New works by Sleepless Kao & Lisa Cinar

Drawing Night & Day:
an exhibition of new works by Sleepless Kao & Lisa Cinar
May 22 through May 24, 2014
Visual Space (2075 Alberta Street)

Mighty-Om“Little creatures pop out of my brain around midnight and tell me, “play with me”. They demand more room, so I put them onto large canvases. Other creatures do not stop moving, so I make a short animation of them.”
Sleepless Kao


A new exhibition at Visual Space, a multi purpose rental space run by Vancouver-based photographer Yukiko Onley, premiers original paintings from Sleepless Kao’s upcoming children’s book Emily and the Mighty Om, along with works by Lisa Cinar, who will be displaying new works in the form of watercolour and ink originals as well as digital prints.

The exhibition offers an opportunity to experience the world of childlike playfulness and kawaii (cuteness), featuring more than 40 works including digital prints and limited edition silkscreen prints.


summer-time“I have been doing a lot of product specific work recently for my shop drawmealion.com so these works acted as a break away from this. They are the result from getting away from a specific desired outcome. This collection of drawings shows my exploration of different subject matter, colours, mediums, textures, patterns and some might say age group as my work is usually meant primarily for kids. A sense of play is very important to me in my work. Not only is it important to stay inspired by new ways of working to keep evolving as an illustrator and artist, but it’s what makes me want to create in the first place. You will be seeing a lot of bright colours on white, animals of all sorts, patterns as well as flora and fauna.“ – Lisa Cinar


The exhibition will be open daily, 12pm – 6pm at Visual Space (2075 Alberta Street) from May 23 & 24, 2014. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, May 22, 2014, 6pm – 9pm. Sleepless Kao (Kaori Kasai)


 

kao&lisa

Kaori Kasai (a.k.a. Sleepless Kao), artist-in-motion, graduated from Setsu Mode, Tokyo, for fashion illustration, traveled to live and work in San Francisco, Hong Kong, and now Vancouver. She creates her own world of eccentric creatures and personalities which bloom into the void: gigantic space dotted with tiny, intimate kinships and spirits bumping into one another, narrating signs of life across a dreamt universe. She has written and illustrated a children’s book, Monchan’s Bag for Simply Read Books. Her works have been exhibited at gallery 1 (Japan), Giant Robot, Little Otsu and SOMARTS (San Francisco), Compound Gallery (Portland), Helen Pitt Gallery and Blim (Vancouver). Sleepless Kao is currently teaching New Media to age 16 – 19 years old at Arts Umbrella. kaorikasai.com

Lisa Cinar has a special obsession for anything drawn and or in book-form. She graduated from Emily Carr in 2004 in Visual Arts and has since then published two children’s picture books, worked as a freelance illustrator and exhibited her work nationally as well as abroad. Lisa has been teaching courses in Illustration at Emily Carr since 2010. In 2011 she launched her entrepreneurial online project Draw Me A Lion, a shop that specializes in cards, prints and selfpublished items. When she isn’t teaching, looking at books, running her shop or walking her dog you can be sure she’s drawing something. Her preferred drawing tools are a good-old-fashioned 2B pencil, brush and ink, watercolour as well as the use of digital mediums to add colour to her hand drawings. www.lisacinar.com

Visual Space is a multi purpose rental space run by Vancouver-based photographer Yukiko Onley. The space is for art exhibition, workshops and performances and more. Visit visualspace.ca for more information.