Hamburger Sylvan

The city is layering, devouring, accumulating form. I ramble over paved ground, savouring the last of worn surfaces as the cranes swing smooth glass into place. Red and yellow arrows offer direction to the neighbourhood’s newest property sale, and I wonder at the banality of an environment built for profit: what will be the nostalgia of tomorrow? Open House Press is an act of gleaning. I collect, carve and print the floor boards of demolished homes in my neighbourhood of East Vancouver. The wood is often old growth Douglas fir, hard after a century of footsteps, with a history of use and life caught in its textured surface. Desiring an attentive moment with this texture, I carve the surface as a record of engagement; the resulting square of hatched cut lines reminds me of a painted canvas or a blinded window. The form of the marked square repeats as I cut and remove the centre of another set of boards salvaged from a demolished home down the street. The flooring is subsequently inked and pressed with a wooden spoon onto used bedsheets, becoming a printed frame at the margins of the linen’s floral pattern. These prints hang as final impressions of the demolished structures; the carved marks reference the framing of habitable space—a brief gesture amidst the city’s endless cycling of real estate. Open House Press would not been possible without the support of the Kwi Am Choi scholarship, the Canada Council for the Arts, Janice Cotter of the Port Moody Arts Centre, Adam Corneil and Jeff Johnson of UnBuilders, and Peter Braun of New Leaf Editions. I am grateful to them all.

My Current Exhibitions:

• Open House Press - Sylvan Hamburger