Drawn Festival: Sketching Out a Celebration
Anselmo Swan Cupcake #2 2008
Drawing, drafting, sketching and other forms of mark-making take centre stage in Vancouver this month with Drawn, an inaugural city-wide festival celebrating contemporary drawing in all its forms. Among the more interesting reappraisals of the method are works by up-and-coming local artists, such as Anna Plesset’s elegant pencil reproductions of newspaper headlines at Jeffrey Boone Gallery, or Brian Boulton’s careful photorealist portraits at Winsor Gallery. Some thematic exhibitions, such as Marion Scott Gallery’s “Extreme Drawing” featuring pieces by Arnaqu Ashevak and Shuvinai Ashoona, focus on regional developments. Others, like “Assembly” at Monte Clark Gallery, tackle more focused themes—in this case, the use of chalk as a drawing implement. A handful of historical exhibitions by West Coast luminaries, like a B.C. Binning survey at the Burnaby Art Gallery and a Jack Shadbolt retrospective at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, helpfully anchor the new festival with historical context. The hope is for an event that, much like the medium it honours, emphasizes intimacy and immediacy.
David Alexander Sidehill, Oyama Lake 2009
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