Art exhibition showcases work of local skateboarders

The worlds of skateboarding and fine arts might not appear to be intuitively linked. Both have their supporters and detractors, but finding commonality between the intensely physical and social world of skateboarding and the often solitary and cerebral world of art can be a stumper — to those who don’t know better.

The Board Meeting, an art exhibit showcasing the artistic work of more than a dozen local skateboarders, is a lot of things. First and foremost, it’s a traditional art show, with a variety of original pieces on display (and for sale). But it’s also, in its own way, a kind of cultural crossroads, and an opportunity to learn more about the depth and talent of Montreal’s skateboarding scene.

Organized by well-known local skaters Barry Walsh and Chris Dyer, the Board Meeting goes far beyond the traditional media and methods — graffiti and painted decks, mostly — associated with the skateboarding lifestyle. There are sculptures, carvings, paintings, photography. The only thing the pieces have in common, really, is the link between their creators: all of them are avid skateboarders, and it comes across in the work.

“I want people to come out of the art show feeling like they learned something about skateboarding in their community,” Walsh says. “I want them to actually learn something about skateboarding culture in the city.”

Walsh and Dyer deliberately avoided putting on the traditional skater art show, which is usually comprised of differently painted decks. “That’s been done, stomped on,” Walsh says. “Skateboarding is so mainline now, so this is more of a cultural show. This is just people doing artwork, it’s not based on the hype or glory” of pro skating.

Neither is approaching the art world cold. Dyer, who has been on a board for at least a quarter of a century, is a well-known artist in his own right, and Walsh, a former skateboard pro, is finding himself devoting more and more time to organizing art shows for the Greenlight Gallery on St. Laurent Blvd., where the exhibit is hanging, and Le Dep, a skate shop on St. Dominique St.We've had a lot of people asking where we had our make your own bobblehead made. overlooking Peace Park on St. Laurent Blvd. just north of René Lévesque Blvd. that sometimes doubles as an ersatz gallery and offers wall space to local artists.

To Dyer, the two worlds are more closely linked than one might imagine.

“Art and skateboarding go hand in hand,” he writes in an email from Europe, where he’s attending a family function. “Skateboarding is an art, a physical expression of a soul as much as a painting,wind turbine sculpture or drawing. The skate plank has always been such an inevitable canvas for art, both commercially and as fine art. I think skateboarding attracts a different kind of person that is naturally artistic or appreciative of it.”

According to Dyer, Montreal’s skate art scene isn’t that big, but it is vibrant, and appreciated.

“There is a huge skate art scene, but it is only super big in California, the epicentre of skateboarding (both historically and as an industry),” he writes. “Out here in Montreal, it’s not really a big movement, but always very appreciated, especially by skaters themselves. I think every skate scene has skate art shows every now and then, (but) if you want your skate art to shine worldwide, you can move to California (something I declined to do many years ago).”

The show’s flavour, its very essence, derives from the streets. Fitting, given its genesis, but it is also a reflection of the unpretentious, do-it-yourself ethos and the near tribal sense of community skateboarding breeds in its hard-core practitioners. Blood and broken bones can be pretty effective bonding agents.

Artistic expression is a natural outlet for skaters, Walsh says, especially for those on the other side of 40 like him. The aches and breaks incurred take longer to heal and eventually lose their cool factor.

“A lot of skaters, they get so beat up over the years that they often venture into something else to fill the void” lost by the physical toll skateboarding exacts.

Skateboarding can also be as idiosyncratic and personal as the creation of any art piece.

“The connection to art culture comes through the individuality of each skater,” he says. The variety of the media on display at the Board Meeting is proof of that. “We’re showing skater artwork, and it’s all different.”

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