Church Street Mural - Kiss and Tell is up

Before

Me on scaffold

Working with help to seal the prints

Do you see similarities?

Three out of the five couples.

 This project certainly had its ups and downs and I was happy to work with Teresa from UCA Branding Inc to put up the prints and including to erect the scaffold. I am happy it is done and now we wait and see for World Pride 2014.

Check out my interview as part of Queer Story. Kiss and Tell Video

Test-ify

I created this image for my Postervirus; 2013 Launch poster (which I will post once I get a copy of it with the text- "Religion can't protect you"). 

This piece is called "Test-ify" and with it I am addressing the use of religion to oppress, ostracize and violently discriminate against people with hiv/aids in the black and Afro-Caribbean communities. I am suggesting that we fight this ‘power’ and the spread of the virus, by getting tested and also ‘testifying’ to the truth of what's going on in the community - the ostracism, the ignorance about the virus and the violence committed in the name of religion.

 

For this piece I used adinkra symbols; and the devil/angel comes out of devil character from Trinidad carnival – where there are many colored devils – this one is a white devil.

 

Size of piece is 8.5 x14 inches and materials used are acrylic ink, oil pastel, mirrors, safety pins on mylar.

Church Street Mural Launch

Church Street Mural Launch - Councillor, some of the Artists and Curators

The BMO Church Street Mural Launch occurred on 19th October 2013 (a day before my birthday). In the pictures you have Kristyn Wong-Tam the Councillor who is heading up this project in conjunction with the Church St BIA and World Pride 2014. In the other picture are some of the artists - Troy Brooks, William Craddock, Meera Sethi, the two curators- James Fowler and Syrus Marcus Ware and myself - Natalie Wood.

Update - Church Street Murals

So just to update: I will be working at 66 Wellesley Street East on the East wall of Ho Team. I will be working with UCA branding company. They will print and help me install my artwork sometime in early September 2013. However many of the other muralists will be working on their walls starting at the end of July 2013. So if you are in the Church and Wellesley neighbourhood look up to see if you see any artists hard at work. Here is the link for the project - Church Street Murals.

This is the Mural Idea I will be creating for World Pride 2014. My site to create this work will be O'Grady's on Church St. My plan is to create the work digitally and have it printed onto the walls using a tattoo art process.

The Mural Idea references Gran Fury's Kissing does not Kill poster and will have silhouetted images of Kissers that hold the texts, anthologies, novels, magazines etc that make visible the lives of queers.

Part of this project includes a request that people share with me the texts, novels, anthologies that sustained them as they were coming out and were seminal to understanding their lives and experiences as queers. I will then add those novels/ texts to the mural silhouettes.