art

Got our next three months of art confirmed for the shop. Pictured to the right is a sampling of work by our featured artist for April. Ahren Liudas Karnas has been coming into the shop now for a few years and we’ve always been intrigued by his mash-up of street art with design. We’ll be displaying his canvases, photos and clothing and Ahren has agreed to do a large art installation on the Cannon side of the building that will be unveiled on the night of the Art Crawl on April 9. The month of May sees the return of Gordon Leverton’s pastels to our walls. Gord’s amazing pastels of urban city scenes graced the walls of the old Mixed Media location a few times and always got a good reception. June sees The Portable Library Project makes its Hamilton debut. What is The Portable Library Project you ask? Well – it’s a mail-art/book-making project involving the creation of small works exploring ideas surrounding archiving, journaling, libraries, ephemera, and incorporating an art practice into everyday life. It’s currently touring cities around Canada and we are very happy to help bring this to Hamilton.

The Globe and Mail recently profiled Tara Books, exploring this independent imprint’s “deeply improbable success” in the midst of the current economic recession. Tara believes that books are literary objects, with the potential to be art as well as contain it. They also strive to make this artwork (whether by tribal Indian artists, American folk singers or Grecian illustrators) accessible for all, both young and old alike. We hope to soon have a few copies in-store – just from what I’ve seen online I can tell you I am very excited to sell these!

Just got a new batch of Lister Block T-shirts by Hamilton artist Matt McInnes. These very cool tees feature an iconic illustrated image of the embattled Hamilton landmark. The building located in the downtown core at the corner of James and King William Streets was in the news recently now that the long overdue restoration of the building is now underway. Pick up a shirt and show your pride for Hamilton’s heritage as seen through the eyes of one of our most creative artists.