The Battle of Art

Over the last few years there has been a steady trend picking up in the Canadian art scene, and that trend is, live competitive painting.  It's exactly as it sounds. One of the first to hit the scene and spearhead the movement, is the now immensely popular Art Battle.  Over the years, it has slowly been picking up momentum, popping up from city to city. Now, there is an Art Battle in every major Canadian city. 

In it's infancy, the Vancouver Chapter's Creative Director, was none other then Bill Higgison, who took on the challenge of curating the monthly line ups, built a reliable team as well, he found a home for the show each month.

I remember when Art Battle first came to Vancouver, it was held in the back room of Raw Canvas a tiny little bistro style restaurant  in Yaletown, at the time, there was perhaps maybe 50 of us, watching as 3 artists at a time would furiously paint what ever they could in the 20 minutes that they where given. When they put down their brushes it was us, the crowd who would vote who would move on and who wouldn't. The winners of the first two rounds would go head to head in the final round for all the glory. 

The winners of each final round from every month would meet again at the end of the season for the semi - finals. And that winner would then go to Toronto to 'battle it out with the other champions from across Canada. The reigning champion for two years in a row, was from the Vancouver Chapter, Yared Nigussu.

Today, Art Battle, has exploded, it is now a huge platform for up and coming artists to get noticed and network, instead of three artists per round it is now six.  Each monthly event consistently draws hundreds of spectators.  Both the Victoria and Vancouver Art Battle's are run by artist and superstar Angela Hillier, who bounces back and forth form city to city bringing us line up after line up of amazing talent. 

If you are interested in participating or would like to learn how to get involved with their upcoming events visit them here -----> artbattle.ca