by Stanley Mishkin

Artwork Description

Woodwards #1

0.0 x 0.0

37x45 ins. Oil on wood. The first of three paintings that depict the former Woodwards department store a fixture in the once bustling commercial district in downtown Vancouver. Here I've rendered the building in a dilapidated state and populated the foreground with characters from the Downtown East Side, now a very gritty district that has the distinction of being Canada's poorest postal district. I created the billboard sign in order to juxtapose this area with the cleanliness and wealth of the Fraser Valley where Vancouver is the major metropolis. Crows regularly make their journey across the city at around 5pm each day from the West End of Vancouver to Burnaby Lake in the East. I have included the crows as a motif and set them against Vancouver's often changing skies: in this case a fast moving and active cold front.

Artwork Details

Medium: Painting Oil

Genre: Impressionistic