How Clouds Dream

Mike Swaney | Lee Hutzulak

July 11 to August 9, 2008

In the exhibition How Clouds Dream, Michael Swaney and Lee Hutzulak follow their thoughts/subjects through the scrim of consciousness to explore the limitless terrain of internalised space. Through the mediums of collage and drawing respectively, Swaney and Hutzulak create absurd yet transcendent narratives that blur the line between notions of the interior and exterior, connectivity and detachment to conjure the weightless but undeniable ephemeral, the unimagined and undeclared.

Born in Canada, Michael Swaney currently lives and works in Barcelona. Primarily engaged with the medium of collage, the artist creates extraordinary detailed and nuanced works of fiction, meticulously cut and pasted to create discomfiting yet light-hearted domestic scenarios and sites of hypothetical performance. Composed of old and/or recycled materials, Swaney’s work often makes reference to—and fun of—the artifacts of art history. He has exhibited internationally in Barcelona, Miami, New York, Hamburg, Portland, Tokyo and Vancouver. In September of 2008 Swaney will participate in the Fountainhead Residency in Miami, Florida.

Lee Hutzulak, a Vancouver-based artist and musician, is consumed with the ongoing  documentation of his external and internal environment through a fantastic world of bottled colour. He wanders though his day-to-day life with a sketchbook and a selection of felt markers from Itoya, a nine-story stationery and art-supply store in Tokyo. Fascinated by his surroundings as well as his fluorescent, iridescent and metallic inks, Hutzulak subjects twist and drift in minimal or non-existent contexts: he is also in thrall to the untouched expanse of his paper. Hutzulak has exhibited his work nationally, and most recently at EstacionArte 2008 in Mexico City.