Hello
Brookfield Properties!
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Thank you for this amazing opportunity and your investments in the Arts here in Calgary.
Artist Entrepreneurs.
As a husband and wife artist collective, we’ve spent the past decade creating art that keeps the spirit of childhood alive. Our journey began with a simple promise, to never let go of our childhood teddy bears, the loyal friends who once held our biggest dreams and quietest fears. What started as a sentimental bond has blossomed into an art practice that invites imagination to run wild, wonder to take the lead, and the discovery of joy in the everyday.
Click below to step into our world!
What we want to do in 315
Community
Our art has always been shaped by the incredible communities we work with. Each public installation begins and ends with their support, growing in unexpected and meaningful ways. With the 315 Residency, we hope to create an accessible space where creativity can unfold naturally, where existing tenants, the public, local artists, and the community can come together to shape something truly special. Whether through markets, artist talks, festivals, workshops, pop-up galleries, or something entirely new, we’re excited to see what we can build together. We plan on working closely with the community and past partners in Calgary in addition to the two projects outlined below. We look forward to meet with your selection team to share the ideas we have, and the community members we have closely worked with here in Calgary.
01
A Discontinued Childhood
As part of the RBC Emerging Artist program at Arts Commons, we presented our reimagined $2 Bill for their Window Galleries. Growing up in the ’90s, the Birds of Canada banknote series was a familiar part of everyday life.
The $2 bill, in particular, was Pohly’s weekly allowance for chores, small moments that have since become cherished memories. As adults, we find ourselves valuing what we no longer have, holding onto the things that shaped us.
During the 315 Residency, one of our commitments is to complete all seven bills from this series in large format and host a gallery exhibition, using our portable gallery walls we use at art shows, bringing this deeply personal theme to life. For the first time, we will also offer private collectors the opportunity to acquire editions of this work, and the others in the series, something we have never pursued, despite numerous serious inquiries.
Sculptures
From massive 8' illuminated Gummy Bears to a 3D Bok Choy Boy Sculpture, we've had the opportunity to hand-build and oversee the production of sculptures in a variety of mediums. The 315 Residency gives us the space to finally bring a long-awaited project to life, working with a garage full of sculpture-grade foam we reclaimed from a construction site four years ago (with permission, of course).
Upcycling this material into the kind of bold, larger-than-life lobby art that has inspired us in cities like New York and Toronto has always been on our bucket list. However, it wasn’t feasible in our home studio or the smaller warehouse we currently occupy. With the 315 space, and its 12 foot ceilings and 4,400 square feet, we can carve the shapes by hand and then take them off-site for coatings and painting. We already have private collectors waiting for this new chapter in our art practice, and during the residency, we are committed to creating at least one sculpture intended for the year-long tour in the lobbies of Brookfield properties.
Work Equipment and Assistance Required
01
Mentorship from your team.
We’re excited to share our ideas with your team and gain insight into what it takes to activate a commercial property with the public in mind. Navigating corporate procedures feels like a natural next step for us, given our experience in project management, logistics, public art, outdoor activations, and international art shows.
02
Installation and Safety.
Every space we’ve installed art in has required thoughtful consideration of engineering, safety, and how the public could interact with the artworks. Collaborating with your team to address these elements will provide valuable experience and insights we can then carry forward into future installations.
03
Value across Departments
All of our past collaborations have started with thoughtful research on how our art can add value to everyone involved. Through our work with major institutions like zoos and aquariums, we’ve grown as artists who bridge creativity with purpose. Now, we aim to expand that trust beyond retail, education, marketing, and conservation, exploring new ways to collaborate across diverse departments.
04
Tackling the Unknown.
We’ve always been able to identify, acquire, and utilize the right equipment and materials to bring our ideas to life. With access to your team’s expertise, networks, and experience, we’re excited to expand our perspectives and dream even bigger, pushing our future art projects from imagination into reality.
Expertise in Commercialization
Stylistically, our ‘Contemporary Saturdays’ style uses as few colours and lines to the maximum effect possible; the rigid limitations of colour, size, and quality are all already catered to within the style itself, making it easy to create a work that is striking, bold, and recognizable. This iconic style was crafted and refined with the intention of visibility, decipherability, and accessibility of design, especially from a distance, in crowded spaces, and while moving.
Having worked with large organizations on collaborations in the past, we are comfortable and confident with the processes and deadlines required for the projects we are proposing, and have worked on projects of similar or larger sized budgets.
We have been creating physically and digitally painted works for just over 10 years this year. In the painting category alone we have painted and sold over 15,000 hand-painted works to private collectors, galleries, and commercial retail stores. We have experience working with various printers and merchandisers in the art realm for over a decade and are confident in their expertise to tackle any area of these projects.
As self-represented artists that have displayed and sold our works in pop-up galleries across Canada and the U.S. at events with tens of thousands of attendees roughly 20 to 30 times a year, it was important to create a style that caught the attention and cut through the visual noise of packed spaces, typically focusing on single characters that feel as though they are an animated still, the artwork evokes the viewer's imagination to interact, and see themselves, in the characters.
Due to the nature of these pop-up galleries exhibitions, we currently possess professional gallery walls (pro-panels), lighting, and various assets to create a full experiential walk through gallery in any space. Although our most common pop-up size has been typically 10’X20’, we have activated large scale footprints with our artwork at events and festivals. Our current body of existing work is large enough to activate all 4,400 sq ft of the hall.
We currently merchandise in the areas of hand-painted and digital canvases, stickers, prints, t-shirts, hoodies, sculptures, low-relief wood art, and screen prints. Our practice includes merchandising our artwork whether through pop-up gallery sales, public art, and private commissions. We are both full-time professional artists supported by the success of our practice.
We are also at the forefront of our brand, image, and representation, so our community engagement, public personas, and event work are our passion. We are happy to engage and draw the public into our world, while explaining our process, talking passionately about our artworks, and connecting with the tenants and public.
This residency offers a unique opportunity to refine and expand our expertise in large-scale, site-specific projects and to showcase our portfolio of works as well as create new, exclusive works for this residency that, at the size of this exhibition, will ‘wow’ the tenants and public alike. Our goal is to create such impactful pieces that they impress others in the Brookfield family internationally.