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Trans Am Totem is the latest installation of the Vancouver Biennale, part of the 2014–2016 Vancouver Biennale Open Air Museum supporting public art. It consists of five partially restored car wrecks atop the base of an old growth cedar tree. It’s 10 metres high and weighs 11,340 kilograms. The cars and the tree base were…
“We are here to awaken from the illusion of separateness.” Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist monk Gently lit with neon, let’s heal the divide is a recent installation on the wall of the Vancouver Community College (VCC) Downtown Campus at Hamilton and Pender, part of the 2014-2016 Vancouver Biennale Open Air Museum supporting public art. It’s…
The Festival du Bois has now finished but this wood sculpture by Michel Campeau will remain as a tribute to the festival and to francophone culture in Mackin Park, Maillardville, Coquitlam, BC. It’s an eight-foot wooden sculpture of a lumberjack, carved from salvaged cedar wood. Eventually it will be painted and accompanied by a second…
This extraordinary bronze sculpture sits outside the landscape architectural firm of Paul Sangha at 1622 West 7th Ave., Vancouver, about a block west of Le Centre, the Francophone cultural centre. Jeri is at least life-size and very life-like. His veins and musculature are very pronounced. Although he sits calmly in a contemplative squatting position, he…
Feb. 12 will mark the fifth anniversary of the opening of the Vancouver Winter Olympics. The four metres bronze sculpture pictured here at the corner of Thurlow and Cordova, not far from the Olympic Cauldron, was a gift from Olympia, Greece to the city of Vancouver to commemorate the 2010 games. It’s a tradition that…
Triumph of the Technocrat by Vancouver artist Reece Terris is the featured artwork at the outside ground level of The Lauren at 1051 Broughton St. The interior design of the building is by Westbank and the architect is Henriquez Partners. The Lauren is touted as “the first new high rise purpose-built market rental building to…
If you’re coming over the Granville Bridge into downtown, you’ll be struck with the view of life-sized orcas on the side of the Continental Hotel. This is one of 100 famous murals or “Whaling Walls” created by US environmental artist, Wyland. The Wyland project of creating 100 whale murals began in the early 1980’s and…
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Komagata Maru incident. The Komagata Maru was a Japanese owned freighter chartered out of Hong Kong in April of 1914 by 376 Punjabis, mostly Sikhs, bound from Kolkata (Calcutta), India to Vancouver, BC. The first Punjabi Sikhs arrived in Canada around 1903 working in industries such as…
The construction beneath the photo-mural at the Georgia and Granville Canada Line Station is a messy, complex and many-layered project which will mark the new entrance to Nordstrom’s fashion retail store. The photo-mural depicted is part of many art works honouring and celebrating the City of Vancouver’s Year of Reconciliation which acknowledges “the negative cultural…
Freezing Water #7 had become a familiar and loved sculpture in Vanier Park, just east of the Maritime Museum. It was an installation for Vancouver’s 2009–2011 Biennale, erected in 2009 just prior to the 2010 Winter Olympics. In September 2014, apparently eroded beyond repair, workers cut it into pieces, and loaded it on a flat…
Driftwood has been placed together to form the word HAPPY on this rocky beach viewed from the cliffs of Helliwell Provincial Park on Hornby Island, BC. It was Thanksgiving weekend and maybe this was the purpose for the word or there may be other reasons, which you’ll find by reading further. It’s an ecologically sensitive…
Québécoise artist Danaé Brissonnet is in front of her mural, Reconnection. She’s painting it on the Moss St. side of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (AGGV). The mural was part of the Puppets for Peace Celebration, the first of its kind, taking place in Victoria September 19–21, 2014. It was a collaboration between the…
Sunset at Alexandra Park is indeed beautiful. Located along Beach Ave. at Bidwell St. across from Vancouver’s English Bay, this charming little park has been part of Vancouver’s history since the early 1900’s. The sun is shining through the Hayward Bandstand, built in 1914 and celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. Concerts at Hayward Bandstand…
