New #workinprogress for my June show in Ottawa

"Stories and places" will happen at Wallspace Gallery in Ottawa, with the opening coinciding with WestFest, this will be one of the new pieces in the show.

Ok, back to painting,

Cheers,

Marcel

 

 

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Thank you, and new show coming up

Edge of Town (detail)

Hello Everyone,

I'd like to to say a big thank you to everyone who came to see my show at the Elaine Fleck Gallery this past month, it was great to talk all of you who were able to make it to the opening and get such supportive feedback.

For those of you who were not able to make it to see the show, I've put all of theartwork on my website.  

As well, I'd like to announce that I'll be having a show in Ottawa at Wall Space Gallery in June. I don't yet have a name for the show, but it will feature new paintings in my new 'undertexting' style. And robots, I'm thinking there'll be some robots. (You can read my artist statement about undertexting on my blog.) As well, the opening will be happening at the same time as West Fest, so there'll be lots of extra fun! 

As always, I'll be posting work in progress photos on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter (links below), so you can follow me there if you'd like to see how it all comes together. (_If_ indeed it comes together, it could also be a slow motion train wreck, you never know. But it won't right? *nervous laugh* Well, either way, it'll probably still be entertaining. ) 

Thanks so much for reading, and looking forward to seeing you at the next show!
cheers,
Marcel

If you can't make it to the show...

... you can use this search that I've set up to see the paintings that will be in it.

I'll be posting photos from the gallery probably from my new instagram account on Saturday.

cheers,
marcel

'Undertexting' - invitation and artist statement

You're all invited to come to my show of paintings at the Elaine Fleck Gallery in Toronto. Come on by the opening on Saturday, February 7th from 2 to 4 pm and say hi if you have a chance.

Also, here's the artist's statement that I wrote up for the show:

Undertexting artist statement

Undertexting describes a new art making process I've developed, as well as the idea that we as human beings use stories to understand everything in our lives; that the cultural context of everything we've read and watched and listened to forms the underlying context of almost every moment that we live.

One could also say that undertexting is about the relativity of meaning, that all meaning is only ever understood within a cultural context, and how that cultural context is formed by the stories we consume. [One could also say that it's about how the background context of how we understand things is often a jumble, but that might just be a reflection of the disarray in my own mind.]

As a art making process, Undertexting starts with a layer of torn photocopies of pages from my favourite books, mostly novels, that I paste on to the panel over top of the original drawings. I then paint on top of that with thin layers of paint (much thinner than I'd been using in the past) allowing you to see some of the underlying text, making that cultural context more explicit and part of the visual story.

Undertexting is a new art making process for me not only because of the underlying layers of text, but also because I've completely changed how the paintings look: I've begun to explicitly incorporate things from my background in comics. These include the use of inset panels, which I'm using to show key scenes in the stories the paintings are describing, and the use of more abstract line and flat colour based backgrounds,  which set the emotional contexts and the settings for the stories they tell.

When people would ask me what my paintings were about before Undertexting, I usually said that they were scenes from imaginary novels, or what it felt and looked like to be in an imaginary novel. These new paintings that make up Undertexting are, with their underlying layers of text and their use of visual storytelling elements from the comics medium, even more about scenes from, or being inside of, imaginary novels. I hope you enjoy them.

Cheers,
Marcel Guldemond

Undertexting - show details

 

When: February 2015, opening Saturday February 7, 2-4pm

Where: The Elaine Fleck Gallery, 888 queen St w, Toronto

Hi Everyone,

(Note: this is the same as an email I just sent to my mailing list)

I'd just like to say that I have a show coming up in Toronto featuring the new painting style that I've been developing over the past year or so. The name I'm going with for this new style, and this show, is 'undertexting'. This will be the first time this new style of work will be seen in public.

As I mentioned in my previous email, rebuilding my artistic process has turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be. I'm happy to say though, that I'm finally getting some results that justify the hard work, uncertainty, and the potential for a serious artistic disaster. Maybe I'm being overly dramatic, but sometimes in the middle of a long process like that when you don't know if it's going to work out on the other side and you have no idea if you know what you're doing, it definitely feels like an impending disaster of your own making. Fortunately I seem to have avoided that disaster thing.

(If the following text is underlined, I don't know why that is, just that this Blogsy editor is kinda buggy)

One other thought that I had about the work, is that more of my comic-book making roots are showing through in these pieces and I'm finding that the comic book elements are giving me a much larger scope for artistic exploration. This is great and I feel like there's suddenly a whole new continent of images to explore. And part of me is wondering why I didn't do this earlier. Ah well, I could probably explain why, but I should be finishing some paintings right now instead of figuring that out. (A longer description of the new style is in my previous email.)

So considering all that, I'm really very pleased to be able to share some new images with you that I've included in this email, and I sincerely hope you can make it to the opening on February 7th to enjoy some art and some conversation.

Thanks so much for reading,
cheers,
Marcel

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Happy Holidays! ( also new painting )

Best wishes for the holiday season from the studio, for whatever particular flavour you're celebrating.

Here's the new painting I just finished:

Best wishes,

Marcel

 

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New painting finished: Parka people - ontheeasel

 

This one will be in my show in Toronto in February. I'm not sure I'll have time to post properly processed photos of it before then, though, so this iPad photo will have to do for now.

 

Cheers,

Marcel

 

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