This month I participated in two art shows. One was about Krampus, the evil yang to Santa’s yin. If you’re naughty he will whip you and possibly take you to hell in his basket.

‘Krampusnacht Art Show’
Dec 2, 2010 – Jan 10, 2011 at RESISTOR GALLERY
284 College Street 2nd Floor, Toronto

This was my piece

Then there was the show about NBA star Ron Artest. He has started a brawl with the home team’s fans, drank Hennessey at half time, wore a Jersey with the number of weeks Thriller was at the top of the charts, applied for a job at Circuit City to get the employee discount, won a championship with the Lakers and is auctioning off the ring for mental health charities. He’s the most honest man in sports. While everyone else is talking about giving 110% and capitalizing on their chances, he’s ignoring the script and being genuine. That’s why I chose to paint him with all sorts of colourful, weird and wonderful things coming out of his mouth.

‘Loveable Badass: Artists on Artest’
Dec 18-22, 2010 at NARWHAL ART PROJECTS
680 Queen Street West, Toronto

There was a lot of press for the show, and the man himself even showed up to see what the deal was. Press reports can be found here and here as video, here, here, here, here, here and here.

I got to talk to him for a bit and he was really down to earth and friendly. He told me he started out majoring in art but found it too hard so he ended up taking math because it didn’t conflict with his basketball schedule. I told him I started out playing hoops but gave it up for art and he laughed. “It’s all cyclical”. Me and one other friend used to have hoops up at the end of our driveways and played a lot of 1 on 1 and 21. While I love watching hockey I prefer to play basketball. Are any of you sports fans?