Viewpoint is an original oil on canvas painting that was digitally reproduced, fabricated, and installed onto the building’s canopy. Configured specifically for integration onto the building soffit, the original painting measured 6 feet x 1.8 feet and was photographed by Rachel Topham for digitization, with oversight provided by the Artist. The soffit, which is visible from the ground plane, is 2,143 square feet, and measures 84 feet wide and 25.3 feet long.

Viewpoint was commissioned by Boffo Developments as part of their participation in the City of Vancouver's Public Art Program for Private Development.  

ARTIST STATEMENT

I consider the space of painting (verb and noun) as a reflective space that engages cultural, material and personal experience. I work with painting as a process of thought. I believe that the physicality of the work and its indexicality of painted marks and gestures (subtle touches, rough scumbles, offhanded smears and studied glazes, etc.) vicariously open this exploratory thinking to an audience.

I am interested in the physiology of perception and how it is personally and culturally codified. My work considers how the world is realized through pictures: that how we picture the world (and how we are taught to picture the world) is how the world becomes. And I consider that if the resolution of a painting-object can be delayed and the process of perception is held open, a maker/viewer may discover agency there. For me the experience of making and looking at the painted object are intimately aligned with the scenes and experiences that I represent. This is a productive alignment. I confuse and equate the space of painting with the space of the world.

ARTWORK STATEMENT

The painted image for this work is a view through trees (on the border of urban and ‘natural’ spaces) of Burrard Inlet at the start of səli̓ lw̓ ət (Indian Arm). It is seen from an imaginary vantage point: a view that doesn’t exist. It is either dusk or dawn and so is unfixed in time as well as place.

This work is intended to provide space for reflection, outside of work and daily tasks: an interstitial moment to get lost in. The painting is dramatically enlarged and backlit. Its installation on the building’s soffit is parallel to the ground. The final scale, glow and placement add to a sense of disorientation, offering an hallucinatory respite from the everyday.