.Y. electronics magazines, in order to create “homemade sensing devices for invisible matter.” During her residency, Hewitt will work with experimental handmade electronics to develop an environmentally responsive sound installation specifically for the Western Front called DAEMON DETECTION. Hewitt will install sensing antennae throughout the building to detect changes in the surrounding electromagnetic fields. These shifts will create subtle audible emissions through transmitter radios that have specific lo-fi/low-tech sounds including white noise, frequency distortions, and voices captured from broadcasts.

All Murakami, All the Times!

All Murakami, all the time. I first saw Murakami in the Superflat show at the Henry in Seattle several years ago. We got the big Murakami book and now I see there is wonderful coverage of the Murakami show in NY – including a feature in the Times Magazine. For a taste, here’s the slide show from the NYTimes, and their video of the opening.

Love Every Day

Just received this valentine today from New Mexico photo artist Gail Russell, so I’m sharing it here. More of Gail’s work is here on her site.

(Link here for a random post from my blog.)

Diane Feught’s New “Queen of Heaven” Series

Good friend and amazing artist Diane Feught sent me this invitation to the opening for http://www.women, a significant group show upcoming in Toronto’s Headbones Gallery. Diane’s Q’an Yin drawing on the invite above is part of the “Queen of Heaven” series featured in the exhibition, while her darkly stunning Yama image can be seen here in the Press Release from Headbones Gallery.

This promises to be a powerful exhibition, with work from Aleks Bartosik, Louise Bourgeois, Judy Chicago, Donna Cleary, Diane Feught, Angela Grossman, Geurilla Girls, Heidi Hatry, Donna Kriekle, Julie Oakes, Allyson Mitchell, Faith Ringgold, Carolee Shneemann, Robin Tewes, Betty Tompkins, and Monica Weiss.

(Link here for a random post from my blog.)