A number of months ago I was approached by local curator, Neal Nolan to apply our poster model for the 'A-Z' to a 'finer' venue. The result was Design24. The project showcases work in a unified format from professionals in a range of creative disciplines. Again, the printing rested on my close friend, Ben Knight's shoulders (DONT LOOK-Creative Society)). The curatorial prerequisite did not sit necessarily upon the artist/designer's visibility but more-so on their technical/creative ability. Unfortunately I dropped out of participating in this as I was nearly completing my body of work for 'Discovery' at Rook and Raven Gallery London, UK. Fortunately I filled the spot with one of my favorite local illustrators/cartoonists,
Ryan Pequin. The moment you ACTUALLY realize you can't complete what's on your plate can be a very sobering/frustrating time.
Our prints are produced in a limited edition of 10 and are plastisol screen-prints on archival inkjet paper. At $50 CDN a pop, it almost doesn't make sense.
Blog:
http://designtwo4.blogspot.ca/Online Store:
http://designtwo4.blogspot.ca/p/contributing-artists.htmlPROMO
Design24: Limited Edition from DONT LOOK on Vimeo.
Music - Ken Ehman (Eames)
Edit - Andrew Young
Printing - Ben Knight
Curatorial Statement:
Design24 embraces the parallels between art and design/ designer and artist; paying respect to the duality of commercial design work, its artists and culture.
The importance undertaken by Design24 reflects the candidacy of Graphic Design and illustration as art forms back into the fine art market. While the formal short definition of graphic design embraces the process as a profession which combines the use of text and graphics in the conveyance of an effective message as a visual language- the process originates as an artistic practice.
While Graphic Design as a discipline has a relatively recent history - the term 'graphic design'first coined by William Addison Dwiggins in 1922 - in late 19th century Europe the movement began to separate graphic design from fine art. The explosion of visual communication in the 20th and 21st centuries depicts a blurring distinction and over-lapping of advertising art, graphic design and fine art as a result of shared elements, theories, principles, practices and languages.
In graphic design, "the essence is to give order to information, form to ideas, expression and feeling to artifacts that document human experience." * A valid statement, although interpretations and the modern popular recognition of graphic design may argue it’s primary function as a marketing application - both visual and psychological considerations argue differently in the works of artists such as Andy Warhol, Patrick McNeil and Patrick Miller (FAILE) and Shepard Fairey to name just a few.
From the internationally recognised and represented work of artist/ illustrator Ben Tour (Black Market Gallery, LA) to the locally celebrated screen printed, collage installations of Office Supplies Incorporated (Vancouver Art Gallery), Design24 enlists the works of 24 of the west coast’s independent designers and illustrators in the recognition of graphic design culture and its contributors.
Exhibited as an art form both intellectual and aesthetic in the production and presentation of the work, this series is screen printed by hand on 250g/square inch, 10ml thick ink jet archival paper, signed and numbered (10 of 10) as a limited edition collection, presented by Gallery Fukai and the exhibitions co-curators Neal Nolan, Andrew Young and Sascha Yamashita.
-Neal Nolan.
Co-curator, Design24.
* Meggs, Philip B., 'A history of graphic design'. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1983
