Vince Kanarek

The library is pleased to welcome Vince Kanarek as September's gallery artist.  

Biography

Vince is native to northern Alberta and has been drawing from an early age. Continuing his passion for art throughout his teens and high school, Vince excelled at drawing and often created pieces for friends and family. Fully realizing his need to pursue these passions in 2001, Vince attended the Alberta College of Arts and Design and graduated in 2006 with a Degree in Visual Communication, majoring in Character Illustration.

Since then, Vince has pursed a variety of Illustrative styles with various types of traditional and digital media. He has also pursed the Graphic Arts with experience in client branding and communication, as well as gaining knowledge and experience with various printers and the printing process. Recently, Vince has focused his sites on the world of tattooing and continues to push his own boundaries to master this new medium of skin. Vince can be found tattooing locally at Ink Addicts in Strathmore.

Artist Statement

I have always had the urge to "make marks," drawing seems natural to me. I enjoy scratching into scratchboard because it has a very raw feel to me. Although a lot of my art can be digitally created and manipulated, scratchboard brings me back to the tactile world where the "undo" button doesn't exist and the unexpected can easily happen. No digital media I have used can create the variety and randomness of textures that scratchboard can provide, so it is a media I am currently exploring and pushing my limits with.

My scratchboard work explores the relationships between object and background, 2D and 3D, line and shadow. The brain analyzes everything we take in and the relationships between object and background are continuously being made. My scratchboard pushes these boundaries, and the eye can create depth, in areas where upon first glace were flat. With such high contrast and large amounts of black, these pieces can be dramatic and emotionally charged, many of them having a rich narrative that jumps out. My scratchboard pieces are generally inspired from people watching and pre-photoshop enhanced imagery.