When I first saw this poster around the OCAD campus I thought to myself:
“Oh my god! Another event by Jesjit Gill!”
It’s crazy how someone in his thesis year can constantly come up with so many projects. Seriously, there is a poster up for some kind of opening or show and then a week later there is another neon screen-printed poster announcing yet another event.
In the OCAD Printmaking department everyone knows Jesjit’s work very well. The rest of the people in the Toronto art scene know him for his countless band posters, unique screen-prints, many many zines, and the fact that he coordinates the Free Drawings magazine.
So, as if all that wasn’t already a lot of work, he decided to make a screen-printed book!
“I’ve spent the last couple of months putting together and screen-printing a book featuring the work of 16 of my favorite artists! It’s called Cave Mind, and we’re launching it and having a print exhibition next week!!” (Taken from his blog )
The book turned out so well too!
Last Saturday it seemed just like an OK opening to go to, but when I got there and saw the book, the prints and the drawings up on the walls I was very pleasantly surprised. Everything looked great, the artwork was fun and bold and although every artist has a super unique style the collection of works seemed to be really cohesive and well organized. Props to good curatorial skills!
The book was no different from the show; Jesjit did a great job when it came to the layout. Every page completely represented the artist but at the same time as a collection of works it worked extremely well.
It seems crazy that with only four layers of screen-prints such a colorful book was made.It was vibrant and looked really professional, but professional in and awesome d.i.y way, not in a cooperate way.
The artists in the book come from a wide range of places and backgrounds. Most of them are Canadian, some American, some Asian, and others European.
Some of them are very talented up-and-coming students and others have already ‘made it’.
These are the artists featured in the book:
Steph Davidson
Michael Deforge
Tomas Del Balso
Jesjit Gill
Reid Jenkins
Alex Mackenzie
Alicia Nauta
Fiona Smyth
Seripop
Ryan Duggan (US)
Noel Freibert (US)
Keith Herzik (US)
Chris Kline (US)
Mickey Zachilli (US)
Tetsunori Tawaraya (Japan)
Brent Wadden (Germany)
Yannick Val Gesto (Belgium)
If I had to review this book I’d give it a 10 out of 10. The night of the launch I didn’t have any cash on me, but if I had 25$ I would have walked out of that gallery a very happy person.
And can we please talk about the price?! 25 dollars for a completely hand-printed book with great artwork in it, is not that much, not that much at all…
My friends and I discussed how, first of all, that’s roughly how much you would pay for any one of those individual prints. Second of all, art books at bookstores are always a lot more expensive than that; besides the fact that they are usually digitally printed in editions of millions of books. Jesjit printed 145 copies and I’d say anyone who owns Cave Mind should feel pretty special about themselves.
