Events - 05.04.07
Eldorado Pop Kevin Richardson & downtowner Tony Opening Reception: Kevin Richardson is a musician and visual artist who uses recycled materials to create vibrant assemblages and paintings that comment on popular culture with wit and humour. How does one narrow down the huge glut of information and all the influences thrown in your direction? You absorb until it spills out. Just the heroic, romantic stuff alone will feed a lifetime. Andy Warhol, Gene Vincent, Marcel Duchamp and Shemp Howard hold equal stature. Pop Art? Well, I call myself a Pop Artist (which is half the bottle) while ignoring some of it's definitions. The last few years has featured spilling out on a grand basis - solo shows featuring representational scenes, loving renderings of details and highlights that stuck in the memory banks. The banks of the Welland Canal and Lake Erie, that is, ya hear? Tony is a self-described downtowner - it’s a familiar sight to see him walking past NAC (Niagara Artists’ Centre) here on St. Catharines’ main drag. Last fall Tony came in with a garbage bag and asked if I’d like to take a look at what he’d been working on. He pulled out this model of a red Cadillac Eldorado about 18 inches long and six inches wide. I’m guessing that’s in the neighbourhood of O scale or 1:48. The caddy was immaculately detailed--complete with a golden continental mounted spare tire--and constructed entirely from scratch out of cardboard (pizza boxes), beer cans and leathers and fabrics he was picking up at the St. Vincent de Paul. I was knocked out! I bought it on the spot and commissioned Tony to make some more. We’ve displayed them in the window of NAC for that last three months, there are now fifteen in total. They come in a variety of colours with different hard-top styles and a few convertibles thrown in for extra measure. They are all 1977 Cadillac Eldorados. Tony says, it’s the car.
Information/Contact: Tobey C. Anderson at CRAMart.ca
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