Thursday, January 7, 2010

Christian Bök



here's the first page of a 6 page comic i was commissioned to do by Unlimited magazine about Canadian avantpoet/genius Christian Bök. this piece not only won me the friendship of its own subject, but the Western Canadian Magazine Award for its category and now has been reprinted in part in the Norwegian Literary Review. it can be viewed in it's entirety here.

early works






these are a couple drawings i did for one of my first solo exhibitions in edmonton. this was curated by my soon to be good friend Norman Omar, at a smoky university hangout. the bottom one is a portrait of infamous sasquatch hunter Rene Dahinden and was the start of another friendship with the current owner of the piece, fellow illustrator Raymond Biesinger.

more posters






here's some more posters out of the vault. some for shows my band, field+stream, played, some for other ones.

VUE covers




apparently vue weekly is/was taking votes for past covers. upon perusing said covers, i was a little pleased/embarrassed to see how i'd progressed as an artist. these were among the first graphic jobs i'd done. that said, here are two images i did for them that i quite liked. the frogeyes one was, i believe, the first cover i did, and it's maybe surprising that it's closer to the drawing style i've settled into than most jobs in between (though i was still using those blamed technical pens). the bukowski one was one of the first jobs i did where i was comfortable to be messy, an important development.

foiled





a couple years ago my friend sean borchert started putting on shows in his basement, dubbed the 'Birch Heart Basement'. these shows were a great way for great artists with little to no initiative to show off works while drinking their terror into oblivion while great bands distracted everybody in attendance.
these are some pieces i contributed to his portrait show. they're busts of friends of mine that smoke one substance or another, collaged out of cigarette foil. i believe the show was entitled 'Good Intentions, Poor Traits.'