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Mystery street artist displays flower images in a new exhibit

Show to run at the Southside Diner, Jan. 24

A local artist is taking his street art indoors for a mysterious show at the Southside Diner Jan. 24.

The exhibit will include a dozen images of flowers with their colour manipulated to exaggerated, florescent hues. The pieces will be inexpensive and printed on stickers, so buyers can plaster them where they please.

The artist behind the show is known for very different work and he wanted to be identified only by his street name, Dork. He's having another Whistler artist install the show. "I've just been wanting to showcase some of my other works without getting implicated for doing it," he says. "It's stuff I don't usually display."

He has, however, used wheat paste to put up similar flower pictures around town. "My intent with the street artwork was never to be a tagger writing his name in funny italics," he says. "I'm not about that. I thought, 'If I'm going to do this I might as well do it and make it look nice.'"

At least one photographer has taken notice of the street pieces. He snapped shots of roses plastered in Function Junction on Instagram and began selling the photos — until the real artists (there were two working on these particular pieces) put a stop to it.

"He's a young photographer," Dork says. "He removed them."

By moving the artwork indoors, Dork is hoping it will be seen in a different light. "It validates the art by having the street stuff in a makeshift gallery. The street is the street, but when you put it in a venue, it's a little more serious or substantial."

The opening will take place Jan. 24 at 8 p.m. and the artist will be in attendance, just don't expect him to reveal himself. "There's only a couple people who know and they're in the art scene and close to me," he says. "I don't want anyone to know for now. It's a little mystique. That's what's fun with art too."

The goofy pseudonym is meant to be just that: goofy, he adds. He came up with it about six months ago.

"I was brainstorming for ideas and I always call myself a dork jokingly. I started looking at other names and nobody's got that name. It had a nice ring and sound to it in its silliness and humour. I (tossed) it around a few times to a few people and they're like, 'Yeah, that's you,'" he says.

As for the flowers, they're just pretty, plain and simple. "(I was) at a couple botanical gardens and I thought, 'These are nice and everything, but what would it take to make a simple image stand out more?' I started playing with it in Photoshop and tweaking them and making alternates," he says.

Dork figures he'll reveal himself in due time, but for now he says he hopes to remain a mystery. "I still have a lot of plans for some of this art work," he says. "I think if (my identity) is known I'd be subject to a bit of scrutiny."