Special holiday reception on Friday, November 29, 2013, 1-6pm.
Artists Junichiro Iwase will be in attendance 3-6pm and Shinsuke Minegishi will be in attendance 4-6pm.

Art Beatus (Vancouver) Consultancy Ltd is pleased to present “Winterlude”, our winter holiday group exhibition featuring a special selection of works by a few of our gallery artists. For this festive holiday season, we are celebrating with works that speak of wonderment for the world around us. We are delighted to present a new series of Japanese vinyl prints by Wuon-Gean Ho, as well as being the first to debut local artist Junichiro Iwase’s series of photographs that were taken during his residency in Beijing this past summer. Other featured works on display are wood engravings by local artist and arts educator, Shinsuke Minegishi, cityscape etchings by Toru Sugita and plastic sculptures by Sang Won Sung.

While there is no reception on opening day, we invite you to join us on Friday, November 29 from 1pm to 6pm for a small celebration. Come in from the cold and warm up your winter chills and weariness with a piping hot cup of mulled wine and some holiday treats while you browse our featured artworks and meet some of the artists.

Winterlude runs from November 15, 2013 - January 17, 2014.


About the Artists and the Works

Wuon-Gean Ho is a London-based print and book artist. Born in 1973 in Oxford, UK, to Malaysian and Singaporean parents, Ho graduated with a BA in History of Art and a professional license as a veterinary surgeon from Cambridge University. In 1998, she received a Japanese Government Scholarship to study woodblock printing in Japan. Dancing Dress is originally a series of 40 Japanese vinyl prints that were used to make a stop-motion animation of a non-corporeal dress that dances. This project originated from a residency spent at a castle called Montefiore Conca in Italy during the spring of 2012. In the 14th century, an intelligent, well-educated heiress named Constanza, from the wealthy and powerful Malatesta family, spent her summers at Montefiore but when Ho first went into Constanza’s room, she had no knowledge of the heiress yet: “…I felt a strong female presence and a very happy, playful spirit.  So I started to make work about a dancing ghost.”

Junichiro Iwase was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1971 and at seven months old, his family moved to Canada where his is now a current resident of Richmond, BC. He studied fine art at Vancouver Community College and Johnson Sculpture Atelier in New Jersey. Iwase has worked in a variety of media including drawing, painting, printmaking and sculpture but as a self-taught photographer, he has been photographing his paintings and sculptures for more than 20 years. Iwase began incorporating the use of egg shells in his work when he started donating eggs to soup kitchens in Vancouver after which he would collect and clean the discarded shells. The Electric Flower series of digital photographic prints on dibond were taken during his residency in Beijing this past summer.

Shinsuke Minegishi is an award winning print and book media artist, arts educator and studio print technician who currently lives and Vancouver and teaches at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Born in 1970 in Tokyo, Japan, Minegishi was educated in Japan, Canada and USA. Minegishi is a prolific and technically proficient printmaking technician in lithography, silkscreen, wood engraving, wood cuts, and linocut. The Shadow Series of wood engraving prints feature an unexpected third dimension with the use of a riser placed behind an unattached, floating layer that produces a surprising, real drop shadow as referenced in the title.

Toru Sugita is a painter and printmaker who was born in Shiga, Japan in 1964. Sugita studied art education and Japanese painting in Japan before completing a Master of Fine Arts in Printmaking at San Francisco State University. The prints featured in this exhibition depict Sugita’s fascination with the play between light and shadow in urban and architectural environments. “I feel moved when sunlight touches an object in the afternoon, making a momentary drama of colour and shape. This shapes and colours may change or disappear in the next moment. I try to capture this moment and express it in my work…the printmaking process is reminiscent of the relation between light and shadow…”

Sang Won Sung was born in 1965 in Seoul, Korea and currently lives and works in Sao Paulo, Brazil. In his work, Sung deconstructs and utilizes everyday objects, such as plastic soap boxes and plastic dolls, to reconstruct new objects that reference heavily to pop culture. “Plastic containers, parts of toys, doll’s arms and legs, screw…all sorts of things surrounding us in our modern daily life are what I need to make my figures…I’d like to distinguish my work from what is commonly taken as art under the sign of recycling. For, the objects that effectively take part in my pieces have undergone a lot of reflection and trials in different combinations.” The results of Sung’s labour are kitschy, humorous and playful sculptures with a degree of uncanny familiarity.

For more information, please visit our website at www.artbeatus.com or call the gallery at 1 (604) 688-2633.

Art Beatus, with a location in Vancouver, Canada and two locations in Hong Kong, showcases international art with a focus on contemporary Chinese art.  Art Beatus (Vancouver) is located in the Nelson Square Office Tower at 108 – 808 Nelson Street in Vancouver, BC.

Art Beatus (Vancouver) Consultancy Ltd. is open Monday to Friday, 10am-6pm and is closed on weekends and holidays. Underground and street parking is available. Free admission.

For more information, please contact Media Relations, Tamla Mah or Ellinda Siu by email: info@artbeatus.com or telephone: 604-688-2633.