Best of 2006 - an Arts Wrap-Up

This is the time of year when Christmas is over and we have only a few days to reflect on the past year before plunging headlong into the next one. Here's my take on 2006, from a Vancouver arts perspective:

Best artist: Pamela Masik and her project, "The Forgotten". I haven't even seen the artwork yet, but even the photographs of the paintings keep appearing in my mind. "The Forgotten" is Masik's attempt to depict the missing women of the Downtown Eastside in a way that tells more of the human story of their lives than their mugshots did. And she's doing it large. The portraits of the women who dissappeared the first year are on 8' x 10' canvases and there will be 69 pieces in total. Not only is she an amazing artist, but her work is heartfelt, inspiring and noble.

Best art opening: Brave Art at the Ayden gallery. This may be because it just happened, so it's freshest in my mind, but the Ayden Gallery is in a great space (in Tinseltown mall) with lots of room to hang out and browse items for sale or art on the walls and at Brave Art there was a ton of art on the walls, plus prints for sale, plus a DJ, plus 2 artists live-painting some master-works, plus lots of really cool people hanging out and mingling and while it may not have been as glamourous as some of the upper Granville openings, it was sure a lot of fun.

Best art show: Martin Brouillette's "Healing" at the Elliott Louis Gallery. I reviewed the exhibit here, so check that for details, but suffice to say that these works are so gorgeous and powerful that I still have the flyer on my wall 4 months later. Close runner up is George Vergette's "Listen".

Best Museum show: "Raven Travelling: Two Centuries of Haida Art". What a great collection of Haida artifacts gathered from around the globe and presented beauitfully. An amazing exhibit put on by the Vancouver Art Gallery, which I know is not a museum, but I think this exhibit counts for the category.

Best gallery: the Elliott Louis Gallery had the most shows I loved this year. The aforementioned "Healing" show, Christian Nicolay's "Project Flyleaf" and Tania Gleave's "Source Past Surface Present" were all amazingly curated and installed, plus I love the waterfall building. The staff could be nicer and it would make my day if they would update their website more often, but all that's secondary to the art.

Best festival/event: the Eastside Culture Crawl. There are lots of great arts events in Vancouver, but none come close to the magical simplicity of bundling up in November clothes and trundling around East Van in search of art. I always get a chance to see what my favorite artists have been up to, I always find something new that I love and I always have a great time.

Best reason not to use art for fundraising: "Spirit Bears in the City". I've said enough about these eyesores, so I'll leave it at that.

Best piece of public art: "Bridge" by Reece Terris. Again, there is lots of great public art in this city, but there is just something about the simple message of this one, and the fact that it's not in a showcase spot that gets me. I love it.

Image is "Untitled #101 by Martin Brouillette, courtesy of the Elliott Louis Gallery.