We Draw the Line Here ! a political art show celebrating International Women's Day at the CACGV

Michael Lewis ‘Striking Oil’ by Philip Willey

Michael Lewis grew up fatherless in Las Vegas. His mother worked in a theme park candy store. It made for an unreal childhood populated by Wild West archetypes and popular superheroes….a mythology he has spent his life dealing with through paint. In his show ‘Striking Oil’ (he loves puns and double meanings) Lewis presents a selection of paintings, old and new, which can best be seen as a mini-retrospective.

He came to Canada to avoid the draft, lived in various parts of B.C. before settling eventually in Victoria where a lot of his life was spent working at the Cool Aid Shelter, on the night shift, exposed to a side of life most of us prefer not to deal with. Back in the 1980s he was painting in his spare time, mostly scenes from the mean streets of downtown Victoria inspired by his work at the shelter. Feeling something of a conflict between sympathy and opportunism his paintings slowly became more autobiographical. He began to make paintings based on dreams, movies, and comic book heroes wrestling with their personal demons. They suggested condensed comic strips where viewers are free to supply their own myths and narrative.

He’s retired now. Has anything changed? Well he has more time to paint and he no longer has to listen to hard luck stories. He has more time to reflect on his own memories and more time to think about the future. Things like the state of the world, the way the media presents it and of course death. That’s the irony of retirement; we have more time but we have less of it too. There is no escape from Big D. Not that there’s anything morbid or sinister about Lewis’ work. He still uses comic book heroes and characters from the funny pages like Dagwood and Dick Tracey. They are facets of an inner complexity. So are Popeye and his friends being lured onto the rocks by the extremely nasty Sea Witch. Cartoons yes, but with a serious side. Even superheroes are not immune to moral contradictions. Humour is the best antidote.

Canada has changed a lot too in the last 40 years. We’ve become more internationally involved. There are more of us. There‘s more pressure. The government has made a big bet on bitumen and pipelines. People are anxious about the future.

The show at Dales is a cross section of Lewis’ interests and preoccupations. There are the same social concerns, unfairness, homelessness, sympathy for the underdog etc. The iconography is still there but he would seem to have come to terms with his inner turbulence…perhaps some childhood dilemmas have been resolved. He may even have found a tranquil harbour. He also has a keen eye for modern manners and likes to make wry comments. A sexy girl wears a ‘Fuck Off’ T-shirt. An elderly passerby is bemused by the mixed message. The subject matter is wide-ranging. There are nude roller skating Dryads, small boys taking pictures of girls in swimsuits, a mother nursing her child in an air raid. Gaza, Lebanon, Syria isn’t specified. It’s your basic holy land disaster.

One painting in particular suggests a more domestic setting. The drama and romance of urban chicken keeping. It’s a made up of fragmented planes based on a house the artist lived in. The house has been demolished but the chicken house remains. A charming little architectural monument. It’s a symbol, maybe the Mike Lewis version of the lone arbutus overlooking the Pacific.

Dales Gallery

Feb. 6 to 23, 2014

"Days in The Life" book by Philip Willey

Synopsis
  Simon is a groovy young rock writer in Swinging London who always manages to be in the right place at the right time. We follow him to the TV studios where Ready Steady Go is produced, then on to the flat of art dealer Robert Fraser where only the hippest of the hip hang out. He drives out to Weybridge to visit John Lennon, Abbey Road Studios where Sergeant Pepper is being made, and the Bag of Nails club for the London debut of Jimi Hendrix. Many years later, in Bermuda, he reflects on his life and has an encounter with John Lennon’s ghost. All that in 54 pages, 9 beautifully illustrated. Fact or fiction? Or a mixture of both? Read it and decide for yourself.

 Here you have the new book about John Lennon by our collaborator Philip Willey illustrated by :

Carollyne Yardley, Lance Austin Olsen, Michael Lewis, Lyle Schultz, Robert Amos, Roy Green, Brad Pasutti and Darren White.

to buy the book go to : 

www.philipwilley.com

Taking comics seriously by Philip Willey.

Walking along Government Street thinking about all the usual things….Tracey Emin, Rupert Murdoch, the Chapman brothers, mythology, cosmogony, sex, food, death, wondering why Kate and William skipped B.C.…making little mental notes….the kind of stuff that can maybe be worked up into an article….or perhaps a chapter in another unpublished novel. It’s a nice evening…I’m on my way to Olio Cooperative to meet Sean Brookes and maybe talk about his paintings.

Sean’s work really isn’t my cup of tea. It’s what I call the dungeons and dragons school. There’s a giant bird representing nature choking to death, skulls, teeth, knives, blood…it’s all too dark and comic booky for me. It’s art of course but the sort of art that look great on heavy metal T-shirts or Harley gas tanks. To his credit Sean has experimented with different directions in the paintings…they range from abstract to illustrative and there is one piece I quite liked…‘Coral’ with purple polyp-like shapes broken up by white areas.

This isn’t a put-down of Sean’s work so please don’t throw things. He’s a nice guy. And serious about painting. He’s new to painting too. It’s just that I don’t relate to the genre. It’s good fantasy art. Technically excellent and very imaginative …if you like that kind of thing. The pieces I like best are the ones where he transcends the sword and sorcery stuff.

I know some people can get quite passionate about comics but to me even the great Frank Frazetta seemed to lack the illusive ingredient that separates art from illustration.

All of which raises the question ‘What is art?’ Googling it doesn’t help. You’ll have to ask Jerry Saltz or Charles Saatchi Gagosian or somebody. I think I know it when I see it but I don’t have the ultimate definition. In these days of Rage Comics, Pokemon and Pop Surrealism the lines have become blurred.

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Mike Lewis for instance. He uses comic book characters but at one remove. They become symbols in his work. Symbols of self-analysis, facets of the collective American consciousness. They are cartoons yes, but underneath the humour is a serious exploration of what it means to grow up in America. So who’s to say where it fits into art history? Not me.

There is definitely something about the comic book approach to art that appeals to me. It can be a powerful political tool in the right hands and I like the looseness of people like Terry Gilliam, Ralph Steadman and Sam Kieth. Their ideas seem to flow straight from the mind to the page without a lot of intellectual interference.

Which brings us to Lyle Schultz, one of my Facebook friends. Lyle was born in Saskatchewan where he was deemed Odd by doctors. There were oddity problems at school. He worked at odd jobs before deciding to study art. He came to Vancouver Island to work in the woods. Got a show at the Emily Carr Gallery in Victoria and has since had numerous exhibitions. He has a growing collection of loyal fans.

At first sight a lot of his drawings look like doodles. Schultz is prolific. He doesn’t so much doodle as gush. His work is fun. It’s dark a lot of it but redeemed by a gonzo humour. His undisciplined energy means galleries don’t know what to do with him. It’s frustrating he says….he admits to being multi-talented, highly intelligent, charming and hugely good looking but he’s obliged to resort to being a stand-up comedian to get any attention.

Schultz’s work is beyond cartooning. There’s an aesthetic sensibility in his paintings. There are nods to Bacon, Matisse, Picasso….he knows his history. Schultz has a strong sense of balance and design and he has an instinctive sense of how best to fill a page. There’s a compulsion to record each and every one of life’s absurdities. A lonely tormented little figure drawing feverishly under a bare light bulb, TVs, boom-boxes, bleak kitchens and bathrooms, fish that range from goofy to voracious, they all get drawn, coloured and turned into art. 

Needless to say the playful stuff sells best. It’s obsessive and he can’t stop doing it. But where, he wonders, is the pay off?

Soon I hope. Maybe this will help.