Weeds, Abnormal Canvas Growth and the Guide.

In 2006 I developed a weird obsession with weeds. I found this book at my cottage called "Ontario Weeds" its one of those books that are supposed to help you identify plants... namely weeds... I thought the idea of the book was hilarious. Unfortunately it was completely legit and not so funny once you get past the title.

I never liked drawing or painting flowers. Drawing something that is stereotypically pretty to make a stereotypically pretty drawing is... well its pretty boring. But think about the difference between a rose and a dandelion... To draw a weed is far more fun. These things people are just trying to get rid of and there i am frolicking about "I drew you a weed do you like it??"...or at least thats how i imagine myself around angry gardeners everywhere.

Dandelion 1/3 VE, Waterless Lithography, 2006

Above is the first piece i did that included a weed. Weeds became a reoccurring theme, that expanded into fungus, moss, lichen barnacles and choral. This obsession followed me for 8 months before I had the idea for abnormal canvas growth. I have all these pictures i took on my cell phone of rotting logs and mushrooms to help me invent paint-weeds that 'increase the value of the infected fabric'. I had to make a guide... the whole idea came from 'Ontario Weeds'.

So here are some of the pictures and text from A Guide to Abnormal Canvas Growth:

Albino Island Lichen

Tabulati Albiorgaletta

Albino Island Lichen is a high density elastomic growth found commonly in the upper regions of the canvas. This growth creates a flat white base on the canvas with occasional light grey spots flush to the canvas. On the base, the lichen grows in 1mm thick sections in varying shapes and sizes. When mature it grows to have a second layer, growing in 2 or 3 separate sections. Several cylindrical eyes grow on Albino Island Lichen usually situated in the centres of some of the top most layers.

Fighter Turkey Tails

Paulamordeo Cirripedia

Fighter Turkey Tails are part of the pistacia family. These growths have a violet oval exoskeleton (approx. 2cm long and 1cm wide) attached to canvas by a hinge of red substance at the topmost part of the shell. Inside each shell there are three red bulb ended antennae that, when open, protrude downwards from under the shell. When the shell is fully open a red doughnut shaped eye (5mm in diameter) is visible. Aggressive in nature, these growths have a tendency to grow on and destroy other canvas growths. Although these growths can be found on any part of the canvas they have a particular attraction to the colour green.

Gator Pools

Pallida Ascomycota

Gator Pools are gypsid based growths common to the mid to lower regions of the canvas. Dwelling commonly in groups, they are recognisable by their circular pool-like appearance (2-6cm in diameter) with light green protruding perimeter and dark green centres. The protruding perimeters of Gator Pools are hard, brittle and uneven. The sides are sloped inconsistently with some semblance to a mountain range. The darker green that resides inside the circular perimeter also can be found around these pool shapes and dripping down the canvas.

Spotted Dyehole Peeper

Purpurae Cavibaca

The Spotted Dyehole Peeper is a burrowing low density elastomic growth commonly found in the mid to upper regions of the canvas. These growths live primarily under the canvas burrowing dark blue holes through the fabric. The Peeper at maturity (approx. 5cm wide) is a deep purple lumpy creature with white spots and several green poacaedic stems sprouting from its lower regions. Typically two of the poacaedic stems are much longer (approx. 20cm long) and brown unlike the shorter (approx, 4cm long) green poacaedic stems. The base of the Peeper has a couplet of magenta sepals. The Peeper is also often topped with pairs of eye like seeds.

Tomato Ear

Lycopersici Semenfoli

The Tomato Ear is part of the seedillad family known to travel openly throughout open areas of the canvas. The main part of this growth resembles a slice of a small tomato: red, 1mm thick with inner pouches of seeds. This section is sheltered by a pink leaf (approx. 4cm long). The Tomato Ear has a frayed black tail releasing several tiny round spores.

Abnormal Canvas Growth

Abnormal Canvas Growth is a body of work that i created for my honours year at Queen's. Paintings, I think, ideally would be cheap. Many people who want paintings for their walls appreciate the look far more then the process. Paintings for them would simply be a blank canvas that you would hang on the wall and perhaps you leave it there for a while and by magic it would paint itself. I figure logically the only way that could happen is if the paint grew there.

When I was younger I always painted pictures of frogs. Frogs are weird. I thought it was incredible painting every detail of something so strange. The details made sense... in a weird way. I tirelessly like to invent. I always want my ideas to be like a frog: to be the strangest thing but somehow, through the details, it would make sense.

So I started with the one real thing about a painting, the fact that it is inescapably a painting. This work is an ecosystem on canvas. It is both beautiful and disgusting, as most wild things are. It shows the simplicity and complexity of growth as I have invented it. Colour, line and shapes appear on the canvas as if it had grown there. A terrarium of paint grows as the canvas decays. It’s almost like I discovered one day that paint would just start growing on canvases and by some stroke of luck I am the first with the chance to explore and draw it, study and learn from it. The paintings hold a balance of life and decay. Each element has its own goal but somehow they work together creating an environment. An environment that is as strange and outrageous as I could hope.

About 5 months into this project in addition to the creation of Abnormal Canvas Growth itself I began to create 'A Guide to Abnormal Canvas Growth'. I gave a name, a Latin name, a front and side drawing and a paragraph describing characteristics of 20 individual species of Abnormal Canvas Growth. This book was the icing on the cake, giving the viewer the ability to understand the complex details of the ecosystem. The gallery becomes something like bird watching or something you might find at the science centre.

The pictures are from the Queen’s University Bachelor of Fine Art Graduate Exhibition 2008: Brain nor Fools Face the Hours. And yes, I let the growths spread onto the walls. Enjoy.

Abnormal Canvas Growth
Inusitatissimus Pinxistirpis

Abnormal Canvas Growths are unfamiliar organisms that live primarily on heavy-duty plain-woven fabric. These organisms are based outside typical cell formation, on visual sensory values such as shape, line and colour. Generally Abnormal Canvas Growths have a tendency to reproduce aggressively increasing the value of the infected fabric.