4 posts tagged “press”

A while ago I was contacted by Milk Magazine, a pop culture weekly in Hong Kong, to do an interview and feature some of my artwork. They ended up dedicating 8 pages (eight!) to my drawings. Needless to say, my reaction was HOLY CRAP! I was tickled.

Here's the cover (no, that's not me, although I am wearing a sweater like that at this very moment):

And here's one of my paper towel drawings, in the table of contents:

And here's more pages, along with the interview in Chinese (thank goodness they emailed me the questions in English), and pictures of me (Oh no! Now you know what I look like):

Drawn.ca is one of my favourite art/illustration sites out there. I've been reading their blog for several years now, so this morning when I discovered I had been blogged about, I was damn pleased. And it explains the spike in the number of people on Flickr adding me as a contact!

Check it out here.

 

Back in January, my drawings were included in a book and exhibit titled theMAKE, a cool hard cover book of mostly BC-based artists. Caleb Beyers, the enterprising fella behind the project, managed to get a write-up in this month's issue of Juxtapoz Magazine, and if you get out your reading glasses, (caution! shameless moment of self-promotion ahead) you just might be able to read my name.

Here's the review:

 

 

I can't believe it. We got press for our show. Two articles. TWO!

The first one appeared in Monday Magazine, which is a freebie weekly paper here in Victoria. It was their parenting issue, and they wanted to talk to parents who are artists. Perfect timing, really, since our show was just opening the day after the issue came out. You can read it online here. Here is the print version (you might have to click through to the largest version of this image to be able to read it):

 

The second one came out yesterday in the Times Colonist, Victoria's main newspaper, and is written by local art critic and renowned artist Robert Amos. Here's what he said about Kristen's work:

Kristen's paintings glow with a pastel pointillism, focusing on what is close at hand — her grandmother's teacups, a handful of buttons and her children. A mommy's-eye view lets us get within nuzzling distance of the kiddies' downy cheeks and glistening eyes. The small paintings of them were likely undertaken at the kitchen table after somebody's bedtime.

Pretty darn perceptive. And here's what he said about my work:

Speaking of bedtime, Marc does some of his drawing by flashlight, sitting on the bedroom floor while the little ones settle down to sleep. Johns has a distinctive graphic knack, assembling a galaxy of tiny drawings into floating compositions on small canvases. Simple renderings of bricks, shoes, underpants and ghetto blasters are held apart by bits of tubing and arrows, and in some cases are suspended from one another by threads.

Words play an equal part, naming things in an obscure way. Johns's signature work is carefully balanced, but unresolved. He also presents slight watercolours, centring on a repeated person with a head the shape of a television picture tube. Seen in frontal view, with his stylized eyes set wide apart, this fellow enacts existential scenes subtitled with deadpan quotes à la Edward Gorey.

Wow. It's quite surreal to have someone else write about your work. I was quite nervous, to be honest, about what he'd write, but he really 'got it', for lack of better words. And the Edward Gorey reference amused me. Here's the article in print (the online version is locked, for subscribers only):