Shrink In Transition

My “I am bought” (see August 26th, 2006 post below) and my “Doc the scientist” paintings are part of a group show at the Gallery Gachet in Vancouver. Westerm Medicine is so focused on quantity and measurement. Quantity of life that is making us live longer preoccupies its efforts with relatively less attention and ressources given to improving ou quality of life while we live it.
This is one of the reasons mental health research and services have been at a disadvantage. It is a multilayered problem all the way from the individual to the CEO’s and governments. Yet the secret to our future is held in the jelly between our ears defying measurement.

This May has been quite eventful. On May 5th I got my BFA from the Emily Carr Institute. A strange feeling after 5 years of mostly enjoyable learning I can show you and talk about what I have done during this time but I am probably less sure about what art is then when I started. That is, (I will rationalize) probably a reflection of effective learning as when get closer to anything it becomes more complex. Vancouver Pooh-dles was my piece in the Grad Show. It is still current .The headlines of last friday’s SUN front page were the sex trade workers taht dissapeared in Vancouver and concerns about dog pooh in parks.

Also I opened My first solo show “de 0 a 13″ on May 10th at the French Alliance Center’s gallery. It is still hard to think of myself as an artist. But I will persists even if the future is unclear at this time because it is when I am creating my ART (?) that I can feel “my heart soar as an eagle”.

For the second year in a row, I won 2nd prize at the Granville Island Garbage Can Art Contest. 25 artists participated.

I was pleased because this can was not for everyone. Although playful and pretty at a distance, garbage surrounded the outside preserved in resin forever.

Time has run out on the lid and at the foot of the can dinosaurs and a shark are forced out by the accumulation of technology and our search for a quick fix (drugs).

Today I was interviewed by CBC radio about the news that Spain and Israel had put a limit on how thin their fashion models could be. The Fashion industry and the Movie and Television industry have been pursuing the limit of thinness in women for the past 30 years at least. We have known about this negative influence, on women particularly, for almost as long. So what took us so long to wake up? and why are we still continuing? In 2005, I produced a photoshop collage of the cover page of woman’s magazine I called SHAME. This fashion trend is unlikely to stop until we better understand who needs it and why.
Who benefits from selling the thin ideal? It is unlikely to be a simple answer but I cannot help but think of the prevalling powers in our global village that are for the most, white, patriarchal and capitalistic. Do they need to keep women weak and dependent on their GOODS?
Thomas Hirshorn said ” FASHION REFLECTS THE FEAR OF LOOSING ONE’S IDENTITY “. This thought helps explain the importance adolescents give to fashion as they are developing their identity. But then, does the importance our society give to fashion also reflect this fear and how do emaciated young females reflect our collective identity?

A strange paradoxical concept. Today again a number of soldiers were killed or hurt by mistake by their allies. Wars are the outcome of decades, sometimes centuries of mistakes. And they themselves create more mistakes. My videos “here to infinity” and “irrepressible” address this obssessive and repetitive compulsion to try to deal with our mortality and drive for survival by aggressive domination. This latest tragic event will only be a one day headline soon forgotten with the appropriate apology and investigation, only to repeat itself soon enough. Last year I painted this image trying to capture the instant of the explosion when it may seem beautiful before it turns to horror. This fire is never friendly.

My painting Eau Canada has been accepted into the Painting on the Edge exhibition. It’s opening on Thursday, August 31st at the Federation of Canadian Artists Gallery. The gallery is on Granville Island at 1241 Cartwright street in Vancouver (phone number 604- 681-8534).

It’s part of a series of 3 called, “Red, White and Blue Brainwashed” critiquing Nationalism. For more information please see my artist statement on the series on my web site leichner.ca. The painting God save US is particularly relevant regarding the bomb crisis in the U.K. today.