The Old Guard is Dead!

Daryl Vocat

A Space Windows

June 3 – July 17, 2009

In this A Space Member WINDOWS exhibition, The Old Guard is Dead!, Daryl Vocat’s characters imitate the worlds, images and scenarios surrounding them. At the same time, they struggle with ambiguous sexual feelings, and navigate social encounters. The images capture feelings that are unexplained, forbidden, and secret. These boys show what lies beyond the assumption of childhood innocence. Although these illustrations appear to be simplistic, cartoon-like depictions of young men, further consideration reveals a complex world. In this world, a sense of narrative grows out of the work’s serial nature. The original style of the source material is preserved, ideologies are constructed, and hidden worlds are stumbled upon.

The characters in these images, removed from their ‘home’ environment, are displaced into another world, and left to fend for themselves. This clash of styles and environments is used as a metaphor for the process of growing up. These boys exist in the space between how they are expected to behave, and how they want to behave. They fumble through moral experiments while haphazardly staking out their own territory.

Biographies

Daryl Vocat, born in Regina, Saskatchewan, is a visual artist living and working in Toronto. He completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, and his Master of Fine Arts degree at York University in Toronto. His main focus is printmaking, specifically screen printing. He works out of Toronto’s Open Studio.

He has had solo exhibitions at Toronto’s Thrush Holmes Empire, Open Studio, and York Quay Gallery. He has also had solo exhibitions at SNAP gallery in Edmonton, Eastern Edge Gallery in St John’s, James K. Bartleman Art Gallery in Elliot Lake, The Wilfred Laurier Gallery in Waterloo, and Malaspina Printmakers Gallery in Vancouver. He has participated in several group exhibitions both in Canada and beyond, including an internationally touring exhibition titled Further, Artists From Printmaking at the Edge.

His work has been acquired by the National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives, The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery permanent collection, The Saskatchewan Arts Board permanent collection, and the City of Toronto Fine Art collection. His artwork has been published in YYZine from YYZ Gallery in Toronto, Briarpatch magazine from Regina, and Printmaking at the Edge by Richard Noyce, published in Great Britain.