(Friday & Saturday – 324 5th Street )
Thursday June 2: 4-10pm, Friday June 3: 4-10pm and Saturday June 4: Noon-10pm.
Outsider art of 80’s Vancouver!
Curator’s statement:
An exhibition of select works from a larger collection that connect through geography, vibe, and that magical era – the 80’s.
An exciting art scene emerged in Vancouver during the 80’s. The epicentre being Gastown and the Eastside with it’s abundance of artist run galleries and studio spaces. Indy bands, performance artists, poets, fringe stages, and ‘outsider’ artists were the landscape. Much of that influence can be seen in this collection. It is extravagant, provocative, and bold. It has post pop/punk undertones and is as eccentric as the artists who created it.
These paintings ,drawings, prints, sculptures, stand alone as collectible pieces. 30 years later they are still relevant, whether in relation to the artist’s current work or in their commentary. As a group they are representative of a decade of fantastic, West Coast, urban art.
Ocean Varney
Collector’s statement:
One of my most powerful passions in life has been making and collecting art. My taste in visual art is eclectic, but as an artist and curator myself, I recognize really good art. And for some reason, it just seems to migrate to me like refugees cast adrift in a world that doesn’t really care about art. I do care about it and art has an important place in my being.
I purchased my first art work when I was 17, a lovely etching, which cost $12 – at a time when $1 an hour was a decent wage. When I was at university, I edited a literary magazine called “Poems and Prints” and I bought, for very reasonable prices (since I was working my way thru my education), many of the prints that found a place in the magazine. Collecting art is not only for the wealthy – particularly if you purchase work from artists at the beginning of their careers.
Over time, I continued to buy art and to trade my own work to artists I knew. I never paid very much, my intention was to later sell early works I acquired to fund subsequent purchases. As it turned out, I never did sell any of my collection. I almost always knew the artists whose work I collected, that was one of the reasons I collected it. Owning their work sometimes helped them out financially. Trading or purchasing work was a statement that what they were doing was valuable, and was part of an ongoing relationship with them. In the 80s, my printing business (which I founded in 1969) prospered and I often dealt with artists who wanted their work printed. I sometimes traded printing for art and was able to continue purchasing modestly priced work.
When you are in the midst of your life, you don’t notice the big picture as it develops around you. Social and artistic trends come and go and barely register. It is only later in retrospect that you realize the tide of history has carried you along and what remains is the flotsam and jetsam that has washed up on your beach. Each piece of work has its own story to tell. The art that I collected in the 80s, I now realize, loosely defines a sort of post pop neo punk surrealist sensibility which infected artists of the era.
So my collection reflects who I knew, where I lived (Vancouver for nearly 40 years) and what I could acquire on a budget. It also reflects what those particular artists were thinking and doing. I was just a small eddy in the turbulence of the times where a bunch of art ended up in my possession. My collection also reflects a continuing ongoing commitment to the process of collecting.
Needless to say, I really love my collection. Every work evokes a memory and tells a story. Together it is a visual feast. I don’t know what the collection is worth and I don’t care since I don’t want to sell it. However, I do eventually have to find a home for it – hopefully one that will be able to keep it intact.
Ed Varney 2016
