The Fire This Time Collage

BIOGRAPHY 1953 Born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Over the past 35 years Tiko Kerr’s artistic practice has included bold explorations into painting, collage, drawing, printmaking, murals, performance and set design, all the while considering the politics of perception. Kerr's visual vocabulary has evolved stylistically through sequential series. Most recently, Kerr is concerned with exploring the emotive force that’s offered by the tension created between abstract forms and figuration. Kerr’s compositions combine instinctive, figurative structure with abstracted, painterly gesture. The impetus of his thematic direction is informed by the collective consumption of cultural images and narratives at the present period in the history of art where there’s an endless range of visual languages available. Kerr’s latest enquiries are predicated on the methodology of collage because it offers the most fitting description of the conditions and choices afforded to us in our fragmented and distracted contemporary moment. Tiko Kerr is a Canadian artist who has developed his artistic processes in Vancouver since the early 1980’s. Kerr attended the University of Calgary and graduated with a degree in Biological Science, which he believes has enhanced his ability to translate the 3-dimensional world into 2 dimensions. Kerr has been commissioned by The City of Vancouver, the BC Centre for Excellence, Vancouver Opera, The Vancouver Symphony, the Celebration of Light and The Vancouver Sun Run. He has collaborated with Ballet British Columbia, painting in performance on 2 projects and was commissioned to create sets for “Boy Wonder”, Canada’s first original 3 act ballet, again working with Ballet British Columbia, and with Touchstone Theatre and Vancouver New Music. He was commissioned to create the sets for another theatre production of “Marion Bridge” at The Kay Meek Arts Centre in 2018. He did an Artist Residency at the Brodsky Centre for Innovative Printmaking at Rutgers University, another at the West End Community Center in Vancouver, where he created 3 murals and more recently, another outdoor wall mural in 2018 for the Kitsilano 4th Avenue Business Association. Kerr has been Guest Artist twice for the Paradise Valley Artists for Kids Summer Camp and is active in teaching and lecturing.