372 Ste. Catherine West, #408
+1 514 448 4723
By Greg Stone
Based out of Toronto's Open Studio, Daryl Vocat is a native of Regina, where he completed his BFA, and with the move to Toronto came his Master's degree in Fine Art at York University. He has had solo exhibitions across the country, from Vancouver to St. John’s, and his works have been acquired by the likes of the National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives, the City of Toronto Fine Arts collection, and the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop in New York. Mr. Vocat works mainly in the screen-printing medium.
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| Installation view, Awkward Moments, Maison Kasini. Photo by Greg Stone |
At first glance, the collection at Maison Kasini is very simple and approachable. Warning, reader, this is not actually the case. Not at all. There are much larger forces at play here. When you walk into the gallery, the collection creates an immediately simple impression on you. The colors are few and bold; solid crayola colors for backgrounds and off-primary colours to fill in the content, and the lack of shadowing makes it all the more bright. The borders and lines are thick and black; I can`t help but be reminded of my old comic book collection. The subjects are adorably kooky; a vulture wearing a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, an unimpressed cat wearing a medical lampshade (while sitting on a LEOPARD PRINT COUCH!!!), ironic bathroom graffiti, and images from old boyscout manuals. Even the way the pictures are hung fercrissakes; no frames to speak of, and the prints all pinned to the wall using thumb tacks and paper clips. Everything about this exhibit is so accessible. A child would love it just for the aesthetics of it. A teenager would love it for its off-balanced humour. Seniors would love it for its youth. But before you know it, the fog starts burning off and Vocat's real messages start to shine through. Often, it comes from the titles. Often, after a little bit more reflection. I'll give you one example here, and get into it more later on. One of my favourites from this collection is an image of a reclined man sleeping. There`s a vulture standing on his chest wearing a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, which it just stole from the sleeping man. Haha. That's pretty funny, a bird wearing glasses. And the man, he's so comically vulnerable. Nice bright colors, too. And then the plaque on the wall revels that this piece is called Dear Mother, Centre of My Neurosis, Never Abandon Me. Now, that's a bit of a bomb to be dropping on this deceptively simple picture, right? Suddenly, it's not so funny. Suddenly, you start thinking about Freud, and your own relationship with your mother, and about your anxieties, and how all this relates to Vocat's screenprint. See what I'm talking about? The entire collection is tricky like that. You're drawn to the pretty, bright colours, and then you come to a screeching halt. In a really good, genuine, substantial way.
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| Dear Mother, Centre of My Neurosis, Never Abandon Me |
First of all, I`d like to tip my hat to Maison Kasini for being an excellently eccentric house of art. While they are definitely a gallery, the place also is a a really cool art shop where you can find cheap, off-the-wall art including everything from t-shirts to individually-packaged ceramic teeth. Definitely worth checking it out, if you haven't already. As such, it also acts as an ideal location for Awkward Moments. The prints fit in seamlessly among all the other eye-candy housed here.
The first 6 prints are from Mr. Vocat's Practical Associations series, and when I phone him up in Toronto, he explains to me that it's all about communication. Mainly the communication that exists in our relationships with one another, and the communication that exists between yourself and cultural influences. "I was just thinking about relationships in a broad continuum," Mr. Vocat says. "And a lot of these cultural references I use are personal, and I do hope that others get them. But I don't think that’s so important. It's more about what we know and what we don’t know." The cultural influences thing I pick up right away. Mr. Vocat uses various cultural references in these prints which help to orientate the audience. And he keeps a pretty open mind about these references, as they range from Spider-Man to Charlotte Perkins Gilman. His piece, for example, titled A Gift From Araby is a reference to James Joyce's short story of a young man struggling with his sexual development. The print shows a man (likely Mr. Vocat; the entire exhibit has numerous self-portraits) gazing into the heavens, contemplating a wedding cake. The idea behind the print is there, but when Joyce's story becomes an extension of the print, the image takes on new meaning and starts shouting messages of socially-determined families and sexual identity.
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| A Gift From Araby |
Another excellent print here is Summary of an Epiphany, which shows a bathroom wall inscribed with ironic, contradictory graffiti about love and sex. Again, Mr. Vocat is playing with the idea of how we confront each other, and in what medium.
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| Summary of an Epiphany |
OK, let's talk about animals for a bit. How do you feel about them? Do you feel profoundly connected to them, or do you see them and think 'I have no idea what you are nor what you’re thinking?' Mr. Vocat has clearly been thinking about things like this, and it shows in his next set of prints, 12 in total, from his The Translator's Conundrum collection from 2006/2007. I really, really liked this part of the exhibit. "Part of the thinking here is of the 'other,' whatever that may be. Animals are a good way to talk about 'otherness.'" These prints explore, in part, how animals can help people articulate and define 'sameness' and 'otherness.' Mr. Vocat mixes the natural world with domestic settings to show the complexities of their relationship. "Animal imagery is often poetic or symbolic. Like the cat videos on YouTube. I'm looking at what we know, what we try to know, and what we construct." The humour used in this section is inviting to say the least. It's adorably humorous, while still staying true to Mr. Vocat's message. One of my faves is We Still Love You Even Though You Eat Poo, a heart-warming print of a heavy-eyed Dalmatian lounging in an over-the-top picture frame. Funny? Yes, very. But more importantly, the image explores human ideals of love and compassion, and that old habit we humans have of imposing these ideals on other things, like animals.
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| We Still Love You Even Though You Eat Poo |
Mr. Vocat is a wizard at attracting the audience's attention with simple, funny pictures and revealing titles, and then getting them to stay for the meat and potatoes.
And there are other huge ideas behind this part of the collection apart from this animal thing. It's also about sending and receiving information in a social context, and sending and receiving that information through art. And then how that art is interpreted by the 'translator' (hence the puzzling title). The print Hoping This Will Wash Off addresses exactly that. It's an image of a tattoo on someone's back of a family portrait pinned to their back with a dagger. The tattoo's a form of art that's sending a very strong message, and it's up to the audience of this tattoo to translate it.
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| Hoping This Will Wash Off |
I'm getting the impression that Mr. Vocat is showing his audience that translation of this kind is not only necessary for people to do, but it’s a fundamental human habit.
The third and final section of the exhibit is prints pulled from Mr. Vocat's Rules of the Playground collection. Again, a group of brightly colourful screenprints. But for this collection, instead of creating his own images, Mr. Vocat took images that already exist and stylized them to his liking. The prints are all composed of two images layered over top of each other on a solid-coloured background and the subject matter is also fairly consistent; the images are usually some kind of sport taking place, layered with images from instructional manuals... instructional manuals like first aid books and the boy scouts manuals. "All the images are found. I didn't draw any of them," says Mr. Vocat. I'm hoping to get some more insight into this particular section. But the instructional manuals are throwing me off. "The prints here are representations of the world seen in a skewed way. And there are bits of reality in these. In a way, I'm looking for truth in stereotypes, or looking for intimate moments that aren't there." Ok, I'm catching on. Mr. Vocat explains to me that he wanted to question how stereotypes of masculinity are portrayed in the media, and to set up a challenge to those stereotypes. He explains how there is a lot that's said and a lot that's not said about masculinity, so he's trying to let that gap speak for itself. So when I look at Communicate Using a Secret Code, for example, and I see the image of two men wrestling juxtaposed with the image from a first aid book on how to make a sling for a broken arm, I'm starting to see the intimacy involved. It's definitely an intimacy I wouldn't usually pick up on, but Mr. Vocat makes the idea very approachable. Very plausible.
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| Communicate Using a Secret Code |
And that's it. That's the genius of his work, of his style. It's so innocently persuasive that it seems like he could make you believe anything. And it's so approachable that you want to believe it, whatever it is. I know I left the gallery believing what he had to say.
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| Installation view, Awkward Moments, Maison Kasini. Photo by Greg Stone |
The show is 30 selected pieces from Daryl Vocat's three collections, Practical Associations, The Translator's Conundrum, and Rules of the Playground and is now showing at Maison Kasini, #408 in the Belgo Building at 372 Ste. Catherine Ouest until to February 5th. (All images courtesy Daryl Vocat unless otherwise noted).
