Wood works

Winsor Gallery’s Alan Wood show marks return to form, and from personal loss, for the West Coast art patriarch

by AUBIN VAN BERCKEL

In the last weeks of 2008 well-wishers flocked to the Winsor Gallery to see new works by Alan Wood, the first major exhibition for the Vancouver art patriarch since the death of his wife Flora. Her presence was poignantly evoked in the mixed-media works that lined the walls. Guests chatting with Alan, including Andrew Gruft and Claudia Beck, entered easily into reminiscing. Refreshments served at the back of the gallery led people downstairs to works by two younger artists. Brian Boulton’s extraordinary drawings of young men were so popular, the gallery was taking back-orders before the end of the evening. Christian Nicolay’s witty installations of life preservers and water wings made with American flags and American dollars were impossible to miss, and his complicated painted canvases with their stitchery and collaged elements harkened back to Wood’s works upstairs.

The same crowds were at the Monte Clark Gallery to view recent works by another young artist with a blossoming career. Karin Bubas presented a series of mist-filled landscapes and fairy-tale maidens. Her romantic photo murals offered an ironic contrast to the tattoos, piercings, and colourful hair dyes of many gallery patrons sipping wine in front of them.

The Buschlen-Mowatt’s annual turkey buffet attracted a different but equally enthusiastic crowd. This year the gallery charged a modest entrance fee for the gala evening, turning the party into a fundraiser for food programs in the Downtown Eastside. Among those enjoying the live music, deliciously catered food and fine wines were a young entrepreneurial artist, Garett Campbell-Wilson and his mother and manager Vena Campbell. Beaming with pride, Ms. Campbell told us that her son’s art already had hung on Buschlen-Mowatt walls, in an Arts Umbrella exhibition several years ago.

The new year opened with a big art event at the former A&B Sound store, and snow-weary Vancouverites flocked to it in impressive number. Organized by Attila Richard Lukacs and sponsored by Vince Alvaro, who plans on turning the venue into a nightclub, the show featured four Vancouver artists with international reputations: Western Front denizen Michael Morris, video guru Paul Wong, Mexican-born artist Ignacio Corral, and Lukacs himself, whose gilded and luminous paintings of dark subjects hang on the walls of the rich and famous, including Madonna. When Hank Bull, director of Centre A, shouted, “It’s amazing. Everybody’s here!” he was not exaggerating. On every floor of the building, people were exchanging hugs and long-time-no-see friends were sharing up-dates. There were artists, including: Terry Ewasiuk, Jim Cummins (a.k.a. I Braineater), Brian Boulton, Tracey Pincott, Tiko Kerr, Jeannie Kamins, Henri Robideau, Donna Partridge et al. and hundreds of art fans: Niels and Nancy Bendtsen of Inform Furniture, Jennifer Winsor of Winsor Gallery, collector Rick Erickson and Downtown East-side dentist Dr. Sean Sikorski to name a few. Prada rubbed up against Value Village togs. It was a happy, democratic art event, showing Vancouver at its best. mv