Parking Lot is our lax interview series where we get to really know an artist, designer and other creative types. We get to learn about their current work and some random facts about them and some telling ones too. In our first edition, we recently meet up with artist/designer Nancy Nguyen to learn a bit about what she thinks of the color pink, her tips for online dating, what she thinks is overrated and the highs and lows of putting up a one-person show.      :nancy nguyan    "I’ve always been making work through a graphic design sensibility even throughout school so the work wasn’t personal until I started on a project where I had to ask myself what I was interested in, and why. And that led me into making a...

A couple things come to mind when looking at work by Danny Fox; it can range from at times being very unnerving and surreal to being intense and exciting when viewed all at the same time. He liberally plays with color like a happy sugar-high kid. Fox is a self-taught artist; he has never been to art school or had to sit through any crits offered in any formal studio art classes. In that, his paintings reveal a charming sense of inquisitiveness for form in painting. Though with that sense of childish naiveté to his renderings, he toys with reoccurring off-center motifs of strip clubs, cowboys, cowboys riding on horses, boxing matches, and sense of ruckus and sheer hedonistic revelry. What makes Fox's work interesting to us is his freewheeling...

When it comes to creating work, multidisciplinary artist Qidong Bai operates with an experimental approach through a variety of mediums to bring her ideas and personal expressions forward. She recently completed a body of work for a group show that focused around her conscious awareness of minor shifts in a given environment as time transitions. We met up with Bai to learn more about her work and processes she takes in making work.       :qidong bai        "I’ve been told my work can come off as being a bit vague at times and I don’t know if it’s a bad thing or not but I don’t mind it being that way actually. I think “vague” for me is a good thing. It gives people space to bring themselves in it. There are...

It’s certainly something to applaud for when people (which is not many) look at the made up distinction between what is considered to be high culture and low culture and just says fuck all that, and goes on to create a succulent smoothie that blends everything together nicely while raising the populist substance of the internet to art. Winnipeg-based artist Erin Jung easily achieves this with her current body of work which concerns itself with how identities are formulated particularly in relation to pop culture. She created an online persona named Megan Irwin. Megan Irwin was born out of her experience of other users who take on alternate identities informed by pop culture. Jung plays Megan, a devoted fan of pop star Zayn Malik who creates detailed renderings of her...

SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN HIS STUFFED SCHEDULE, I GOT THE CHANCE TO SIT DOWN WITH WINNIPEG PRINT MEDIA  ARTIST JEREMIAH VALLE IN HIS LOVELY STUDIO TO TALK ABOUT HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH TATTOOS, THE CULTURE SURROUNDING IT, AND HOW HE USES THAT TO TALK ABOUT DEEPER ISSUES THROUGH HIS EVER-EXPERIMENTAL TAKE ON PRINT MEDIA.      Before we get to talking I see a print on Valle’s studio desk and I’m taken by it, I ask Valle how he made it...but I soon find out that print in particular was one by his mentor, friend and former instructor Ted Horoworth Valle goes on to enthusiastically talk about him: “That print is mezzotint. I’ve worked for Ted and I’ve worked at his house and his house is just filled with prints. Prints just everywhere. He...

Somewhere between brilliant playful colours and overt terror lies the now Vancouver-based artist Anwen Liu’s new body of work. She's interested in how those contrasting sides can be used to portray personal narratives. We catch up with Liu to talk about why nightmares can be productive, why it’s important for her to make work that directly involves the viewer/the audience, her natural inclination to build oversize spaces and sculptures, her recent interest in death, and why she’s obsessed with Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared among other talking points.     Luther Konadu: Did people know to grab a piece of your sculpture?   Anwen Liu: I had to stand there the whole time, talk to people and assure them that it was fine to take a bottle of origami stars. I feel like...

We sit down with Winnipeg based artist Jane Yagi to talk about luxury problems, chicken wings, shopping at home depot as an artist and the clarity that comes from being specific.