The street on a sunny day becomes lively and lovely with drivers in their favorite cars, cyclists on a bicycle trip, and walkers with light steps. The three members of Humanfive must be also skateboarding around Vancouver at their own speed and points of view.

There was an exhibition of Humanfive in a gallery space at the skateboard shop, antisocial, from November 22nd to January 6th. This exhibition, named “Bunny Hill: a Hot Spot” showed lots of paintings, sculptures, and installations.

Humanfive is an art collective that consists of Simon Redekop, Mike Swaney, and Jaret Penner. They are skateboarders, painters, graphic designers, and musicians. Their full talents converged in Vancouver and have been active internationally.

The wall painting looks as if it depicts what humanfive sees as the scenery. It harmonizes the whole group of artworks and it transforms the gallery space into a landscape.

“Fuck Sakes” by Simon is a sculpture made of latex paint, pen, fabric, astro surf, and wood, compused of 13 separate boxes. Towns with rainbows, clouds, trees, and buildings are depicted on all sides, and those towns construct a big city. Nasty words make the sculpture not only cute and fantastic, but also cynical. When the audience actually says the nasty words, there is a funny visual and auditory contrast.
Simon hopes urbanization in Vancouver will reach to the level that both the people and the city can face reality and make a good progress.

The artists deliberately recreate their stories in felt dolls and paintings. From girlie- lace and flowers to odd internal organs, their offbeat creativity is obvious and extensive. On opening night, the colorful rainbow and the blue of the wall reminded us of a sunny day, a feeling added to be all the fascinating, smiley people.

Humanfive works on art for the display window in antisocial.

Antisocial supports the talents of various skateboarders in Vancouver. The skaters running in streets, parks, vacant lands, and all around the city, probably see and know the city better than the “higher-ups” of this city. I believe their creativity shows us a great and not often-seen view of Vancouver.

Humanfive “Bunny Hill: a Hot Spot”
Date: November 22nd, 2002 – January 6th, 2003
Place: Anitisocial
Address: 2425 Main Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Tel: +1 604 708 5678
htt://www.humanfive.com