7.12.14

2684

15 Layers of Laminated drawing
Size: A4
Year: 2014

for the group exhibit of Book Ends

25.8.14

extended play

Untitled

Acrylic on canvas

12in diameter

2014

For the inaugural show of Vinyl on Vinyl.

August 27, 2014

24.6.14

STREET MEET FESTIVAL EVENTS

Street Meet is happy to announce its second year of Saskatoon’s Annual Street, Public and Graffiti Art Festival, a three-day summer festival celebrating new, contemporary public art.

We’ve all driven, cycled or walked past Saskatoon’s wide array of public art, and it may have shaped our ideas of what ‘public art’ means. Many of us expect it to be permanent, durable, heavy, big and sculptural. But are there other possibilities? Between July 4-6, through a series of artworks, workshops and discussions, Street Meet will explore new and exciting ways to make and appreciate public art. Feature artists include Shallom Johnson (Indigo) of Cape Town, South Africa, a street muralist who wheatpastes on alternative surfaces that are sometimes never seen. Laura Hale (Regina, SK) makes ephemeral works in ice and coloured mulch that stand in stark contrast to the permanent public works she’s been known to create. Saskatonian artist Sean Fawcett (Sirvis), is a prolific local graffiti and hip hop artist who has participated in Under Pressure, Montreal and will create a large piece on 20th West. Dex Fernandez (Manila, Philippines) will create a custom vinyl piece based on the subject of his prolific street art practice, the ‘Garapata’. Indigo will conduct a Beginner’s Poster Pasting workshop with introductions to wheatpasting followed by art making and pasting. Peter Gibson, (Roadsworth) of Montreal will Skype in for Q&A at the screening of his 2008 documentary Roadsworth: Crossing the Line. Sterling Downey, Under Pressure graffiti-festival-founder-gone-city-councillor in Montreal, will present a keynote address alongside Melissa Proietti, the international festival’s coordinator. Street Meet’s founder and director, and artist behind the contentious Found Compressions One and Two, Keeley Haftner will lead a panel discussion with these artists and speakers on public art in its sanctioned and unsanctioned forms.

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About
Street Meet: Saskatoon’s 2nd Annual Street, Public and Graffiti Art Festival a not-for-profit group in collaboration with a number of community organizations. The festival is three-day event for the purpose of showcasing art in Saskatoon’s public spaces, staged successfully for the first time in the summer of 2013. Street Meet serves as a response to Saskatoon’s prevalence of permanent public art sculpture, and looks not only to provide a more immediate or ephemeral alternative to such artworks, but also to discuss the meaning of public art as a whole in a city with a strong history of public, street and graffiti art display but very little public dialogue on these practices.

http://streetmeetsaskatoon.tumblr.com/

Saskatoon, Canada

20.6.14

1000000000mg

1,000,000,000 mg

In the scale of Dex Fernandez's universe is this fulcrum: that something so little can transcend into the grandest experience. In 1,000,000,000 mg, he sheds a new light (LED, UV-A) onto his signature surreal characters and landscapes to trace the anatomy and itinerary of a trip into oblivion. Just as day turns into night, this oxymoronic illumination of the experience results into a double vision, the revelation of another layer of visual and, hence, textual possibilities. Complementing this with sound and animation, Fernandez offers a multi-sensory experience that approximates his personal mind exploration to a closer height.His characters--incongruous juxtapositions of heads and bodies, like the "Pharmacist" with its devilish tail and crab-like pincers--indicate a multiplicity of egos and voices. Their visceral network of curves, as in "Trap" and "Spit", indicates unpredictably alternating sites of meaningful connections. These bodies consist of the simultaneous expressions of the sacred and the profane, the modern and the tribal, the mythic and the scientific--a collapse of historical boundaries. Through Fernandez's hand and its "Sweaty Palm", he grapples to communicate a sign, to regain control beyond reflex, as his synthetic reality melds with the natural. In the realm of the chemical, the self, as in "Numb Feet", is laid unstable, dubitable.Immersed back in the depths of his mind's ocean, these characters scale back infinitesimal into the likeness of planktons in "Vomit", crammed up as if in a riot, invigorated by the energy of chaos, creating a beautiful tapestry that is an illustration of the universe, a milligram a piece.

words by

Nante Santamaria

(7th Solo Show)

July 3 - August 2, 2014

Vomit

84in x 264in

Acrylic on Canvas

2014

Spit

28in x 22in

Acrylic on Shaped Canvas

2014

23in x 24in

Acrylic on Shaped Canvas

2014

Space Man

19.5in x 18in

Acrylic on Shaped Canvas

2014

Sweaty Palm

21.5in x 15.75in

Acrylic on Shaped Canvas

2014

Synthetic God

20.5in x 32in

Acrylic on Shaped Canvas

2014

Retard

21.5in x 35in

Acrylic on Shaped Canvas

2014

Spike

20in x 20in

Acrylic on Shaped Canvas

2014

Numb Feet

21in x 24.75in

Acrylic on Shaped Canvas

2014

Trap

22in x 22.5in

Acrylic on Shaped Canvas

2014

Artifacts

Varied

Acrylic on Shaped Canvas

2014

Pharmacist

23in x 18in

Acrylic on Shaped Canvas

2014

//Pharmacist

Acrylic on Canvas

(with LED Strobe light and Ultraviolet Light)

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Fly, Glide, Slide

Animation LooP

2014

/// INSTALLATION VIEWS

/// West Gallery

Quezon City Philippines

18.5.14

g

9.4.14

tabletop

Group Exhibit at Altro Mondo Gallery /April10
with
Allan Balisi
Albert Sy
Charles Buenconsejo
Dina Gadia
David Viray
Dex Fernandez
Eugene Jarque
Mac valdesco
Yasmin Sison
Mariano Ching
Ryan Villamael
Zean Cabangis
Vladimir Grutas
Zeus Bascon

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