Opening + Exhibition Tour
March 1st, 2019 as part of our RMG Fridays: To the Unseen Future event. James Kirkpatrick will be in attendance and will give an exhibition tour at 8:15pm.
To The Unseen Future creates a space of spontaneity and discovery where social activity is unstructured yet unavoidable. Collapsing the boundary between artist, gallery and viewer, the exhibition will lead the visitor on a journey of discovery as one medium shifts and morphs into another. James Kirkpatrick’s work produces a space for social empathy to emerge, ignited by the intertwining of technological and human flaws, secrets and communication. He has gleaned his unique visual language through years of participation in the underground worlds of graffiti, hip-hop, noise music and surfing the Great Lakes.Kirkpatrick mixes vintage pop-culture imagery found in underground comics, retro video games, and outsider science fiction with symbolic references hidden in secret societies. He seamlessly integrates figuration and abstraction; painting and sculpture; drawing and sound; textiles and zines; performance and glitch. Weaving formal, alternate pop and historical elements into a very personal, visual narrative, Kirkpatrick delves into contemporary experiences while exploring archetypal questions.
Well known for his participation in the early Canadian graffiti movement and as avant-garde hip-hop artist Thesis Sahib, Kirkpatrick works in a variety of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, textiles, zines, mask-making and experimental sound improvisation. Most recently, he has incorporated kinetic and auditory elements into his work.
Curated by Lisa Daniels; organized and circulated by the Judith and Norman Alix Gallery in collaboration with The Robert McLaughlin Gallery