Born on April 11, 1946, the late Chris Burden is a heavyweight in the American contemporary art world, yet his name is still one of the least known. Burden, the son of an engineer and a biologist from Boston, grew up in France and Italy. At age thirteen, while staying in Elba, he was involved in a Vespa crash that required emergency surgery on his left foot without anesthesia. During his recovery, he developed a keen interest in visual art, specifically photography. He went on to complete his BA in visual arts, physics and architecture from Pomona College, followed by an MFA from the Univers ..read more

Gustav Klimt (b.1862), a co-founder of the Vienna Succession, served an important role in bridging academic realism and the coming world of abstraction. One of his most notable figurative works, Death and Life (1908), saw five exhibitions before its completion in 1915. If you want to get to know Klimt better, the best way, he said, is to “look attentively at my pictures and there seek to recognise what I am and what I want.” So, here’s looking at you, Klimt.  The right side of the composition is very much giving life cuddled up in what feels like a warm coloured floral quilt. It features ..read more

Wally Ballach may not be a household name, but within the walls of my family home, he is a legend. I didn’t just grow up around his art; it grew up with me and is part of who I am. One of the greatest gifts I’ve ever received is getting to know Wally this past year. I’m honoured to call him my friend, and this post is dedicated to him.   We all know the story of The Little Drummer Boy, but what happened to him after he left the holy place? It is conceivable that Wally Ballach’s Master of Horse (1986) picks up where the classic Christmas story left off, only to take a dark turn. It goes ..read more

Wally Ballach may not be a household name, but within the walls of my family home, he is a legend. I didn’t just grow up around his art; it grew up with me and is part of who I am. One of the greatest gifts I’ve ever received is getting to know Wally this past year. I’m honoured to call him my friend, and this post is dedicated to him. We all know the story of The Little Drummer Boy, but what happened to him after he left the holy place? It’s conceivable that Wally Ballach’s Master of Horse (1986) picks up where the classic Christmas story left off, only to take a dark turn. It goes back to Le ..read more

PLEASE KEEP IN MIND Art serves an aesthetic or communicative purpose — expressing an idea, emotion, cultural significance, or worldview.  Performance art is conceptually based, characterized by time, space, body, presence of the artist, and their relationship with the audience.  Endurance art is a type of performance art that tests physical limits through pain, exhaustion, deprivation or solitude while exploring the strength of the mind. This art form emerged in the early 1970s as a response to the political climate, specifically the atrocities committed by the United States during t ..read more

Brooklyn-based artist Trey Abdella grew up in the ’90s watching cartoons, playing video games, reading comic books, and exploring the internet. Even when his parents would replace these activities with pencils and paper as a punishment, they continued to shape his worldview. Raised in the suburbs of West Virginia, Abdella’s work draws heavily on the mundane yet memorable moments of his childhood. While these coming-of-age stories highlight the harsh realities of human nature, the artist detracts from such revelations by creating a visual playground filled with comedic relief. Abdella ..read more

  Meet Pixie Blood, the Vancouver-based artist pouring her heart into personified planters. Sculpting a safe space for more than just potted pets, her multipurpose creations, or creeps, celebrate the many faces of human nature. Like us, all they want is to be seen, and not just in a full beat, but open wounds and all.   Can you tell me about your journey to becoming a full-time artist? It’s been a long one. I never actually thought I could make art my job. I used to stubbornly reject the idea, thinking if I had to rely on it for income, it would suck the integrity and inspira ..read more

As a child, nightmares can be especially frightening, but as you grow older and look a little closer, you’ll see that bad dreams can be beautiful because they’ve been built to solve pain from the past. Such is the case for artist Lin HuiJing.    Born in rural China, Lin grew up in poverty but was always in high spirits, spending her days singing, dancing, playing dress-up, and writing stories. In second grade, she transferred from her village school to one of the top schools in the city. The move was hard on her, and the new environment brought with it academic pressure and bullying ..read more

As a child, nightmares can be especially frightening, but as you grow older and look a little closer, you’ll see that bad dreams can be beautiful because they’ve been built to solve pain from the past. Such is the case for artist Lin HuiJing.    Born in rural China, Lin grew up in poverty but was always in high spirits, spending her days singing, dancing, playing dress-up, and writing stories. In second grade, she transferred from her village school to one of the top schools in the city. The move was hard on her, and the new environment brought with it academic pressure and bullying ..read more

Often the mistake that we make with art is attributing to it either a right or wrong meaning. For many artists, though, it’s not that straightforward; individual interpretation is what truly animates a piece. In David Altmejd’s case, the work is made to generate its own meaning, and in that process, it transmits different things to different people. My goal here is to try and understand the mind of each sculpture while acknowledging that its uniqueness is also a reflection of my own.   For the last 25 years, the Montreal-born LA-based sculptor David Altmejd has been exploring the body and ..read more