Storytelling in various forms

Last Thursday, I went to the ESP Gallery  that was featuring the Clothing Brand Experiment “CBE”- debuting limited edition shirts created by a collaboration of local Toronto artists. The shirts were so beautiful and unique that I couldn’t resist myself and instantly bought one. By the end of the night, I was able to catch up with one of the artists, Nik Dudukovic.

I was curious to know what had inspired Dudukovic’s designs. His design kinda reminded me of a mix of Egyptian art and dark folklore symbolism.He later described it to be “a schematic diagram of an ancient ritual. The story of the tree levitator is revealed, allowing a fluid and selective narrative to establish itself.”

I love how he was able to combine simplistic forms with a complex narrative, finding a happy medium that was both appropriate and captivating. It was very inspiring to be able to talk to him about his art, and I couldn’t be happier than to give my support to CBE products.

A little background info

CBE is a Toronto-based company producing high-end, unisex apparel that focuses on the “experimental and love for collaboration”. All CBE products are exclusively made in Toronto and purposefully designed for long lasting comfort and style. Since 2008, they’ve established a strong artistic vision that has allowed them to gain notoriety and growth in Toronto’s fashion scene.

Nik Dudukovic is a recent graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design, graduating with a BFA in printmaking. Born in Belgrade, Serbia, Dudukovic currently works in Toronto as an artist and freelance illustrator.  His work merges the nostalgia of turn-of-the-century cartoons and illustrations with the familiarity of blemish-free draftsmanship. His work has been internationally published, exhibited and kept in public and private collections.

Images provided by Nik Dudukovic

Contact:
Nik Dudukovic
nik.dudukovic@gmail.com

For T-shirt sales information:
Clothing Brand Experiment
info@clothingbrandexperiment.com
CAN -  416 997 3559
US -  347 257 5975

PO BOX 26 STN E

Bryan Espiritu, the creative mastermind behind TheLegendsLeague and Ideall Clothing, has released his new Vault Series T-Shirts. He has given us behind-the-scene imagery of his classic Hold ‘Em Down design process and the steps he took to revamp it.

“TheLegendsLeague Vault Series” is a new T-Shirt project by Bryan. In the next 8 months, he will periodically release 16 LegendsLeague tees created from the past 5 years. These tees will be either released in new colourways, redesigned and improved,  left untouched or presented in different ways that fully accentuate the potential of the designs. Each of these VS tees will have a special VS logo on the sleeve- a reissuing mark.

Click here to get the breakdown of the design process behind the Hold ‘Em Down logo.

For more info, visit TheLegendsLeague.com

Last Thursday, OCAD University opened it’s doors for their 97th annual, four-day grad exhibition, showcasing the works of graduates from the 2012 class. With more than 550 graduates from twelve different undergraduate programs, there was an expected volume of 20,000 visitors throughout the event. This annual grad exhibition has proven to be one of Toronto’s biggest art event, year in and year out.

We had the pleasure of attending the opening, and was given the opportunity of browsing through the various programs. The Illustration Program was one in particular that caught our eye, featuring the works by some of our favourite artists: Eunice Luk, Kelly Kwang, Jeannie Phan, few among many others. It was also great seeing our friends’ works while checking out the new up-and-coming artists of Toronto.

Congratulations once again to OCADs 2012 newly grads! (made-up term..deal with it)

Images by: OCAD Illustrations

Eunice Luk

Jeannie Phan

Kelly Kwang

UNO was a conglomerate mesh of street artists mainly from Toronto and a selective few in other North America cities. Even when we arrived at 8:30, there was already a line to get into the Brickworks, on top of a bigger line to get beer tickets and a MASSIVE line to get your hands on some Mexican street food. Thankfully there were no extreme crowds clustering the work.

For those who haven’t been to the Brickworks before, this being my first time, it’s essentially an abandoned brick factory, that was a popular spot for raves and graffiti artists in the 80s and 90s. They ran into some legal issues because of the graffiti bylaws and luckily, won the case.

The fact that the graffiti had some history enhanced the whole experience. The artists at UNO hung their framed pieces on wooden bars that suspended on metal frames. There were two rows of work, and in my opinion,  less than what I thought there would be. The selected works were impressive nonetheless.

Johnny Crap at Matt Barnes were two artists I found particularly striking.

Johnny Crap (real name Jonathan Bergeron) a self-taught artist based in Montreal and continuously has his skull or what I call a floral-eyed motif? I’m not trying to offend his work because I think it’s brilliant, but there’s no other way I can describe the way he draws the eyes of most of his recent subjects. For UNO, he did his whole Darth Vader, eating a Taco and corn with a slice of lime, (how fitting for UNO) with his utility belt of Yoda sauce. The beauty is in the details.

Matt Barnes is a Toronto-based photographer, who currently works at Westside Studio in west mid-town Toronto. His piece for UNO consisted of two images, one of which can only be described as a skull bouquet and another photo of a skull-masked little boy standing on a stump in an eerie forest. Both of these fantastic shots blurred the border between photography and painting for me. Behind the scenes imagery is available on his blog.

Overall, everyone had impressive work, following the whole Friday the 13th skull theme. Congrats La Carnita!

Photos by Paddy Leung/darkmatters

Last friday was the opening for Tessar Lo‘s past, present, past-present,. art show at COOPER COLE GALLERY. On display were a new collection of paintings and a sculpture piece produced by darkmatters. It was an incredible night, seeing old friends and meeting new ones. Special thanks to Alice Lo, Leah Ataide, Tim Manalo (our new production manager/sculptor), without you guys this project would not have gone as smoothly as it did. Thanks to all of our friends and family who showed up, we appreciate all of your support. Last but not least thanks once again to Tessar Lo for this opportunity, it’s been a pleasure working with you on this project and we look forward to working with you again.

Photos by: Alice Lo