Engaging with art is an incredibly rewarding, inspiring & connective experience - especially when you're creating it! We're thrilled to offer the community opportunities to help create temporary public art. Through open calls for expressions of interest, professional artists are commissioned to design innovative & interactive art pieces that will live outdoor, near the Silk Purse for a limited time. Whether murals or sculptures, these works of art aren't complete until you add your creative touch. Everyone is welcome to join in the art making process; engaging the artwork & it's themes; learning some artistic skills; exploring your creativity; & connecting with community.

Tree Build

August 4 - 27

First Thursday Art Walk Collaboration on September 7, 6 - 8 pm

North Shore artist Matt Monroe conceived & designed this work of interactive temporary public art to inspire dialogue on the impacts of climate change & importance of environmental stewardship & restoration through a collaborative building process.

Tree Build invites the public to come together to create a whimsical, colourful, oversized sculpture in the form of a tree – made from brightly painted pieces of driftwood attached together with connectors created from recycled plastic waste. Members of the community will help 'grow' the work by connecting more & more pieces resulting in a tall, three-dimensional, brightly-colored tree growing in all directions.

Creating something unique & beautiful together as a community mimics the worldwide cooperation necessary to safeguard our planet. Seeing the creation grow & evolve in a tangible way as a group effort, reminds us to work together to maintain & care for the awesome beauty of the environment around us.

Tree Build debuted Thursday, August 4.

Community Collaboration Events were held weekends throughout August, allowing curious & creative members of the community to engage with & participate in the ever changing installation. Every day the tree would be reset for participants to add branches in new configurations - resulting in a renewed tree every time.

About the Artist

Matt Monroe is a Vancouver artist & maker who creates large-scale, sculpture-based installations that provoke a reconsideration of our relationship with the familiar. Matt’s techical skill as a builder and fine craftsperson, combined with his whimsical artistic vision, result in often humorous pieces that evoke emotion through altered objects & contrived experiences.

By reconfiguring the language of established trade skills, & the form of traditional furniture & architecture, Matt creates objects that are at once familiar but, at the same time, defy expectation. His works illuminate something in the world around us either by activating it with unexpected motion or by creating it out of unexpected materials. Oftentimes, his site-specific pieces will interact directly with the environment in which they are placed.

Matt has shown his art work in New York, Detroit, Buffalo, New Mexico, Colorado, Chicago & Los Angeles.

He currently lives in North Vancouver with his family & two dogs.

The West Vancouver Community Arts Council gratefully acknowledges the following for their partnership & support of the 2023 Community Art Project

PREVIOUS COMMUNITY ART PROJECTS

2022 Rising Tides

2021 In Your Hands

2020 Orca

2019 CONNECT