POSTED BY LIZZY HILL ON MON, JAN 12, 2009 AT 1:48 PM

An odd assortment of metal-heads, indie-kids and the old-guard gallery crowd came together last Saturday in the spirit of morbid curiosity, voyeurism and artistic enlightenment.

A hushed silence and palpable air of tension fell over this group of over 50 people, who jam packed around a small stage at Mount Saint Vincent Gallery for the opening night of Jason Fitzpatrick’s Bite and Burn Encore. All eyes fell upon artist Amber Thorpe, as she tattooed a solid bar on Fitzpatrick’s chest, and printmaker Dax Morrison, who took impressions on paper of the fresh blood and ink.

Part of the excitement arose from the fact that

An odd assortment of metal-heads, indie-kids and the old-guard gallery crowd came together last Saturday in the spirit of morbid curiosity, voyeurism and artistic enlightenment.

A hushed silence and palpable air of tension fell over this group of over 50 people, who jam packed around a small stage at Mount Saint Vincent Gallery for the opening night of Jason Fitzpatrick’s Bite and Burn Encore. All eyes fell upon artist Amber Thorpe, as she tattooed a solid bar on Fitzpatrick’s chest, and printmaker Dax Morrison, who took impressions on paper of the fresh blood and ink.

Part of the excitement arose from the fact that the exhibition contained elements of danger. The stage upon which Thorpe tattooed Fitzpatrick was so shaky that when I tried to balance my beer on it, it spilled a bit. Also, a clumsy patron could have eas

Jason Fitzpatrick’s fresh blood and tattoo ink transformed into prints at MSVU Art Gallery.

POSTED BY LIZZY HILL ON MON, JAN 12, 2009 AT 1:48 PM

An odd assortment of metal-heads, indie-kids and the old-guard gallery crowd came together last Saturday in the spirit of morbid curiosity, voyeurism and artistic enlightenment.

A hushed silence and palpable air of tension fell over this group of over 50 people, who jam packed around a small stage at Mount Saint Vincent Gallery for the opening night of Jason Fitzpatrick‘s Bite and Burn Encore. All eyes fell upon artist Amber Thorpe, as she tattooed a solid bar on Fitzpatrick’s chest, and printmaker ]]> http://www.jasonfitzpatrick.ca/texts/auto-draft/feed 0 http://www.jasonfitzpatrick.ca/texts/bite-and-burn-by-mike-landry http://www.jasonfitzpatrick.ca/texts/bite-and-burn-by-mike-landry#comments Sun, 19 Dec 2010 06:10:11 +0000 matthewbrown http://www.jasonfitzpatrick.ca/art/?p=686 Continue reading →]]> Prints taken from Jason Fitzpatrick’s back for “Bite and Burn.”

After the final print was taken off the freshly finished black stripe of a tattoo running down Jason Fowler Fitzpatrick’s spine, he was done with Bite and Burn. After a total of nine hours of tattooing in three cities (Toronto, Vancouver and Sackville, NB), 80 bloody prints, and many death metal and punk records his performance/installation sculpture was finished.

But like a musician backstage listening to the roar of the crowd demanding more, Bite and Burn kept calling Fitzpatrick back. Working with the original performance sculpture’s components, but not extending the piece, Bite and Burn, encore recaps the entirety of the original piece.

“The totality of the sculpture was completed. So each individual piece was a part of that. In my own mind it made logical sense to have something that signified that. I didn’t know what that would be,” says Fitzpatrick. “I just started taking things from [Bite and Burn] and building things in my studio.

Included in the new installation are 60 prints of Fitzpatrick’s back from Bite and Burn, a video piece collecting the original raw footage, 96 death metal-esque tour shirts for the Bite and Burn tour.

Fitzpatrick has also built a Gyprock platform, upon which he was tattooed again last Saturday while a rock band played below. Working with a tattoo artist and printmaker, Fitzpatrick’s latest tattoo was inspired by NSCAD’s lithography workshops. An edition of ten prints were taken off his right chest.

It’s easy to focus on the pain and labour involved in Bite and Burn, but Fitzpatrick thinks that’s a superficial examination of his work. He’s more interested in transformation and growth.

Transformation is also the reason why Bite and Burn focuses on the tattoo. It stands in as a ritual for transformation, and harkens back to Fitzpatrick’s own personal history in the 80’s metal scene—a culture marked by hitchhiking to Montreal and ritual-like activities like tattooing. It’s how he grew up and learned to be a man.

“Pain is not what I seek. It’s simply a consequence of an activity. There’s a lot of things that people do that aren’t necessarily pleasant, but we want to do them to get to the other side and be different than we were before.

“When I go up against and push against something restrictive I tend to grow, like when you’re at the gym and you push against something and your muscles grow. I think that can happen to a person as well. When we push against authority and the rules we tend to grow.”

Bite and Burn, encore is on display until Tue February 8 at the Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery in Halifax.