Cam Andrews
lives and works in Vancouver, BC.
Cam Andrews is inspired by the urban environment of downtown Vancouver, where he lives and works. His artistic practice incorporates found media, archival images and original photography. Recent works reference 1960’s pop art and the commodification of symbols of violence by the mainstream media.
Cam Andrews is inspired by the urban environment of downtown Vancouver, where he lives and works. His artistic practice incorporates found media, archival images and original photography. Recent works reference 1960’s pop art and the commodification of symbols of violence by the mainstream media.
UPCOMING EXHIBITION
There Goes the Neighbourhood
2004 - 2022
January 7 - February 4, 2023
Strathcona
Opening in January of 2023, this exhibition is a survey of silkscreen prints done in Vancouver, BC between 2004 and 2022. Finding inspiration in found photos, text, shell casings, to do lists, silk screens and tabloid headlines. The gifts you get while walking your neighbourhood if you look around. "There Goes the Neighbourhood" is a survey of Cam Andrews artistic practice over the past 20 years.
Vancouver Portraits
"The series started when I was gifted some large screens form Ian Wallace, unknown to me at the time, they still had the burned images from his 1986 “Poverty” series. These images really aligned with my concept for the Vancouver Portraits series which looked at the dichotomy of the city of Vancouver. As well Ian as a Vancouver artist has been very influential in my own practice. I have watched Vancouver grow and change since the early 70s and develop its identity of a world class city that has a pretty apparent darker underbelly common with most port cities. The series looks at the themes of environmental beauty, tourism, real estate development, gentrification, crime, gambling, poverty, the film industry and sex trafficking… all the things that make up Vancouver.
Each print is built through printing layers of my own photographs and found text and image on top one of Ians images that were printed from his original screens, I then washed his screens and continued to use them through the series for each color." (Cam Andrews)
Each print is built through printing layers of my own photographs and found text and image on top one of Ians images that were printed from his original screens, I then washed his screens and continued to use them through the series for each color." (Cam Andrews)
Past group show at Mónica Reyes Gallery
Cam Andrews | Sandwich Special (2017)
Jessica Bushey | Declarations (2017)
Sandwich Special is a reference to the diner menu board Cam Andrews uses to typeset his text pieces. Through the juxtaposition of text and brightly coloured pop images, Andrews highlights the fast, fleeting and superficial reality that is presented through "selfie culture." The text pieces paired with images are headlines that Andrews has curated from tabloids, exploring the idea that celebrity culture itself has adopted the selfie as a form of currency, to be traded and collected. Through social media platforms, the selfie allows celebrities "them" and civilians "us" to constantly create identities and promote new personas.
Declarations are text-based works that draw upon What's App exchanges that reveal the early stages of cross-cultural flirtation. Combining different mobile applications to translate, send and receive texts, Bushey explores how identities are formed and seduction is conducted within the limitations of specific technologies. Bushey is interested in the slippage that occurs and the poetry that emerges. The body of work includes 30 translated declarations, which are embossed in gold charms and also available through a mobile subscription service for a period of one month enabling the collector to experience the thrill of seduction.
Cam Andrews and Jessica Bushey pursue individual, as well as collaborative art practices. Their most recent collaboration was, "fugitive" an installation in the group exhibition entitled Through the Trapdoor (2014), which transformed a storage locker into a light box to explore technologies of memory. The project was the result of an invitation to artists to temporarily inhabit a storage rental building that was scheduled for demolition. Prior to that, Andrews and Bushey installed a series of large-scale photographs of convicted criminals from the early 1900's at the corner of Robson and Granville Streets. The work, titled "Rogues' Gallery" was born out of an archival police ledger and was in response to an invitation to artists to explore the history of Vancouver. The installation referenced recent Stanley Cup riots and methods used by the authorities to identify potential law breakers via social media. It also highlights early approaches to policing based on race, gender and class.
Cam Andrews is an owner and creative director of Bomber Brewing. Jessica Bushey is an archives consultant with the UN Climate Change secretariat in Bonn, Germany. Andrews and Bushey have been exhibiting their artwork in Vancouver for the past twenty-years and have numerous received grants and awards, including Canada Council for the Arts (CCA) and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).
Declarations are text-based works that draw upon What's App exchanges that reveal the early stages of cross-cultural flirtation. Combining different mobile applications to translate, send and receive texts, Bushey explores how identities are formed and seduction is conducted within the limitations of specific technologies. Bushey is interested in the slippage that occurs and the poetry that emerges. The body of work includes 30 translated declarations, which are embossed in gold charms and also available through a mobile subscription service for a period of one month enabling the collector to experience the thrill of seduction.
Cam Andrews and Jessica Bushey pursue individual, as well as collaborative art practices. Their most recent collaboration was, "fugitive" an installation in the group exhibition entitled Through the Trapdoor (2014), which transformed a storage locker into a light box to explore technologies of memory. The project was the result of an invitation to artists to temporarily inhabit a storage rental building that was scheduled for demolition. Prior to that, Andrews and Bushey installed a series of large-scale photographs of convicted criminals from the early 1900's at the corner of Robson and Granville Streets. The work, titled "Rogues' Gallery" was born out of an archival police ledger and was in response to an invitation to artists to explore the history of Vancouver. The installation referenced recent Stanley Cup riots and methods used by the authorities to identify potential law breakers via social media. It also highlights early approaches to policing based on race, gender and class.
Cam Andrews is an owner and creative director of Bomber Brewing. Jessica Bushey is an archives consultant with the UN Climate Change secretariat in Bonn, Germany. Andrews and Bushey have been exhibiting their artwork in Vancouver for the past twenty-years and have numerous received grants and awards, including Canada Council for the Arts (CCA) and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).
