artwork by David McClyment

Flying Pie Creations

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    Dave Head Stencil
    Dave Head Stencil
    When I first thought about doing portraits, I figured I had better work out the mechanics on myself. This is a stencil that I cut, based on a selfie. It is about 5 feet tall and maybe 4 ft across at the widest part.

    Cutting complicated stencils is not difficult. Usually I blast music or listen to the Leafs lose. The cutting part is quite relaxing. It has taught me an important lesson: that lines have two sides.

    Also the trick in cutting out a stencil is that you can never complete a circle (otherwise that part falls out on the floor, damn!)

    What's with the stencils?

     

    When I left art college, I was not a comfortable painter. I was always anxious that my clumsy brush would obliterate all the detailed drawing that I had worked out. It took me FOREVER to finish a painting. Then serendipity directed me towards the idea of stencils. I realized I could preserve my drawings if I cut them out. Anytime I screwed the image up I could lay my stencil down, spray some paint through it and, voila, the drawing was back.

    Dave Stencil on cardboard
    Dave Stencil on cardboard
    Using that same stencil I used spray bombs to spray paint through it. In this case onto cardboard.

    While cutting the stencil might take a great many hours (50? 60? 100? depends). The actual painting might take 30 seconds.

    The whole idea of "stencil" appealed to me as the ultimate low tech mass media. But it was the "idea" that I could infinitely reproduce the line work that attracted me. Knowing that possibility I rarely made multiples. I became more interested in the relationship between line, paint and wood. 

    As Seen On TV
    As Seen On TV
    An installation of a show I had at 64 Steps (a gallery now long gone from Queen West.) My idea was to replicate the experience of watching a series of screens in TV sales shop.

    Eventually, I developed a truly elaborate process of preparing plywood sheets with multiple layers of enamel paint; applying the stencil using spray bombs; beating the image up with sanders and more paint; applying the stencil again...and so on. For some images I must have laid the principal stencil down between 40 and 50 times. One reviewer descirbed my process workeing as well with a belt sander as a brush!" As a hands-on guy, I will take that as a compliment.

    Overall, I probably pursued stencilled imagery for close to twenty-five years. By the time I heard about Banksy, I was starting to get tired of my elbaorate, time consumng, and fume choked process. It was time for a change. But in this section, I am looking back and celebrating all that colour, texture and sawdust. 

    Transfixed by Blue
    Transfixed by Blue
    Two panels, each 30 in square. Spray paint through hand cut stencils on plywood prepared with liquid enamel paint.

    A pair of panels from the "As Seen On TV" serices. In this case my take on a "rural" legend: If you draw a line in the sand and stick a chicken's beak to the line, the poor creature will remain transfixed until you take it away. In this case the line is blue and the "chicken" is really a rooster. I sold this painting, but the owner reported that it had been subsequently stolen. Out there somewhere, doing its thing...

    During my "extended" stencil phase (over 20 years), one of my dominant compositional strategies was to pitch opposites against each other in an effort to find a precarious, yet dynamic balance. 

    ​

    For example, many of these works are "diptychs". One panel saturated with detail and drawing energy. The other panel asserting less drawing but an aggressively saturated colour.

    Dolly
    Dolly
    Two panels, each 30 in square. Spray paint through hand cut stencils on plywood prepared with liquid enamel paint.

    Two panels, each 30 in square. Spray paint through hand cut stencils on plywood prepared with liquid enamel paint.


    From the As Seen On TV series. My first go round at Dolly the Cloned Lamb. In this case, she is fighting the demons of greed! Go, Dolly, Go.
    The Big Bang
    The Big Bang
    Two panels, each 4 ft. x 6 ft. Spray paint through hand cut stencils on plywood prepared with liquid enamel paint.

    From the As Seen On TV series. The title kind of says it all.

    A lot of my process doing the stencils was to reveal the compelling grain naturally in the wood. Quite often this meant sanding off ten's of hours of painting to show the texture

    Two Legs Good
    Two Legs Good
    Two panels, each 4 ft. x 6 ft. Spray paint through hand cut stencils on plywood prepared with liquid enamel paint.

    From the series "As Seen On TV".

    About the pigs in George Orwell's animal farm gaining intellecutal enhancement (and in turn, becoming authoritarian.) In this case, I have turned the whole event into a late night sci-fi feature, where the pigs gain intelligence after wearing some diabolical brain enhancing head gear.

    This image of the dancing pigs returrns repeatedly over the years in other works of mine.

    Most the work I did in my stencil days was on large sheets of 1/2 inch plywood, luxiurantly prepared with many layers of enamel paint. I might lay the stencil down 30 or 40 times before I got the effect that I wanted. I would use a variety of power sanders to grind away the paint that I didn't want, revealing the grain quality of the wood below. Go back in with a paint brush, lay down the stencil image again, sop up some of the image with turps, gring it away again. And so on. One reviewer observed that I was as skilled with a belt sander as with a brush. I took that as a compliment.

    The River Kraken
    The River Kraken
    5 ft. x 6 ft. Spray paint through hand cut stencils on plywood prepared with liquid enamel paint.

    From a series "Three Feet from Shore"

    This whole series was based on a natural science book that I found in my grandmother's house.
    Published in Philidelphia in 1885. The remarkable thing about the book was that it purported that everything in it was scientific fact. It treated more conventionally known facts about nature - such as how sunfish nest - equally with deadpane seriousness descriptions of monsters. Like the Kraken. I was captivated by the florrid quality of the Victorian illustrations.

    What mysteries lurk just a few feet from shore!
    Desperate Escape OverThin Ice
    Desperate Escape OverThin Ice
    5 ft. x 6 ft. Spray paint through hand cut stencils on plywood prepared with liquid enamel paint.

    From the Three Feet from Shore series.

    Some kind of hybrid horned beast tries to escape pursuing wolves by venturing out on thin ice.

    Pike With Prey
    Pike With Prey


    Two panels, each 2.5 ft. x 4 ft. Spray paint through hand cut stencils on plywood prepared with liquid enamel paint.

    From the The Three Feet From Shore Series. In the left panel, a pike is snagging a barn swallow. Clearly asserted by the text book as a regular occurence in 1885. I would put a contemporary toonie down that says that here is no way that a pike could grab a barn swallow swooping in at over 20 mph.

    Abundance. An exhibition where I explored the concept of idealized, unattainable food.

    Automat Coffee
    Automat Coffee
    12 in. x 12 in. Spray paint through hand cut stencils on plywood prepared with liquid enamel paint.

    From the series "Abundance"
    Piece of Pie
    Piece of Pie
    12 in. x 12 in. Spray paint through hand cut stencils on plywood prepared with liquid enamel paint.


    From the series "Abundance"
    Abundance Installation Shot
    Abundance Installation Shot
    Dream of Two Perfect Pies
    Dream of Two Perfect Pies
    3 ft. x 5 ft. Spray paint through hand cut stencils on plywood prepared with liquid enamel paint.
    From the series "Abundance"
    Family Hold Back, two panels
    Family Hold Back, two panels
    Two panels, each 3 ft. x 5 ft. Spray paint through hand cut stencils on plywood prepared with liquid enamel paint.

    From the series "Abundance"
    You Know You Want It
    You Know You Want It
    Two panels, each 2.5 ft. x 4 ft. Spray paint through hand cut stencils on plywood prepared with liquid enamel paint.

    From the series "Abundance". Much of the inspiration for this series was the idea of food "porn" - something the Globe riffed on in the review of the show. Something about "unattainable" food presented to us in various gourmet magazines and cooking shows. While most of the world goes hungry. In this case, the ulimate, most decadent ice cream dessert.
    Happy Motoring
    Happy Motoring
    From the series 1963. An exploration of my memory of the year in which my father died. Filtered through some 50 years further on, events get mixed up - but still form an essential part of my being. In this case, Murray Westgate from the Esso ads on Saturday Night In Canada. The panel below depicts the Cuban flag - as in the revolution and the so-called "crisis" (missles and all) that happend early in that decade.
    Chrysalis
    Chrysalis
    From the series "1963". Something about the pigs in Orwell's Animal Farm emerging into their new found power.
    Snip
    Snip
    From the series "1963".
    Laika, the soviet Space Dog
    Laika, the soviet Space Dog
    From the series "1963".
    Alright, I know not 1963, but rather 1958. My older brother was keeping a journal for school about the space race. I was horrified by the reports that wester ham radio operators were able to pick up the failing heartbeat of Laika, dying as she orbited the earth. The Soviets had either not planned nor figured out how to bring her down
    The Moment Before
    The Moment Before
    From the series "1963".

    JFK was assinated iin November 1963 (on my mother's birthday). Even only being 10, I remember the event quite well. All the teachers crying in the class room. I also clearly remember watching Oswald being killed by Jack Ruby on TV. Single shooter? my ass!

    Having worked on prepared wood for literally 20 years, I finally grew tired of the substrate. So, in this next and last stencil phase, I worked on a more emphemeral material: cardboard. Not only was it a throw away, I also set much of it on fire. I can clearly remember the silence on the phone as I was describing the process to my dealer at the time, the very patient and tolerant David Kaye.

    Future Past Perfect, Installation shot, David Kaye Gallery
    Future Past Perfect, Installation shot, David Kaye Gallery
    A post-apocolyptic world - following an environmental catastrophe. But the plucky human race survives, and monetizes the whole experience by turning us all into "eco-tourists". The cardboard imagery becomes like giant postcards fluttering back to us from the future.
    The Holland Marsh Erupts, 1 of 3
    The Holland Marsh Erupts, 1 of 3
    From the Series, Future Past Perfect.

    I reproduced each image 3 times. But the physical abuse - burning, stomping on it, immersing in water, made each version unique.
    Future Past Perfect, Installation shot
    Future Past Perfect, Installation shot
    From the series Future Past Perfect
    Enhanced Runner, 1 of 3
    Enhanced Runner, 1 of 3
    From the series "Future Past Perfect". One of the plucky "eco-tourists"
    Drawing for Enhanced Runner
    Drawing for Enhanced Runner
    The drawing I did in preparation for the stencil.
    Flying Doctor, 1 of 3
    Flying Doctor, 1 of 3
    From the series "Future Past Perfect". One of the plucky "eco-tourists"
    Male Audience Head
    Male Audience Head
    From the series "Future Past Perfect".

    On the walls opposite to the principal installation of the imagery (some 25 plus images), there was a bank of male and female portraits: the audience watching the cataclysm unfold in real time on their large screen TVs from the comfort of their homes.
    Somethjing About Small installation shot
    Somethjing About Small installation shot
    My last show (at least since then) using stencils. A number of very large portraits (approx 5 ft x 3 ft) on cardboard. Myself, my beautiful partner Sue, and our emminently lalented son, Jaimie.

    Each head is speaking some stencil cut text
    Actual Stencil for Jaimie Portrait
    Actual Stencil for Jaimie Portrait
    From the series "Something About Small".

    Because I knew it was going to be my last stencil show for a while, I thoujght that the "magician" could reveal some of his tricks. In this case, I mounted and presented on plexi, the stencil that I used for one of the portraits of my son