|
|
|
|
|
|
AAtb.jpg)
Atb.jpg)
Atb.jpg)
|
|
115 Maryland Street (3)
Location Map
A.jpg)
'Puppy Love'
|
Location: NE corner Maryland & Westminster, North Face
Occupant: Foodfare
District: West End
Neighbourhood: West Broadway
Artist(s): Gabrielle Funk, Takashi Iwasaki
Year: 2014
Sponsors: West Broadway BIZ, Synonym Art Consultation, Wall to Wall Mural & Culture Festival, Graffiti Art Programming
|
|
|
Takashi Iwasaki: "Gabrielle Funk and I were invited to work on the wall of Food Fare
on Maryland Street by a duo art consultation team Synonym Art
Consultation (for more information on this group click on their link in the
sponsor field on this page) as part of a Wall-to-wall Mural Exhibition & Festival which
they organized."
"Gabrielle has been working on a theme of animals for quite some time and wanted
to incorporate dogs, which a lot of people in the neighbourhood have as their
companions. I wanted to brighten up the neighbourhood with playfulness and vivid
colours."
"We designed our elements separately - Gabrielle did the dogs, and I did the rest -
and then combined them together in a way that they complemented each other
visually and conceptually."
"These seemingly aggressive dogs barking at each other are shooting hearts. They
represent human conditions - could be interpreted as love and hate, superficial
appearance and actual intention, conversation and arguments, etc. Our lives have
many facets. Or they may be just barking at each other. Dogs are dogs. We humans
don't entirely understand what they do, like we humans never completely
understand each other!"
"One day, Gabrielle's mom dropped by when the painting was mostly done, and we
had a chat. In that conversation, she was talking about the existing Mural painting of
a fruit market scene done by Dorothy Streilein (located on the right of our painting).
Gabrielle's mom saw it and jokingly told us that we had to incorporate some element from it -
a wagon wheels, apples, watermelon or something in it. I found her idea quite amusing, so I
secretly put a very realistic looking watermelon, which is also painted in Dorothy's painting.
You may not notice the watermelon in our painting if you just pass by it casually. One of the
floating dots just above the hearts is a watermelon. It was important for me to somehow
capture my memory of our conversation and laughter in that watermelon as our
memento."
"I like painting things that are floating and elusive, undefined and unrestricted, and suggest
movements. That's how I came up my part. Adding the gray 'shadow' was my plan from the
beginning, so that the entire painting looks like it's elevated from the wall surface. I know that
people look at it and don't quite understand what it is, but certainly feel something good and
positive about looking at it, and the image and feeling stay in their memory. I like making
things which do those things to people."
For more information on Takashi Iwasaki, visit his website at http://www.takashiiwasaki.info/
|
|
