Event Details

Randy Hryhorczuk - This Space Intentionally Left Blank

Friday, October 02, 2009 until Monday, October 19, 2009
Artist Reception - Friday October 2nd, 2009 from 6pm to 9pm

This space intentionally left blank

In my current body of work, I explore the significance placed upon structures that exist as part of our unnatural landscape. The “Communication Tower” series focuses on billboards as a device used to communicate ideas to the public at large, though, not through their intended purpose of advertising.
 
At the most basic level, I am questioning whether it is the structure itself that is disliked, or simply the advertising, which is subconsciously being planted into our memories, while driving our freedom of choice.
 
Replacing the advertisement with empty space, I am bringing the billboard to its basic form. Adding small, seemingly meaningless messages to these structures provokes thought and invigorates imagination. These messages are meant to communicate a different brand of information into the minds of the public. This information is sometimes suggestive, critical, apathetic, humorous, or socially and political charged in an effort to invoke an emotional response.
 
Communication Towers are at once a commentary on the impact of progress on our lives; a testament to our own cultural erosion; the power of subtle suggestion; homage to the declining tradition of hand painted billboard advertising (in which many visual artists got their start). Communication Towers are also about cultural growth: as we have allowed the degradation of our urban landscapes - we can have it back.

Messages are often hidden in the most obvious places.

Randy Hryhorczuk was born in Vancouver British Columbia Canada, 1974. He grew up in the countryside and later lived in city of Vancouver before relocating to Toronto, Ontario in order to focus on painting.
 
Randy briefly worked in the web design field before devoting himself to painting as his full time vocation in late 2006.
 
Randy is a self-taught contemporary oil painter. He has been showing publicly since 2000 in Canada, The United States and Germany. His artwork has been collected privately in Canada, the United States, Great Britain and Guatemala.
 
Randy currently resides in Toronto, Ontario with his wife.