5 November 2021 through 12 December 2021
Opening reception for the artist Friday 5 November 2021, 6-9pm
Organized by Steven Tong with essays by Dan Adleman and Neal Rockwell
"For reasons that I hope are quite clear, you will not encounter many
exhibitions like Boss Bodies around town. The local press won’t likely
have much to say about it either. That’s because the exhibition, in its
own modest way, challenges a fantasy system to which so many of us
remain indentured. Even at this disastrous stage of the crisis,
developer-funded media outlets would have you believe that the Vancouver
model provides the only feasible optics for finding our way within a
city in freefall. Just try not to look down. "
Dan Adleman Interfacing with the Vancouver Model
"In a certain way, Boss Bodies is a vibe-based reply to [the] image economy. ...The violence inherent in the concrete actions of these companies leaked through in promotional photographs of these organizations' CEOs. They could not quite gloss over their role in dispossessions, demolitions, driving up housing costs, annihilating the meaning of language, and the apparent foreclosing of imagination and possibilities towards a deeply mediocre aspirational vision of corporate citizenship. Their cracked smiles and glinting eyes registered something more sinister than the "good vibes only" image they were attempting to promote."
Neal Rockwell Portraits of the Vibeconomy
Dan Adleman Interfacing with the Vancouver Model
"In a certain way, Boss Bodies is a vibe-based reply to [the] image economy. ...The violence inherent in the concrete actions of these companies leaked through in promotional photographs of these organizations' CEOs. They could not quite gloss over their role in dispossessions, demolitions, driving up housing costs, annihilating the meaning of language, and the apparent foreclosing of imagination and possibilities towards a deeply mediocre aspirational vision of corporate citizenship. Their cracked smiles and glinting eyes registered something more sinister than the "good vibes only" image they were attempting to promote."
Neal Rockwell Portraits of the Vibeconomy
Rowan Melling started oil painting in 2019 to “deal” with his feelings. When
he was anxious, he painted plants. When he felt love, he painted his
friends and family. When he suffered horror at entrepreneurial
superheroes re-making the world in their crappy brand-image, he painted
upsetting portraits of CEOs. These latter paintings make up his first
solo show, Boss Bodies. This work seeks to reground its branded,
transcendental subjects in the abjection of their bodies through the
thick materiality of oil paint. As a whole, Rowan’s painting practice
tries to resuscitate a bodily intimacy, slowly being strangled by the
alienation of digital capitalism. He has previously shown work at CSA
Space in Vancouver and the Decadent Squalor in Montreal. Rowan has an
M.A. in German Studies from UBC and is currently working on a Ph.D. in
Communication Studies at SFU.
