Boss Bodies

Rowan Melling, in despair at the affordability crisis, paints unauthorized portraits of Vancouver business moguls.

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Fittingly, a visceral painting of Chip Wilson, the Lululemon founder who now heads Low Tide Properties, is the keystone work in Vancouver artist Rowan Melling’s series of unauthorized portraits of Vancouver business moguls. Wilson is shown with a ruddy face, stubbled chin and a slightly vacant, slightly menacing stare. It’s an image that seems anchored in fear and loathing. Since that was the artist’s motivation for Boss Bodies, on view at Vancouver’s CSA Space until Dec. 12, then, mission accomplished. 

Melling, who took up oil painting only in 2019, created the series of 16 works out of anxiety, anger and despair at the havoc unrestrained capital is wreaking on the local housing landscape, as well as our cultural and community fabric. Many of us, for obvious reasons, share this anxiety. 

The “bosses” here are almost invariably developers or somehow real estate adjacent or invested. They are restructuring neighbourhoods and destroying affordability through relentless branding and business cunning. Many are also involved in the arts through various philanthropic strategies and urban planning initiatives. 

When I walk outside the apartment building where I live, I see, kitty corner to me, the empty building once occupied by Tapestry Music, a family-owned business that has been forced into smaller digs elsewhere. The “For Lease” sign identifies Jovi Realty, co-founded by another of Melling’s subjects, John Ng. In the next block, ground is being broken for the Raphael, a chateau-style “collection” of boutique residences. Two blocks away, is the start of one of Ian Gillespie’s high-end Westbank projects. Collectively, they will likely create a local land-value lift that will lead to higher rents in a city where an average one-bedroom apartment now costs $2,100 a month.

Gillespie, of course, is the backer of Vancouver artist Rodney Graham’s now-infamous $4.8-million Spinning Chandelier, its splendour illuminating the grime under the Granville Street Bridge. The portrait of Gillespie is almost sympathetic, which, on one hand, is a disappointment, but on the other, shows Melling’s work is neither predictable nor malicious.

Of timely interest is the portrait of Michael Audain, in the news this month for donating $100 million to build a new home for the Vancouver Art Gallery. Who can argue with philanthropy, right? Audain, who made his money as the chairman and major shareholder in Polygon Homes, is an art lover who opened his own art museum in Whistler, B.C. 

I first met Audain while shooting his portrait for media articles about arts philanthropy. But this painting is like no other image I’ve seen of him. Melling offers an ambiguous reading, showing Audain with a suspicious, sidelong glance, as if to infer another side to one of the greatest benefactors of the Vancouver arts community (and of whose largesse, full disclosure, I’ve been a beneficiary). This is what makes this show important: It asks us to consider the complexity of individual histories and examine the interdependencies and trade-offs forced on us by those with economic and political clout, regardless of the genuinely good work they may do.

Melling has a Master’s degree in German studies from UBC and is working on a doctorate in communications at Simon Fraser University. His research explores the intersections between Romanticism, neoliberalism and Silicon Valley tech culture. He was born in 1986, the ground-zero year for the ascent of Vancouver property into stratospheric vulgarity. I wonder if anyone other than a complete art world outsider with exactly this background would have dared undertake this project – or even seen it as necessary.

Melling is aware we are awash in various forms of PR and lifestyle branding amidst the current tsunami of gentrification and displacement. This is exemplified by the painting of Lisa Chan, of Lanaca Properties, who also sells a line of aphrodisiac chocolates for busy female moguls with flagging sex drives. Seriously. I’m not making this up. The brand is called TrufElle, which makes me wonder if she’s ever heard the line that artists are truffle pigs for developers looking to target affordable neighbourhoods for bohemian-themed luxury condos. 

If you need an introduction to everybody’s place within the firmament, there’s a breathtakingly sharp essay by Dan Adleman, a co-founder of the Vancouver Institute for Social Research, a critical theory free school run since 2013 out of Or Gallery, an artist-run centre. Adleman’s essay is titled Interfacing with the Vancouver Model: EnVISIONing the Unliveable City, and it’s accompanied by another essay by Toronto-based photographer and writer Neal Rockwell, Portraits of the Vibeconomy. 

Melling, who painted from publicly available photographs, describes his portraits as “grotesque.” True, several are swathed in jaundiced hues, but they exist, like the city itself, in a kind of nether world. There are hints of Lucian Freud, Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka in the palettes and rawness of several paintings, and a few have the flavour of contemporary editorial illustration. But Melling pulls back from the harder edges of satire or caricature.

He seems to be looking for some in-between moments that represent a break in the PR facade. Some portraits might even have been commissioned by the subjects themselves – after all, we no longer expect full reverence. Indeed, they might even add to brand appeal, although Melling would surely cringe at that thought. 

So, why should we care about these portraits? Because these “bosses” have their hands on the tillers guiding not only the built form of the city and its affordability, but the narrative that is luring both global capital and local investors – the city as a marketable vibe, one rich in art, its natural beauty entwined with luxurious lifestyles. But more often than not, this pitch comes at the expense of diverse already-vibrant communities, which, of course, include artists, who, like other residents, need affordability and security of place to provide the vibe in the first place. 

See this show and read the essays. Whether you like it or not, these people are shaping Vancouver’s future. You will either be part of that future or become collateral damage amidst increasing division and disparity. ■ 

Rowan Melling: Boss Bodies on view at CSA Space in Vancouver from Nov. 5 to Dec. 12, 2021.

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CSA Space

5-2414 Main Street, Vancouver, British Columbia V5T 3E2

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