Group Show at The Ian Tan Gallery, Vancouver

Breakfast of Champions  |  24 x 30  |  Oil on canvas  |  2010  |  SOLD

BIG Mac  |  24 x 24  |  Oil on Canvas  |  2010  |  SOLD

Group Show at the Ian Tan Gallery in Vancouver from February 20 - March 11, 2010.

New Paintings @ The Ian Tan Gallery

These two paintings are the latest in my series of vintage neon sign.

Barber Shop  |  24  x 30  |  Oil on canvas  |  2009  |  SOLD

Annabelle's Bar & Bistro  |  30 x 36  |  Oil on canvas  |  2009  |  SOLD

Summer Group Show @ The Ian Tan Gallery

Dairy Queen  |  36 x 30  |  Oil on canvas  |  2009  |  SOLD

The Summer Group Show
The Ian Tan Gallery in Vancouver. August 8th - 27th, 2009.

This painted neon sign is from an original Dairy Queen that still operates and sells only dairy products at corner of rue de Bellechasse & Avenue Christophe Colomb, Montreal.

The Only Seafood Cafe

The Only  |  36 x 30  |  Oil on canvas  |  2009  |  SOLD

Two Survivors: A Seafood Place and Old Neon
(Reprinted with permission.)
By Robert Boyd
The Only Café is Vancouver’s longest surviving restaurant in the same location. It has changed very little over the years. It has never been a fancy place. There is no maitre d’, and definitely no valet parking. It is rather plain looking both inside and out. It has an ornamental tin ceiling which is still the original, as well as a full-length wall mirror. There are seventeen chrome button swivel chair-stools on a horseshoe-and-a-half counter and two booths at the back, making for a maximum capacity of twenty-five. Its specialty is seafood, which is where the name was derived from. When this establishment was first opened, it was the only restaurant in all of Vancouver that served seafood, hence its name. It retains an old-fashioned sense in the fact that payment terms are still cash only. No credit cards or Interac. For all patrons, the rules are very simple: no undesirables allowed, and service is refused to anyone who is too drunk to sit up and eat. But to gain a better perspective of how the Only has stood the test of time, let’s turn back the clock.

Vancouver, 1912. Vancouver is a bustling city. Hastings Street is at the heart of the downtown core. It is the place to “see and be seen”. The city’s most popular theatres, restaurants, dance halls, and hotels are all located in the first three blocks of East Hastings Street. In that year, Antonio Demetry establishes a restaurant in the brand-new Craftsman’s Building at 20 East Hastings and names it the Vancouver Oyster Saloon. At the same time, Nick Thodos is working as a cook in the English Kitchen, five doors down at 30 East Hastings. The two Greek men eventually become the most popular cooks in all of Vancouver. In 1916, Nick’s brother Gustave joins him at the English Kitchen, and later that year, they purchase controlling interest in the Vancouver Oyster Saloon. They immediately renamed the establishment the Only Café.

(Click here for the entire article on "The Only," by Robert Boyd.)

Spring Group Show @ The Ian Tan Gallery

Magee Grocery  |  30 x 30  |  Oil on canvas  |  2009  |  SOLD

Spring Group Show at the Ian Tan Gallery in Vancouver from June 13th - 26th, 2009.

"Chucky's Recurring Delusional Dream"

Chucky's Recurring Delusional Dream  |  30 x 36  |  2009  |  SOLD

My surrealist portrait of Chucky the cat with his nemesis' the Lord of the Rings gang - Frodo, Bilbo, and Strider...is in honor of, one of the twentieth centuries most amazing Artists, Salvador Dali.

The Persistence of MemorySalvador Dalí (Spanish, 1904-1989)

Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York
1931. Oil on canvas, 9 1/2 x 13" (24.1 x 33 cm). Given anonymously. © 2009 Salvador Dalí, Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Time is the theme here, from the melting watches to the decay implied by the swarming ants. The monstrous fleshy creature draped across the paintings center is an approximation of Dalís own face in profile. Mastering what he called "the usual paralyzing tricks of eye-fooling," Dalí painted this work with "the most imperialist fury of precision," but only, he said, "to systematize confusion and thus to help discredit completely the world of reality." There is, however, a nod to the real: The distant golden cliffs are those on the coast of Catalonia, Dalís home.

Salvador Dali the Master of Surrealism
Dali embraced all the science of painting as a way to study the psyche through subconscious images. He called this process the Paranoiac Critical Method. As any paranoiac, the artist should allow these images to reach the conscience, and then do what the paranoiac cannot do: Freeze them on canvas to give consciousness the opportunity to comprehend their meaning. Later on, he expanded the process into the Oniric-Critical Method, in which the artist pays attention to his dreams, freezing them through art, and analyzing them as well. As Freud said, "A dream that is not interpreted is like a letter that is not opened."

Dali Atomicus/ Philippe Halsman/Gelatin silver print, 1947

Halsman Family Collection
Image Copyright the Estate of Philippe Halsman

Surrealism
In Paris, Halsman studied the work of other artists and photographers, especially the surrealists, from whom he learned to make images that surprised his viewers. By including homely, and ultimately disturbing, details, he gave his subjects memorable tension. Through subtle lighting, sharp focus, and close cropping, he turned formal fashion shots into serious investigations of character. When Halsman posed NBC comedians against bare white paper, eliminating all defining context, their isolation made them look both frail and funny. Salvidor Dali Most important of all, from the surrealists' exploration of the erotic unconscious, Halsman learned how to combine glamour, sex, and wholesome energy in one portrait. This unusual ability made him Life's favorite photographer for sensual stars like Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot. Halsman's sympathy for surrealism also led to his long, productive friendship with Salvador Dali. Halsman met Dali on assignment in 1941, and over the next three decades they became partners on many projects, including a series of playful tableaux that had all the disturbing irrationality of dreams or a painting by Dali. Their most notable production was "Dali Atomicus", in which the artist, his canvas, furniture, cats, and water all appear suspended in air.

A Retrospective of Philippe Halsman's work was exhibited at National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian in Washington.

Group Show @ The Ian Tan Gallery

Le Petit Bistro  |  30 x 36  |  Oil on canvas  |  2008  |  SOLD

November 29th until December 18th, 2008.