Monsters in Boat by Rebekah J. Plett

West Coastal autumn art buzz

– by Beatrice Smartt

It’s a wistfully beautiful time of year. Generally I feel more inclined to explore culture when autumn hits. I love fall.  I’m game to go to the VAG or do some sort of artistic “thing”.

While it’s gorgeously warm out, No One Cares. But things go crisp and you toss on a favourite sweater, and it’s all Righteous.

I’m more a fan of underground or less-celebrated work; I like it’s non-pretense. Artists on the high wire, those who veer daringly between stardom and disaster, who walk that tightrope.

And then sometimes there are those who positively bounce from the creative trampoline upon you.

While the tattoo-styled pioneering works by the likes of Anjelique Houtkamp and local Holly Ruth Anderson portraying mournfully savvy cartoon-pinups are a more rare breed, two West Coast artists have recently captivated my imagination:   Rebekah Joy Plett, with her nostalgic art-infused jewelry, and Matthew J. Price, with his painted sorrowful eyes.

Wounded by Matthew J. Price.

Expressing differently, both artists often convey a Zen-like stillness permeating their respective pieces, while a darker wood lurks not far under the lacquer.

Vanquishing any excessive fairytale gloss, each whimsically-animated creature languishes within scenes radiating mysterious tragedy and eccentric adventure.

Let Me Into Your Garden by Rebekah J. Plett

I enjoy the positively girlish quality to it all. Frilly dresses and Alice in Wonderland; chatting pets and other travesties, like monsters.

It’s tea and cakes with odd strangers.  It’s very English, without being stuck up.

It’s partially sinister and absolutely pretty.

Illustration by Rebekah Joy Plett

Beyond her own anomalous paintings and wearable art designs,

Vancouverite Plett is also the art director for the macabre and playfully dark Under The Juniper Tree, an online children’s art/lit zine, in which I discovered the genius that is Matthew J Price.

The self-taught Southern Californian artist has designed for various publications including Camilla Lackberg’s children’s books Le Tailleur de Pierre and La Princesse Des Glaces.

He continues to reinvent and explore pop art via his unique sensibility, currently enjoying the oil medium. Matthew is readying pieces for a gallery showing of new works coming soon.

And like them on facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/RebekahTheArtist

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Matthew-J-Price/150715861628227