WELCOME TO MY NEW STUDIO

For years I felt profound envy for artists who had large studios – particularly lofts with great natural light & views of Paris or Manhattan, like the one above. Finally, this last May, I took the plunge.

Alas, no view of rooftops of Montmartre, the Marais or SoHo. However, it is a pleasant, open, high-ceilinged space on the east side of Vancouver where I can welcome an out-of-town visitor, or schedule a local friend to come share a coffee or bottle of wine. It also gives me a second location closer to downtown Vancouver where I can show my artwork at short notice.

· I can paint larger works on hardboard – works that are hard to manipulate in my attic studio at home in New Westminster.
· I can exhibit my largest works that had been impossible to view except during gallery exhibitions.
· I can store my remaining landscape paintings while still having them easily accessible for viewing.
· I can more fully feel part of the community of artists.

EAST SIDE CULTURE CRAWL
In mid-November, I’m participating in the Eastside Culture Crawl (ESCC) for the first time and hope to gain a larger audience for my work. Please come help me celebrate the new space. I am sending invites by email and snail-mail. Let me know if you haven’t received yours.

I will be in studio
• Thursday & Friday November 17th & 18th from 5 – 10PM
• Saturday & Sunday November 19th & 20th from 11AM – 6PM

You can also contact me and we can arrange a quieter private tour.

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ART IN THE HOME
I am always grateful when people send me photos of my paintings in their homes. I’d like to share some beautiful examples.

 

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OTHER EXHIBITION NEWS
To all who visited my September exhibition Nocturnes and Other Paintings at the Visual Space Gallery on Dunbar (below), thank you, thank you. For those that couldn’t make it, please view the exhibition pieces and the installation views.

Nocturnes of Elliott Bay will be available November & December 2022 at both the Berkano Gallery and Gallery 110 in Seattle.

Views from (within) the Waves – storm season off Tofino and Ucluelet – are available through the Tofino Gallery of Contemporary Art.

With great affection and respect, David

It has been a hectic yet very satisfying year so far. Five years into my life as a full-time artist, I am feeling exhilarated and confident – both as to what I have accomplished and what I have planned for the next five years.

I organized two solo exhibitions of new landscape paintings, one in Seattle and one in Vancouver.

• Nocturnes IV – Return to Elliott Bay at Gallery 110, Seattle, May 2022.
• Nocturnes & Other Paintings at Visual Space Gallery, Vancouver, opening September 15, 2022.

Selected pieces of my work are now in two commercial galleries, the Tofino Gallery of Contemporary Art and the Berkano Gallery at the Labor Temple Building in Seattle.

My artist collective in Seattle, Gallery 110 has had a remarkably successful 2022, relaunching our Emerging Artist Program and manning a highly complimented booth at the Seattle Art Fair in July.

A NEW STUDIO SPACE IN EAST VANCOUVER
I have “rolled the bones”, renting a large studio space in East Vancouver which will allow me to paint and display large works as well as informally exhibit smaller paintings to visiting friends and art patrons by appointment. Cappuccino, anyone? Perhaps a glass of Syrah?

UPCOMING EXHIBIT: NOCTURNES & OTHER PAINTINGS
View Nocturnes & Other Paintings >>
Visual Space Gallery
3352 Dunbar Street (between 17th & 18th on the east side of Dunbar)
September 15 – 28, 2022
Noon – 5PM daily; extended hours to 8PM Tuesdays & Fridays

This show combines what might have been three small exhibitions:
•Nocturnes of Elliott Bay (Seattle)
•Views of storm-tossed waves off the beaches of Tofino & Ucluelet
•Still life paintings of fish markets in Spain & Southern France.

Please come, but please, let us be safe! I will be assuming that you are vaccinated, that you are well, and that you will wear a N95 mask while inside the gallery (I’ll have extras). I will have air purifiers on ‘turbo’, and will keep doors open to facilitate flow. Weather permitting, we can visit outside the gallery without masks.

It is still too soon to hold a reception – too many people in too small a space. But I will have coffee, tea, wine and other refreshments for your visit. Drop-ins will be welcome – maximum 10 people at a time in the Gallery. I will schedule visits to encourage a spacing out of visitors. Please email me (haughton-art@shaw.ca) and let me know the day & time you wish to come.

It has been a long time! I am looking forward to catching up on all of your news and planned future adventures.

— David

Spring Greetings! Welcome to old friends and new connections. I hope this short missive finds you all safe and warm, in good health and spirits.

I joined Gallery 110 in 2009 and began regular trips south to Seattle. I discovered a group of dedicated fellow-artists and friends as well as a favorite place to stay: Pensione Nichols with its spectacular view of Elliott Bay; a favorite place to eat: Le Pichet with its fantastic Lyon-style caramelized onion soup; several favorite viewpoints – each at a particular time of day. Continue reading →

Welcome to old friends and new connections – in particular, to all the people who came to my exhibition this Fall at the Visual Space Gallery. Thank you for coming!

Ships, Mountains & the Sea V: Thank you those who brought delicious fruit from their garden/desserts/quince jelly/wine/flowers. There was no reception, but there were several “come-see-Lyne” days, which were extremely popular, as was to be expected. Thank you, as well, to those farther away who could not come in person, but reviewed the show online. Continue reading →

At the beginning of August, I crossed the border and attended the first Seattle art walk in 18 months – the renewed tradition of “First Thursday”. It was a real celebration! Over 350 people came through Gallery 110 in Pioneer Square. Vaccinated, all wearing masks, people were, for that evening at least, without fear. They looked at the art with an intensity that I had never seen – ‘drinking’ it in like hikers after a desert journey consume water – thirstily, sloppily, letting the images splash over them, bringing relief and joy. Continue reading →

Dear friends, Carpe Diem! I got a sharp reminder of that wisdom when I suddenly began to lose eyesight in my left eye about three weeks ago. Urgent surgery was needed to preserve vision: repair of two retinal tears and reattachment of the retina. My vision was saved and I am recovering nicely with a large gas bubble training my retina to remain in place. I’ve even been able to start painting again, although my depth perception is only slowly returning. I have to concentrate fiercely on where the paint-filled brush is relative to where I want it to be.

Postponed August exhibition
Between persistent COVID border closure and precipitous eye excitement, I postponed my August 2021 Island Painting IV exhibition at Gallery 110 (Seattle). One work from the planned show will be hanging at Gallery 110 in August. The work I chose for the Preview Magazine advertisement will join many excellent works by my 110 colleagues in our portion of the Seattle Art Fair Deconstructed show. I plan to be at Gallery 110 the last weekend of August: Thursday – Saturday August 26, 27 & 28th, noon-5 pm. Please return to Pioneer Square and all its great galleries, and be sure to visit me at Gallery 110. I will be prepared, stocked with ice cream, cold sodas, and even colder ice wine with which, together, we can celebrate return of partial normalcy to our lives. It will be hot!

Ships, Mountains & the Sea V
September 23 – October 6, 2021
Visual Space Gallery, Dunbar Street, Vancouver, BC

For September’s exhibition I will be returning to the overarching theme of four exhibitions from 20 years ago: landscapes of the Burrard Inlet (Vancouver Harbor), Georgia Strait (Quadra Island), and Vancouver Island (Tofino, Ucluelet and Nitinaht Lake). Many works from the show are already posted at www.haughton-art.ca/ships-mountains-and-the-sea-v/ The final set of paintings will be added to my website in September before the show opens.

Finding treasures
Last week an email from a lovely lady in Bath, England, informed me that she had just purchased a painting from an auction. It was a work from my 1998 exhibition, Ships Mountains & the Sea I, titled “Ships & Mountains/Spanish Banks II“.

A similar email was sent to me several years ago by an early morning dog-walker in Texas who rescued this painting titled Stormy Morning, Spanish Banks being discarded at the curb. It sold 22 years ago from the 1999 show Ships Mountains & the Sea II to a “Dallas lady”. The owner of my second commercial gallery kept very incomplete records.

Over 500 of my works – pen & ink drawings, watercolors and acrylic paintings – are in peoples’ homes. Stay alert! People pass on, downsize, disentangle their affairs, and “declutter”. Please let me know if you have rescued one of my works!

In Memoriam
Cornelia Oberlander, the well-known Vancouver landscape architect, died last month at the age of 99. I only just learned that it was her idea to arrange lines of logs on Vancouver city beaches each spring for the summer season.

Her brilliant design inspired many of my early paintings of the Burrard Inlet, including both found works.

See you soon! We have almost made it. Please remain safe. Please come see me any day during the Visual Space exhibition in September/October – and/or drop by Gallery 110 in late August.

With great affection and respect, David

Dear friends, I hope you all are well, in good spirits, and either vaccinated or scheduled. I look forward to a return to something like our old freedoms, but with greater awareness and sensitivity to both vulnerabilities and privileges.

New paintings in 2021
Early this year I painted 12 additional Island Paintings which are now posted on my website. Some have you may already have seen them posted on Instagram & Facebook. I’m inspired to do several more paintings of Surge Narrows off Quadra Island, perhaps with a few colourful kayaks and/or the Quadra Island Discovery Lodge in the foreground.

In 2020, I finished a five-painting series I called View from 11th Floor Condo. The series had its origin in a commission from friends. Three paintings from the series are now hanging in Vancouver International Airport and will be moving between different terminals over an 18-month loan. YVR has both a fantastic collection of art and a generous program of exhibition by local artists.

Ships, Mountains & the Sea V
September 23 – October 6, 2021
In January 2021, I finished another 5-painting series, View from the Endowment Lands, also a commission.

This painting and the one above will be in my Fall 2021 exhibition at the Visual Space Gallery, Ships, Mountains & the Sea V, September 23 – October 6, 2021. I am reprising the theme of four exhibitions held in Vancouver 20 years ago. Please visit my website to see new works as they are posted.

An update on my darker, figurative work
Three paintings from my “Face of Evil” series – ‘mug shot’ portraits of three white nationalists – have been selected for a year-long exhibition opening Fall 2021 at the American Visionary Museum (AVAM). The curator is including them for a contrast to the otherwise optimistic and idealistic theme of the show. Sitting at a corner of Baltimore’s inner harbor, brilliantly designed, and filled with astounding art by self-taught artists, the AVAM is one of the world’s most under-appreciated showcases for art. Check it out! I’ll be inviting everyone there for a celebratory dinner later this year when it is safe to travel.

Meanwhile a revised and updated booklet on the Puppet Masters and their Angry White Men has been mailed to over 80 Canadian curators. An updated version is available on my site. You can actually “turn” the pages – it is cool! – although it does take a little while to load. The horror of the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Congress made me feel a bit like the Trojan priestess Cassandra, fated to always foretell the future accurately, and never to be believed. As James Baldwin wrote, “Nothing can be changed until it is faced”.

With affection and respect, David

Busy times at the Visual Space Gallery on Dunbar in Vancouver, B.C.

Island Paintings III, my exhibition of landscapes, ended on Wednesday evening October 7. After a hectic 36 hours – during which landscape paintings were taken down, wall fastenings and screws removed, holes patched, patches sanded, and walls painted – a completely different set of works was laid out and hung. Angry White Men III: The Puppet Masters opened at noon on Friday, October 9, 2020. If you missed the landscape exhibit, I hope you’ll visit and see a dozen paintings in the lower gallery.

“Decency these days requires the ability to stare barbarism in the face, randomly, intensely, without ever becoming inured to the ugliness of its features.”
– Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker

Barbarism, hatred and prejudice fill the world right now, and in the US, at least, have been driven in large part by the Puppet Masters. These are the ruthless and intelligent men who foment division, fan racial and religious prejudice, and spread false information, thereby allowing them to control their minions, winning influence, wealth and power.

I have painted large portraits of 20 of these Puppet Masters, and I’m exhibiting the paintings with a sampling of earlier paintings of their gullible followers from the earlier Angry White Men and Mug Shot (puppets) series.

My friend and fellow-artist Ian Penn helped curate the exhibition, placing the Puppet Masters paintings on the gallery walls so that their eyes command the room, and then crowding the paintings of their minions toward a coordinated chaos in the back, echoing the “malignant alchemy” of the Puppet Masters’ black art. Please view images of the exhibition and the work of putting it together.

My goal as an artist is to depict, with unflinching honesty, the world in which we live. Come face our reality, and, with me, resolve to change it for the better.

Days of COVID19 – Let’s stay safe
I’m taking every precaution. I have been loaned a HEPA air-filter machine. Masks will be worn by all visitors, physical distancing maintained, and a maximum of 10 people will be in the gallery at any time. Surfaces will be disinfected frequently. I’m booking appointments, so please write to haughton-art@shaw.ca and let me know what time work for you, or to ask questions about any work that intrigue you.

With affection and respect, David

ANGRY WHITE MEN III: THE PUPPET MASTERS
Visual Space Gallery, 3352 Dunbar Street, Vancouver
October 8-21, 2020
Catalogue
View Artist Statement
Georgia Straight review
Installation Views

Island Paintings III
Visual Space Gallery, 3352 Dunbar Street, Vancouver, BC
Thursday September 24 – Wednesday, October 7, 2020
Noon – 5PM daily with extended hours on Wednesdays & Fridays until 8PM

Come “tour” the Islands!

If it takes a village to raise a child, I require a posse of talented people to help me put on an exhibition. As always, my wife Lyne encourages me and, when I am struggling to decide if a painting is finished, assesses whether the painting has “hoomph” (with a French accent, of course). Ted Clarke (ImageThis) takes meticulous photographs of finished paintings; Graham Warren (Westart) makes classy floating frames that compliment the works, and a crew from Brandon Thiessen (Thiessenartservices) hangs the paintings in Yukiko Onley’s Visual Space Gallery.

Letting people know about the exhibition also involves a great deal of effort: almost as much as painting the works. Mia at Kits Media prepares these newsletters and updates my website. Janice at Preview Graphics designs my print adverts. But these are strange and distanced times, and I could very much use your help. Please make people you know aware of this show. Word of mouth referrals by your art-loving friends, relatives and acquaintances – whether it be accomplished by phone, email, Instagram, Twitter or Facebook – would be much appreciated.

Re COVID19: I will be taking every precaution. I have been loaned a Heppa air filter machine. Masks will be worn by all visitors, physical distancing maintained, and a maximum of 10 people will be in the gallery at any time. Surfaces will be disinfected frequently. I’m currently booking appointments at 15 minute intervals. Please write me at haughton-art@shaw.ca to let me know what time works for you, or to ask questions!

If you cannot come in person, please have a look at each exhibition on my website: https://www.haughton-art.ca/exhibitions/island-paintings-iii/.

I hope that in these days of a COVID-altered existence, when one cannot travel easily to one’s favorite island, wherever it may be, that you can take a vicarious pleasure in my painted reactions to the wonderful islands of British Columbia.

I hope to see you during the next two weeks at the Visual Space Gallery on Dunbar.

With affection and respect, David

Dear Friends,

What is it about islands that triggers such feelings of wonder and romance? That you look out on water in all directions? That you are seemingly cut off, sheltered from the world? That you are free to indulge and enlarge a fantasy of romantic hideaway with a special lover, or a restorative individual refuge where you can learn great wisdom or prepare to do great deeds? Whatever the sequence of sensation, synapse and synthesis, to me, islands represent magic.

I will continue to paint islands and from islands, but Island Paintings III is the final exhibition of the “Island Paintings”. It will be shown in Vancouver between September 24-October 7. I expanded the two series View from the Ferry and View from the Spit begun in Island Paintings I and Island Paintings II. I’ve added two new series to the mix: Bamfield (View of Deer Group Islands) and Gulf Islands with Arbutus (the oft-promised paintings of Gabriola, Mayne, Salt Spring and Saturna). There are some beautiful “sherbet colours” in the show; I am quite pleased!

I hope that in these days of a COVID-altered existence, when one cannot travel freely or easily to one’s favorite island, wherever it may be, that you can take a vicarious pleasure in my painted reactions to these most wonderful islands in British Columbia.

ANGRY WHITE MEN III: THE PUPPET MASTERS

Immediately following the end of the Island Painting III exhibition, I will be hanging Angry White Men III: The Puppet Masters, October 9-21, 2020.

As you may remember, back in 2016, sparked by the enabling of hate that followed the US election, and by the rise of white-supremacist and nationalist demonstrators in both the USA and Europe, I began the Angry White Men series, a sub-set of my Face of Evil opus.

As more and more of these paintings were completed, I realized that there were three distinct groups of these men:
• the angry white men on the street, practicing intimidation with fearsome weapons, Nazi tattoos, fascist flags and other symbols of racism,
• the puppets: confused, mentally ill, ignorant and/or socially awkward white men recruited and then driven to commit vile and violent acts,
• and finally, the Puppet Masters: the intelligent men who – with cold detachment – work to manipulate and profit from their more credulous angry white brethren.
The Puppet Masters are the men who most need to be called to task: people like conservative media celebrities, Canadian far-right internet bloggers, radio talk-show hosts, white supremacist leaders, and American Presidents.

As a white man, I felt it would be presumptuous of me to paint the victims of hate crimes. However, I believed, as a white man, I should call out other white men’s bad behavior and attempt to stop it. If I stood silent, without protest, I would be allowing untruths to spread and evil to grow.

Please come see both exhibitions, if you can. We will be complying with Public Health guidelines regarding number of visitors, masks and physical distancing. You can email me at haughton-art@shaw.ca or call me at 604 525 2412 to book a time at which I expect you.

If you cannot come in person, I will be posting exhibition photos of each show. I also plan to create a series of short video tours of each exhibit. I will highlight a few paintings and point out what most makes them remarkable to me.

I will let you know when they are posted. Please let me know what you think, or write me to ask me to comment on a specific work you have seen among the posted works. It will be fun.