A collective of artists dedicated to bringing figurative work back to the forefront will be showing work at Deer Lake Gallery this month.
Phantoms in the Front Yard, a Vancouver-based collective, is showing work at the gallery from Saturday, Aug. 17 to Saturday, Sept. 14. An opening reception is on Aug. 17 from noon to 4 p.m.
The collective includes Vancouver artists Michael Abraham, Jeremiah Birnbaum, Andrea Hooge, Paul Morstad, Jay Senetchko and Jonathan Sutton, in collaboration with curator Pennylane Shen.
“The name captures the essence of the group’s purpose: to address the fact that Modernist and Postmodern schools of thought virtually ignore the importance of figurative work, effectively banishing it to the back yard,” says a write-up about the event. “With each exhibition, the Phantoms hope to bring figurative work back to its rightful place in the front yard of contemporary art.”
The collective includes members from a broad range of career stages, including both emerging and established artists, and with a wide range of backgrounds.
Abraham began his studies in life drawing and compositional painting at the Ontario College of Art in the 1980s, and he has won numerous awards for his work.
Birnbaum studied at the Victoria College of Art before earning a bachelor’s degree in visual art from Emily Carr in 2006. Since graduating, he has exhibited in both public and private galleries in Vancouver, Edmonton and Halifax, and in 2011 he was a finalist for Canada’s Kingston Prize (regarded as the country’s premiere prize for portraiture).
Hooge draws inspiration from the nostalgia of vintage magazines and children’s books, and her focus is mainly on creating figurative oil paintings and scratchboards.
Morstad was raised in Alberta, Saskatchewan and B.C., and his paintings and films are influenced by the landscapes, people, flora and fauna of those places.
Senetchko studied classical animation at Vancouver Film School, where he teaches film, painting and drawing. He was also a finalist for the Kingston Prize in 2011.
Sutton earned a bachelor’s degree in theatre from UBC and worked as an actor, director, writer and producer in theatre and film for more than a decade. His visual art practice evolved through those media, and he continues to draw on dramatic, literary and narrative influences in his work.
You can see their work at Deer Lake Gallery throughout the exhibition dates from Tuesday to Saturday, noon to 4 p.m. See www.burnabyartscouncil.org or call 604-298-7322 for information.
