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Opening reception: June 13 @ 8 pm
Access Artist Run Centre is pleased to present Errol and George: Two Sad Swashbucklers, by Michael Markowsky.
Errol and George: Two Sad Swashbucklers conflates two mariners who each have an historical connection to Vancouver, British Columbia. The first is the city's namesake Captain George Vancouver, and the other is Errol Flynn, an actor famous for his portrayals of mariners in epic adventure films such as "The Sea-Hawk", and "Captain Blood". While neither man was a swashbuckler, their voyages both on screen and in actuality, galvanized the public imagination. Both led near mythical lives; though supremely successful in the early portions of their careers, they later endured unbearable humiliations, only to die in relative obscurity.
Standing on a moving boat, Markowsky attempts to paint Vancouver's landscape as he retraces Captain Vancouver's sailing into the Burrard Inlet in June 1792. In the gallery, we see documentation of the sailing, as well as paintings. Interspersed with the sailing footage we see Markowsky drawing the landscape from a vehicle as it follows Errol Flynn's route the day he died in Glenn Gould's uncle's West End Vancouver apartment in 1959. Knowing at the outset that failure to record an ever-moving landscape is inevitable, Markowsky raises questions related to art production and the finished object all housed contextualized within a dialogue of constructed histories, myths and legends.