Instructor: Tiko Kerr

Title: In Abstract Terms: Collage/Acrylic/Oil

Medium: Collage; includes all media

Level: beginners to intermediate

Dates: August 28-31, 2023 (4 days: Monday-Thursday, 9am to 4pm)

Fees: Early Bird—$500; $550 after February 25

About the workshop

My aim would be to explore the language of abstraction. 

I’d like to challenge people who have already developed their rendering skills so that they can experience more intuitive and improvisational methods of composition and offer direction to those who are at earlier stages of their development as well.

Course outline

The format of the lessons would be roughly:

Monday AM: introduction and conversation

Monday PM: Paper collage (representational / figuration)

Tuesday AM: Paper collage (abstraction)

Tuesday PM: Translating collage into acrylic painting

Wednesday AM: Transitioning from acrylic to oil painting 

Wednesday PM: Exploring canvas collage

Thursday AM: Painting

Thursday PM: Painting continued and critique.

I’d also like to offer to the students any media that they’d prefer to work in; this could also include drawing, pastels etc.

And yes since collage has become fundamental to my practice, it will be predominant in my work.

Supplies list

Download the supplies list for the workshop.

About the artist

Tiko Kerr was born (1953) in Alberta where he received his BSc in Biology from the University of Calgary.

His background in science has had a profound influence on his understanding of the physical ramifications of his artistic practice.

From his early examination of the changing urban landscape and through his dramatic pivot into exploring abstract composition in paper collage and painting, Tiko Kerr’s three decade long practice is constantly in flux.

It has become a fundamentally reductive process, refining form to its most essential and considering how compositional affinities are created as a result of the interplay between intention and chance.

His work is about perception and the ways that the human visual system functions to interpret the world.

Materiality instigates new methods of working and most recently Kerr has embraced plexiglass as a significant medium, elevating the utilitarian material from a transparent protective barrier into a window into our extraordinary contemporary COVID moment.

Kerr presently lives and works in Vancouver.

His practice also has included theatre and ballet design, performance, art direction in documentary filmmaking, murals as well as teaching and community advocacy.

He is represented by Monica Reyes Gallery in Vancouver.

On the web

Visit the artist’s website at: www.tikokerr.com

Return to the overview Workshops page.