Tiko Kerr
b. Edmonton, Alberta
CV
Tiko Kerr is a Canadian artist who has developed his artistic processes in Vancouver since the early 1980’s. Kerr attended the University of Calgary and graduated with a degree in Biological Science, which he believes has enhanced his ability to translate the 3-dimensional world into 2 dimensions.
Kerr has been commissioned by The City of Vancouver, the BC Centre for Excellence, Vancouver Opera, The Vancouver Symphony, the Celebration of Light and The Vancouver Sun Run. He has collaborated with Ballet British Columbia, painting in performance on 2 projects and was commissioned to create sets for “Boy Wonder”, Canada’s first original 3 act ballet, again working with Ballet British Columbia, and with Touchstone Theatre and Vancouver New Music. He was commissioned to create the sets for another theatre production of “Marion Bridge” at The Kay Meek Arts Centre in 2018. He did an Artist Residency at the Brodsky Centre for Innovative Printmaking at Rutgers University, another at the West End Community Center in Vancouver, where he created 3 murals and more recently, another outdoor wall mural in 2018 for the Kitsilano 4th Avenue Business Association. Kerr has been Guest Artist twice for the Paradise Valley Artists for Kids Summer Camp and is active in teaching and lecturing. Recent exhibitions include a solo show at The Gordon Smith Gallery of Canadian Art in North Vancouver, BC and a group show at the Grosvenor Building in West Vancouver, BC.
Tiko Kerr is a Vancouver-based visual artist whose 30 year long exhibition history includes fervent explorations into performance, set and mural design and social activism. Kerr’s abstract paintings and works on paper explore his interest in the consumption of images, cultural motifs and authorship.
Often beginning as paper collages cut from artists’ monographs and interspersed with personal ephemera, Kerr’s work relies on a kind of cross between surrealist and pop art sensibilities in their automatic and irreverent mashups of high and low culture. The resultant work with its immediacy of gesture and free association, evoke spatial and figurative illusions which encourage viewers to reconsider their relationship to the familiar.
CV
Tiko Kerr is a Canadian artist who has developed his artistic processes in Vancouver since the early 1980’s. Kerr attended the University of Calgary and graduated with a degree in Biological Science, which he believes has enhanced his ability to translate the 3-dimensional world into 2 dimensions.
Kerr has been commissioned by The City of Vancouver, the BC Centre for Excellence, Vancouver Opera, The Vancouver Symphony, the Celebration of Light and The Vancouver Sun Run. He has collaborated with Ballet British Columbia, painting in performance on 2 projects and was commissioned to create sets for “Boy Wonder”, Canada’s first original 3 act ballet, again working with Ballet British Columbia, and with Touchstone Theatre and Vancouver New Music. He was commissioned to create the sets for another theatre production of “Marion Bridge” at The Kay Meek Arts Centre in 2018. He did an Artist Residency at the Brodsky Centre for Innovative Printmaking at Rutgers University, another at the West End Community Center in Vancouver, where he created 3 murals and more recently, another outdoor wall mural in 2018 for the Kitsilano 4th Avenue Business Association. Kerr has been Guest Artist twice for the Paradise Valley Artists for Kids Summer Camp and is active in teaching and lecturing. Recent exhibitions include a solo show at The Gordon Smith Gallery of Canadian Art in North Vancouver, BC and a group show at the Grosvenor Building in West Vancouver, BC.
Tiko Kerr is a Vancouver-based visual artist whose 30 year long exhibition history includes fervent explorations into performance, set and mural design and social activism. Kerr’s abstract paintings and works on paper explore his interest in the consumption of images, cultural motifs and authorship.
Often beginning as paper collages cut from artists’ monographs and interspersed with personal ephemera, Kerr’s work relies on a kind of cross between surrealist and pop art sensibilities in their automatic and irreverent mashups of high and low culture. The resultant work with its immediacy of gesture and free association, evoke spatial and figurative illusions which encourage viewers to reconsider their relationship to the familiar.
currently on view
PLEXUS
January 9, 2021 - February 13, 2021
Image credit: Alan Somerville
Within the painting process exist opportunities to both illuminate and to obfuscate.
"I’ve chosen to work on the modest medium of plexiglass at a time when it has taken on a new and important role as a transparent, protective barrier that can shield us from an insidious virus and, at the same time, isolates us from one another. It is also at this contemporary moment when we all are suffering under the omnipresent burden of distorted socio-political issues where transparency and truth can no longer be taken for granted." (Tiko Kerr)
These plexiglass works provide an opportunity to look closer and deeper, to explore networks in paint suspended mid-stroke and to challenge the authenticity of what we see.
In the tradition of Twombly and Pollock these explorations may also offer a small window onto an indescribable cosmos.
Within the painting process exist opportunities to both illuminate and to obfuscate.
"I’ve chosen to work on the modest medium of plexiglass at a time when it has taken on a new and important role as a transparent, protective barrier that can shield us from an insidious virus and, at the same time, isolates us from one another. It is also at this contemporary moment when we all are suffering under the omnipresent burden of distorted socio-political issues where transparency and truth can no longer be taken for granted." (Tiko Kerr)
These plexiglass works provide an opportunity to look closer and deeper, to explore networks in paint suspended mid-stroke and to challenge the authenticity of what we see.
In the tradition of Twombly and Pollock these explorations may also offer a small window onto an indescribable cosmos.
List of works
TIKO KERR
He has been an advocate for many social causes ranging from health and children’s issues to education and housing. Tiko is a respected figure in our community and we thank him for sharing his thoughts on the COVID-19 situation. March 22, 2020 |
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