Michael Phelps

Michael Phelps magazine spread.

We Live Here, We're Stuck Here

This is the cover and back cover for a short six page book I have created. The book looks at the ideas of leaving an old life and starting a new one somewhere else. The feelings of homesickness, isolation and loneliness are all looked at here in relation to leaving your home.

Final Photo Project

This was my final photo project this semester. I documented my day working as a courier by shooting a photo once every 20 minutes with a Holga Camera.

Mock New Era Ads

This was done for a photo class where we had to construct two advertisements that played off one another.

Government of Ontario Transit

This poster was the deconstruction and reinterpretation of an instructional sign that outlined how to ride the GO Train here in Toronto, Ontario. The purpose of the assignment was for us to create a new hierarchy of text that was taken directly from the sign. The only elements that were permitted for use were the words taken directly from the original sign and all the words had to be used.


This is the original sign below.

Gun Violence Banner

These are two rough drafts that have not been finalized for a project to end gun violence in Toronto. These are intended to be viewed back to back as a two sided banner.

Chuquicamata Poster Project

This was a project done for a graphic design class. The poster was designed as an "alternative" travel destination. I was aiming to show the highly technical aspects of the mine and it's relationships to other man made structures.

Quiet

Image shot for a project entitled Place As Memory.

Benefit Poster

This was a project done for an illustration for Graphic Design Class. That was promoting a fictitious benefit for the Great Indian Rhinoceros.

The Streets Are Our Track

This is a documentary on the state of track bike and fixed gear riding in 2008. This film was shot entirely in Vancouver B.C. Canada.

Decay

Decay is a 25' by 3.5' painting set across five canvas panels. The work is composed of real rust that was applied to the canvas surface using a liquid iron solution.

Self Portrait

A digital self portrait compossed of images taken in Vancouver and New York City.

Skitch Clothing Ad

This was the ad the we ran in the February issue of Cog Magazine.

Push Skateboard Series

A three part skateboard series done for the Marshall Clarke Gallery show, Fresh. A show of young emerging artists in Vancouver.

Limited Edition T-Shirt Line

A four part limited edition t-shirt line for Skitch Clothings fall 2007 collection.

Aick Clothing Prints

All desigs were done for the Aick Clothing Company.

Langara Fine Arts Graduation Poster

Remix Records Logo

Logo design for Remix Records on Granville Street in Vancouver, Canada.

The Race That Could Have Been

A digital design book project about Stanley Park and the Formula One race track that was proposed for the site in the mid 1970's.

Nature vs. Nurture

She Steps Forward

A model study of a woman in motion.

Angel With Wings

Artist Bio

I was born on November 21st, 1984 in a hospital in Vancouver, Canada. I grew up in a small house in East Vancouver next to a cemetery. It was in this cemetery that I learned many life lessons and skills. I learned how to skateboard and to ride a bike and would treat the place as my own personal playground. Fond memories of this place exist for me but I feel that as a child with an immense imagination, this place also distressed me. I was not afraid of the cemetery itself, it was more that I was afraid of the imaginary creatures that existed within it. It is for these reasons I feel that I started to make art. It was a way to imagine things but not fear them.

At the age of thirteen my family moved and along I went to the most foreign and overwhelming places I have ever been. Santiago, Chile provided the venue in which my love for art was firmly established. While attending the International School, Nido de Aguilas, I became very aware of the visual arts and their historical significance. Artists like Jackson Pollack, and Picasso and Roberto Matta were all shown to me for the first time and in the cases of Picasso and Matta I was allowed to view their work in person in the galleries of Santiago with my fellow classmates. It was an instructor of mine named Victoria Sanchez that first sparked this interest and encouraged me to make work in new and interesting ways. She allowed me outside of the classroom where I was able to think without distraction and able to focus on the spaces around me. Santiago was a place of great contrasts, the landscape, the economic divisions and the culture. I picked up on these things as a young teenager and began to work with them in my art.

In the summer of 2000 I was brought back to Canada. Edmonton specifically served as home this time and my creativity and production of artwork came to a grinding halt. Never in my life have I been faced with such over whelming contrast between cities. Edmonton proved to be the single most uncreative place for me that I have ever been. I stopped making art for almost three years and was not allowed to continue in the fine arts at my chosen high school due to bureaucratic reasons. I felt that the culture was a facad and that no real culture actually existed there. High School eventually ended and I entered College studying general courses but quickly came to realize that I did not know what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go.

Vancouver once again provided that answer. In the late summer of 2003 I moved back to Vancouver on my own with nothing more than a backpack and $800 to my name. Bouncing from job to job for a couple years I finally decided that it was time to begin pursuing a carrier in art. I had recently been asked to help run a clothing company with a friend, and was doing the majority of the design work which rekindled my love for making art.

I enrolled in the Fine Arts department at Langara College where I am currently finishing up my diploma. I have discovered a great love for design and have started a new clothing company that is distributed internationally in North America and Asia. I have regained my passion for art and this new outlook seems to be taking me to new places. I'm not sure where I'll be next year but four possibilities seem to be on the horizon. Only time will tell.

Tom Briggs

Artist Statement

My artwork is a direct reflection of my interactions with my surroundings. I look at the things people glance over and try to find interest in them. I feel that with decay comes a beautiful sense of creativity. Working in many mediums and across numerous subject matters, it all comes back to my physical surroundings and the spaces I move through every day. Steel, brick, concrete and rust are presented to me everyday as I make my way through this city and can't help but be affected by these places. I am not a mirror of what I see but simply a filter for the ideas that are presented to me daily. It is human interaction with our environment that is so captivating, a scribble on a wall or a billboard flashing with neon lights are equal signs of life. It is in this place that we must exist and it is in this place that we must leave our mark.

Tom Briggs