IntoThis – Details, episodes & analysis

In Episode #31 Marx has a conversation with Canadian artist David Elliott

David Elliott is a staple of the Canadian community of painters, he has been associated with the late seventies and early eighties return to figuration. David was born in Niagara on the Lake and grew up in several towns in Ontario. In this interview he shares the story that he calls the “Eureka moment”, when he discovered a painting in the London (Ontario) library and everything happened in the arts after that.

David moved to Montreal to pursue his BFA and MFA degrees at Concordia University where he also was part of the faculty until he retired recently.

In this interview he describes his work and being a professor, he is able to elegantly place his work around many historical references including the music of the moment (Beetles, etc.) and also he shared a long list of artists both Canadian and international that played an important role in his artistic development.

His work is collected in prestigious private and public collections around Canada

I am very pleased to be able to share this conversation with David Elliott, it’s one of those that is packed with great insights and information that artists specifically may not want to miss.

Thanks for listening!

In Episode #30 Yam Lau talks to Marx about his views on what is to be an artist. He also shared  the incredible story of getting to meet his biological father during his 40s, this story involves a very enthusiastic group of young artists in china and the secret Chinese police!

Yam Lau is a Toronto based artist, professor and community organizer. He was born in Hong Kong and moved to Canada when he was 15 years old. He completed his MFA at the university of Alberta in 1997 and then moved to Toronto where he has been working and living since then. He is represented by Christie contemporary in Toronto

As an artist, Yam explores new expressions and qualities of space, time and the image through the application of painting, computer-animation and digital video. In this conversation he talks about the concept of trying to make the world lighter with his art, this comes through in his work as the space being one of the major characters in his pieces.

Yam teaches at York University just north of Toronto in the department of visual art and art history, throughout this conversation we talk about his reading on how the relationship between students and art degrees have evolved and become more “professionalized”

Finally Yam is also a community organizer, he leads an ongoing art space hosted in his home, he invites artists to create an exhibition responding to his house architecture and he sees this project as an empowering activity for himself and his artists friends given that it lays outside of any commercial endeavour. Another of his projects in collaboration with artist Michal Yuan was called Donkey Institute of Contemporary Arts, this project was realized in Beijing China around and the premise of adapt to the convention of the street peddler who meanders through Beijing neighbourhoods with a donkey selling products. In this case the donkey was dragging a cart with an retrofitted series of wooden modules or boxes that served as a mobile display in which the texts, works and videos displayed, were accessible to passers-by. 

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For our first episode of 2019 and overall Episode 21 Marx has a conversation with Roxanne Arsenault. She is the co-general and artistic coordinator, responsible for programming at the artist run center Clark, she also leads a music project called Donzelle and she is involved in many other cultural and artistic projects in the city of Montreal such as Pop Montreal.

Roxanne was very generous and forthcoming with her answers not only about her personal development and her path to arrive where she is but also about genuinely difficult topics such as the responsibility of an artist run center in the current art climate and what type of risks are they willing to take to keep things fresh and not redundant which is something that happens often!

In her musical pursues she shares the type of collaboration that make possible Donzelle and the sensibility and message behind this project. You can find her music all over on YouTube, Spotify or on Donzelle’s website: https://donzelle.ca

It was a huge honor to have had the chance to talk to Roxanne and we hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we have enjoyed producing it.

On a side note TAP Art Space is accepting project submissions until January 15th of 2019, check out the details in TAP’s website https://www.tapmontreal.com

Thanks for listening!

In Episode 18 of IntoThis Podcast, Marx has a conversation with recently arrived Brooklyn-based painter Benjamin Klein. In this episode Ben shares his non-traditional trajectory to the visual arts, he was a martial artists for many years until he gave in to his strong desire to create paintings.

After completing a BA in English Literature at Concordia University it was evident that he needed to change paths, he then made his way to arts school finishing his BFA at Concordia University in 2005, then after a period of time dedicated to the direction of commercial galleries in Montreal, he decided to pursue an MFA at University of Guelph. He was one of the RBC painting competition finalists in 2010 and he was represented by Joyce Yahouda Gallery until it's closure in 2016.

In this generous conversation Ben shares his experiences as a painter, curator, the impact of being involved in the direction of a commercial gallery, what ideas and sensibilities are behind his paintings and a lot more. You can learn more about his work in his website