This Week In Town Of Cows News: Mason Hastie

He's got one too

Artpop Series 8: A Perfect Matador

A Perfect Matador Open Every Door To Your Heart, 2005

The Jacobites - Need A Friend

Artpop Series 7: Scott Walker Promises

Because You're Young And You'll Forget, 2003
Scott Walker - Because You're Young And You'll Forget

Made in Vancouver in 2003 before the studio burned down, this painting was the favourite of nearly everyone who had the image mass-emailed to them. It always felt a bit hokey, like a demonstration piece. Oh well, it's cinders now.
All this is getting a bit tired. Discussions of music and art and where they intersect might be more interesting if I had the energy to put into the implications of it all, or whether any implication ever existed. Quite honestly I named most paintings in mini naming bees. I would name 5 or 6 at a time and I don't think I wanted to take any responsibility for the titles, but didn't want untitled work. I found untitled work dry, but saddling an abstract painting with an elaborate title from my own head seemed to do nothing else but motion away from the work itself and to supporting texts.
It is amazing what having a few words about my work floating around, unwritten by me, has done to my willingness to engage in my own titling and loose writing.

Artpop Series 6: A Triple Bill

Just Beyond My Neighbour's House, 2005

The title comes from the Current 93 song "Whilst The Night Rejoices Profound And Still", a track I only have on vinyl, so I found a video of a live performance of the song:

The painting is owned by my longtime music partner, Gavin John Sheehan. He played with me in The American Deathfuckers, BlackBlack, and The Factory Hens. He's got his own long list of projects as well, and just joined Panopticon Eyelids as their bass player.
Panopticon Eyelid picked an image of this piece to use as the cover to their upcoming cassette on some label out of Brooklyn.
A tight little circle indeed.

Artpop Series 5: Clara Bowe And Open Toes

Clara Bowes and Open Toes, 2005
Jobriath - I'm A Man

Artpop Series 4: The Factory Hens

My band, The Factory Hens, will be playing on the 27th of September at Casa Del Popolo in Montreal
The Factory Hens - Torn Velvet Pants


Sticky Kitten On My Back, 2006
The Factory Hens - Town of Cows
I've only ever named one painting from my own lyrics. Happily the painting is now owned by a company in Calgary, the city the song's title suggests. The song is actually about Vancouver.

Artpop Series 3: Terry Jacks

I Guess That's Called A Good Thing Lost, 2005
The Poppy Family - A Good Thing Lost
Incidentally, this painting is a favourite of Roger Tellier-Craig from Pas Chic Chic.



Too Busy In The Backroom Writing Love Songs To You, 2004
Terry Jacks - Rock 'n' Roll (I Gave You All The Best Years)

Artpop Series 2: Do You Think He Can Kiss Me...

Do You Think He Can Kiss Me A Hundred Million Times, 2004
...And The Native Hipsters - Punk Kissing

I picked up a record by them at Recordland in Calgary for 5 dollars. I think it is the best mystery record I've ever found. They became my pet band in the time between leaving Vancouver and arriving in Montreal. I'd contacted the band and got a CD of their stuff, so my introduction to many people in Montreal was with a six pack and their CD.

Artpop Series 1: When You're Alone....

When You're Alone And You Don't Want To Be Grownup You Can Always Have A Breakdown, 2005

Television Personalities - My Very First Nervous Breakdown

A Special Series For Art Pop

Shawn Petsche wrote a mean tag line for Art Pop:
"ABOUT ART POP
POP Montreal’s visual arts component presents emerging, innovative, and celebrated artistic talents from outside of established art canons who are hyper-engaged with/within the points of intersection between music and visual arts (fuck dance, let’s art), high and low art (in a non-boring way), and the transcendent experience with the everyday (lordavmerceh)."

Until this past year, most of my titles were drawn from songs or literature. I got to thinking today about my initial proposal to Shawn for the show with Marie-Douce that has become "Machine Molle". I had some idea about working with the titles that had been drawn from song lyrics. In the name of that aborted idea, I am going to be posting images of paintings with titles drawn from song lyrics and the songs they are drawn from in the weeks leading up to my show in the festival. And maybe a bit more about music in the studio and the musicians I count as close colleagues.

Art Pop 2007 Schedule or "October 6th: Wil Murray's Day of Forever"

Art Pop 2007 Schedule
See you on the 6th.

Daniel Langevin at Galerie René Blouin

Daniel Langevin
August 19th - September 30th

Galerie René Blouin
372, rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest, ch. 501

Spending time waiting for a phone call to finish, I got a chance to spend a lot of time with these paintings. I really like what has happened to Daniel's work.
The forms and the ground have come closer, and while edges get harder and crisp, the spilling off onto the edges is terrific. The mis-steps make the look rewarding for longer than one might expect from the installation photographs.

New Painting: Looking back On Your First Desktop Theme It Smelled Like A Child's Potty

"He was a medical tinker and no longer wore his half face in the fishbowl light of the amphitheater. He put his hands to the hot stove. If there was one last operation to perform, he thought, what would it be, since he had spread anatomy across a table like a net and crumpled a pair of deflated lungs into a ball. There was none he knew. If a single body could bear all marks of his blade and if it carried only the organs of his dissection, his life work would seesaw across the floor under tresses of arms and ventricles hung from the shoulders, would turn the other emasculated cheek. Slowly he rolled his sleeves and reaching around the stove dropped celluloid cuffs on the bunk tumbled with newspapers and a khaki blanket"

From: "The Beetle Leg" by John Hawkes NDP239, 1951.

October Show: "Songs Of The Apocalypse"

Songs Of The Apocalypse
Curated by David Liss

October 6th to November 3rd

PDF Catalog

Jubal Brown, Mat Brown, Josh Bailey, François Escalmel, Sherri Hay & Camilla Singh, Raphael Iglesisas, Jason Gringler, Wil Murray, New Remote, Richard Stipl, Drew Simpson, Ted O'Sullivan, Nick and Sheila Pye, Fiona Smyth, John Nobreiga, Michael Toke

Galerie Art Mûr
5826 rue St-Hubert
Espace 4,5 & 6

Vernissage/Opening: Saturday October 6th, 3pm to 5pm

October Show: "Machine Molle"

Machine Molle
Commissaire : Marie-Douce St-Jacques

« Mal, dis-tu? Les taches de sang dans le blanc de tes yeux sont peinture, et les causes cette peinture sont variables : état fiévreux, refroidissement ou rhume, intoxication alimentaire légère, contrariété affective, etc. »

Les toiles de Wil Murray illustrent la métamorphose d’une machine inlassablement fonctionnelle.


Part of Artpop 2007
October 4th to 7th
In a haunted, abandoned medical centre.
Sherbrooke & Clark, Montreal

Opening: October 6th, 7pm

Special edition catalog available at the opening.

more info to follow