http://www.khancept.ca/gallery Sun, 20 May 2012 08:49:19 GMT http://www.khancept.ca/gallery/details.php?image_id=272 Wed, 21 Sep 2011 05:25:18 GMT Latex, charcoal, acrylic on canvas
Price: $3500]]> Current Work http://www.khancept.ca/gallery/details.php?image_id=272 http://www.khancept.ca/gallery/details.php?image_id=271 Wed, 21 Sep 2011 05:14:21 GMT Current Work http://www.khancept.ca/gallery/details.php?image_id=271 http://www.khancept.ca/gallery/details.php?image_id=270 Wed, 21 Sep 2011 04:40:35 GMT Current Work http://www.khancept.ca/gallery/details.php?image_id=270 http://www.khancept.ca/gallery/details.php?image_id=269 Wed, 21 Sep 2011 04:36:07 GMT Current Work http://www.khancept.ca/gallery/details.php?image_id=269 http://www.khancept.ca/gallery/details.php?image_id=268 Wed, 21 Sep 2011 01:32:52 GMT Latex, charcoal, acrylic on canvas
Can be seen at the Centennial Concert Hall in "Blam 2" Reception is 7-10 on Oct. 24.
Price: $2500

Like many artists from my generation, my early attempts at art consisted of trying to reproduce the images in the many comic books I read. Among some of my favourite titles were: The X-Men, Daredevil, Iron Fist, Teen Titans and above all Conan. I think reading Conan retarded my social interaction with girls for many years. Or maybe that was just standard teen age boy behaviour.

None the less, by the time I had reached high school, I was craving more intellectual stimulation and comic books were becoming less and less satisfying. I moved on to reading more "serious" literature and and in large part left comic books behind. My early exercises at reproducing them had served me well in refining my hand, though teaching me a fairly distorted vision of human physiology. Men were overly muscle bound and women voluptuous and nobody seemed to wear much in the way of clothing aside from brightly coloured leotards. Twenty years later and I am struck by how much life imitates art. Spandex is once again popular (God bless tights) and there seems to be no end to the North American obsession to attain obscenely developed physiques.

In the twenty years since I have read comic books, computer generated images (CGI) had made great advances and made it possible to adapt comic books to the big screen quite convincingly. Today movie addaption of comic book stories are common place and represent some of the largest grossing films ever. As much as I enjoy watching my early childhood heroes come to life on the big screen, a part of me was convinced that many of the stories were the stuff of childhood fantasy and were not suitable for adult audiences. In my heart I felt that even though the visuals presented in the films were thoroughly convincing, the stories lacked the plausibility and sophistication that would allow them to succeed with adult viewers.

I WAS WRONG. Skilled movie adaptations continue to do excellent work at modifying (what I considered) the shortcomings of the stories and presenting exciting theatrical experiences. So much so that movie adaptations of comic books has become one of the most popular genre today and has established some comic book professionals as hollywood heavyweights (Frank Miller - Sin City, 300, The Dark Knight | Stan Lee - Thor, The X-Men, Spider Man, etc.)

I chose to do a depiction of Heath Ledger"s interpretation of the Joker because it was never more apparent that comics could be adapted for adult audiences than in The Dark Knight (2008). I had always considered the Joker as one of the most improbably characters in comics. He was a petty criminal of little note that had fallen into a vat of acid and lived. The acid had bleached his skin white and he had developed a sardonic sense of humour and dawned the make up of a clown. As a result of the accident, he went mad and became a criminal mastermind and punctuated his crimes with macabre jokes.

I could never take the Joker seriously (no pun intended) until I saw him portrayed by Heath Ledger. I felt that Heath's interpretation was so intensely off balance that I actually pictured the Joker as someone who had gone mad and played out his revenge in this bizarre fashion like those people that you sometimes hear about killing people and making suits out of their victims skin. Unfortunately, that would be Heath's last performance as he committed suicide before the film was completed. For me, his performance raised the bar for comic book adaptations to the big screen forever and this was further puntuated by Heath winning the Academy Award for best supporting actor after his death.]]> Current Work http://www.khancept.ca/gallery/details.php?image_id=268 http://www.khancept.ca/gallery/details.php?image_id=267 Wed, 21 Sep 2011 01:21:09 GMT Latex, charcoal, acrylic, on canvas
Price: $2500

The reason I chose to depict an evolutionary scale is to draw attention to the notion that the theory of evolution has become somewhat of a religion. By that I mean that most people have no idea how it works. We don't understand the method of change or mutation, why it happens, how it progresses or where it is going. We simply have a belief that life immaculately came into being and branched into the many species we have today.

Its a little more rational than religion, but I wouldn't call it scientific.]]> Current Work http://www.khancept.ca/gallery/details.php?image_id=267 http://www.khancept.ca/gallery/details.php?image_id=266 Wed, 21 Sep 2011 01:07:46 GMT Latex and charcoal on canvas
Can be seen at the Winnipeg Art Gallery Art Rental and Sales
Price: $1900]]> Current Work http://www.khancept.ca/gallery/details.php?image_id=266 http://www.khancept.ca/gallery/details.php?image_id=265 Wed, 21 Sep 2011 01:02:20 GMT Latex, charcoal, acrylic, water colour on canvas
Price: $5000

This painting is based on Michaelangelo's paiting of god reaching down to create Adam. I chose to do it because I wanted to draw attention to the mythological quality of the story and especially the depiction of the the two olympian like figures personofying the birth of our species.

I've used the red dot in sereral pictures to imply that this may be a persuit of an abstract ideal in which we create a mythology to explain where we come from.]]> Current Work http://www.khancept.ca/gallery/details.php?image_id=265 http://www.khancept.ca/gallery/details.php?image_id=264 Wed, 20 Jul 2011 04:21:07 GMT Current Work http://www.khancept.ca/gallery/details.php?image_id=264 http://www.khancept.ca/gallery/details.php?image_id=262 Wed, 08 Jun 2011 17:43:20 GMT 30"x30"
2010
Price: $900]]> Current Work http://www.khancept.ca/gallery/details.php?image_id=262