On December 4, a group of British Columbia-based artists will remember Rodney Graham as an artist, musician, and friend. Hosted by David Wisdom, the evening will unfold with a few words and visual presentations by Neil Wedman, Carol Sawyer, Karin Bubas and Pete Bourne, Robert Kleyn, Tim Lee, Kathy Slade and Brady Cranfield of The Music Appreciation Society.

Rodney Graham was an internationally admired artist who created a remarkable range of work in many disciplines, including film, painting, writing, photography, design, performance and music. He had an astonishingly wide interest in popular culture, history, literature, food, and clothes. Rodney will be remembered as much for his conversational flow and his kind and generous companionship as he will for his tremendous art.

Doors at 6:30pm
Presentations at 7:00pm

This event is at capacity.

About the Artists

David Wisdom is best known across Canada for his thirty years on the CBC Radio network as host and producer of music programs such as Nightlines and Pearls Of Wisdom. He was a member of several bands including The Young Winstons and UJ3RK5. Wisdom has been taking photographs since the mid 1960s, and his work has been exhibited at the Vancouver Art Gallery, The Equinox and Teck Galleries in Vancouver, The Gordon Smith Gallery in North Vancouver, and ArtSpring and Fault Line Projects on Salt Spring Island. Wisdom has also been presenting multi-artist slide shows in several venues throughout Canada, the USA and the UK, and his events were part of the cultural programs at the Vancouver Art Gallery for nine years.

Neil Wedman was born in Vancouver, Canada in 1954. Making paintings stands at the core of thirty years of studio practice, but he has devoted almost equal attention to producing drawings and works on paper including print editions, book-works and photographs. He has also made a number of short films and musical recordings although not many of the latter. He lives and works in Vancouver and is represented there by the Equinox Gallery. Neil Wedman has been a sessional instructor teaching studio courses for the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University since 2000 and at Emily Carr University since 1991.

Karin Bubaš, born in 1976 in North Vancouver, is a photo-based artist that now lives in Tsawwassen. She studied at the Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design and graduated in 1998. Bubaš has exhibited nationally and internationally, most notably in Paris, Brussels and Washington D.C. Exhibitions have included Karin Bubaš; A Short History of Subjects and Objects at the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris and Garden of Shadows at The Audain Museum.

Pete Bourne is a Canadian drummer known for his work with the Rodney Graham Band from 2002 until Graham’s passing in 2022. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2000, he continued to record and perform with artists including Copyright, A.C. Newman, Neko Case, and Destroyer until touring became too difficult. Known for his precision, warmth, and musical sensitivity, Bourne’s work remains admired across the Canadian music community.

Robert Kleyn is a Vancouver artist who has been working with slide projections since his first show at the Vancouver Art Gallery when it was still in the Ross Lort designed modernist building at 1145 West Georgia Street.

Tim Lee is an artist that lives and works in Vancouver.

Kathy Slade is a Vancouver-based artist that works across mediums to produce textile works, prints, sculpture, film, video, performance, music projects, and publications. Slade’s solo exhibitions include As the sun disappears and the shadows descend from the mountaintops, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2023); Wherever You Go, Monica Reyes Gallery, Vancouver (2020); This is a Chord. This is Another., Surrey Art Gallery (2018); and Blue Monday, 4COSE, London (2017). Her work has recently been included in group exhibitions at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin; Kunstverein Braunschweig; and Fluc, Vienna. Slade was the curator of the 2019 Vancouver Art Book Fair. Together with Kay Higgins, she runs Publication Studio Vancouver and is the Founding Editor of the Emily Carr University Press, which she was editor of from 2005 to 2018. Slade was awarded the 2009 VIVA Award from the Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation for the Visual Arts. She currently teaches in the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University. In 2007, Slade edited The Rodney Graham Songbook, which was published by the ECU Press in Vancouver and JRP|Ringier in Zurich.

Brady Cranfield is a sound and visual artist, musician, writer, avid listener, and an uninvited guest on the stolen, occupied, and unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh people. He has an MA in Communications and an MFA, both from Simon Fraser University, and is currently a PhD student at SFU's School for the Contemporary Arts, as well.

Carol Sawyer (she/her) is a visual artist and singer who works with photography, installation, video, and improvised music.

Banner Image: Rodney Graham, Oak, Kaggevinne, 1989.