PRESS / REVIEWS

Victoria Times Colonist
05/07/00
By: Robert Amos

“Curiously Overexposed Obscurity”

Joe Average at
Winchester Gallery 1010 Broad Street Victoria
May 4 to May 31

JOE AVERAGE is the most recognized artist in Vancouver. His images – pop, bright, upbeat – have turned up as murals in the Vancouver Airport and in bus shelters. They rove around the town on the side of Food Bank vans, and hang as banners on Robson Street. Canada Post reproduced his design for the 1996 International Conference on AIDS as a postage stamp. On beer labels, posters for more good causes than you can name, his images are everywhere. I could bore you to death with the number of honors he has received. All this isn’t making him wealthy. Yes, my friend, he sighed. Hand to mouth is the life. Joe is an artist who has chosen an unusual route to fame, and the fortune is yet to come. Gifted with a natural talent, he was born Brook Tebbutt, one of a number of creative children of his artist mother, Sylvia. She nurtured his talent. I was once asked why I do what I do, Joe remembers. My response was that it was my drawings that were taped to the refrigerator, not my report cards. In the sleepy backwater of Victoria, art was the only subject which made sense to him a school. Inspiring teachers at Oak Bay High School included Carole Sabiston, Bill West and Beth Hannigan, but he dropped out in the eleventh grade. Years later he discovered the reason and gave it a name – dyslexia.

But this teenager didn’t know that. A bisexual, Joe landed tasted London, New York and Vancouver for a properly misspent youth, but his fun and frolic came with consequences. Soon he discovered he was HIV positive. Joe grew up fast, watching most of his friends die before their time.
By careful living and good luck, he has kept the worst of that plague at bay. His creativity took on a vital role in his life. I believe that focusing on my art after my diagnosis, and the decision to make it my career, is in part very responsible for my longevity, Joe explains. Art heals!

Settling in Vancouver, he was inspired by the rubber stamp and quick-copy antics of the correspondence art movement. And he took on a new name. Vancouver already had a Mr. Peanut and a Dr. Brute, an Art Rat and an Anna Banana. What more fitting for a white guy with a medium build and no identifying marks than Joe Average? He began signing his art work that way at age 19 and later legally changed his name to match his image.

Driven by need as well as commitment, Joe put his art before the public in a variety of unusual ways. From the start he developed a simple style which was catchy and attractive but didn’t take itself too seriously. Like many artists without a hope of proper gallery representation, he set up one-night shows in warehouses and lofts. The most visible venues were group shows set up as fund-raisers for causes dear to the hearts of the marginalized downtown artists.
With Joe’s uncommon knack for creating the telling image, he was often featured on posters. His generosity was called on again and again, and he never disappointed. It has been said that he has given away twice as much art as he has sold. And when he did sell it, he kept the prices within reach of people like him. Thus, Joe got lots of practice making pictures that would go out into the world and be seen.

Nevertheless, this didn’t do much toward paying the bills. Like most artists, Joe doesn’t have a medical plan, something to consider when you realize he devotes every Wednesday to medical appointments. To underline this point, he reports that my medical expenses are more than my rent every month.
Meanwhile, his generosity and visibility have transformed him into a celebrity. Joe, like Andy Warhol, has become famous for being famous. Journalists are keen to write him up; he is a positive spokesman for the HIV crowd and has that cool nickname, too. He’s been photographed chatting with Elizabeth Taylor in Vancouver and Princess Diana at Rideau Hall.

In 1995, when he was medically challenged with HIV, his fellow artists and friends organized a fundraiser for him. Joe was quoted as saying, It’s such a paradox. I’m treated like a celebrity, and I’m always asked to different events. But I have to make up excuses because I can’t afford to go. Perhaps he’d rather be spending the day painting.

This artist is much more than Mr. Congeniality. At a recent fundraising event for the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria – the hugely popular Artful Transformations auction – I came face to face with Joe’s contribution, a striking canvas more than a metre square. And I want to tell you, he is a really good painter.
Called Miss Demeanor, this sultry lady might have started out as a little sketchbook doodle. Writ large, she is irresistible. Blocks of vibrant colours are held in place by crisp, black outlines. The shapes ring with a sort of afterglow, a retinal burn Joe achieves by offsetting each colour with its tonal neighbour. Only in the flesh do you realize the mastery he achieves in laying down paint .

I like the canvas surface to be all flat and smooth, Joe told me. I don’t want the viewer to be distracted by the technique or visible brush strokes. I want them to see the image first. You do see it instantly – from across the room!

While Average is artistically his own man, he acknowledges the influence of other artists. Peter Max and the Blue Meanies (from Yellow Submarine) may be Joe’s surrogate parents. Among a field of pop art references, first comes Roy Lichtenstein, who appropriated old comic books and painted them huge, with deadpan humour.

I suggested that Joe had spent time poring over crummy little ads in the back pages of pulp magazines from the 19501s, studying those little ink drawings that sold whoopee cushions or Charles Atlas weightlifting courses. Yes, yes and yes! he concurs.

The late New York graffiti artist Keith Haring is also on his list. Haring inspired me in the same way those others did….they went and painted what they loved, whether it was considered art or not. They painted their passions, as ridiculous as they might have seemed to others.

The owners of Victoria’s adventurous Winchester Gallery spotted talent and invited Joe to have a show. What a surprise to find that he has never had a proper gallery show before. The current exhibit is a choice survey, beginning with selections from his sketchbooks. Some are confident scribbles, coloured in with the panache of brilliant child art. He likes to use felt pens and Sharpies. Watercolours of ditzy babes rub shoulders with small oil paintings of palm trees. The largest canvases are surprisingly fine. One big enough for the biggest loft is a head shot of a hunky guy. His square jaw, his pillow lips, his bedroom eyes create a dreamy mood. Only on closer inspection do you realize his bleached hair and eyebrows have leopard spots, and his skin is anunusually attractive shade of grey. He makes it look easy, but you know it’s not. These will doubtless be the antiques of the future. Is there something we should know about his subject matter? Joe replies: People ask if there’s some special meaning and are desperate for me to give them some long philosophical answer. But I go, no, no. that’s your job. It is for the artist to inspire, and for the viewer to imagine. My hat is off the Joe Average. He’s all heart and expresses his feelings with candour. He has the determination to go on, continually making things. And he has that special knack, that je ne sais quoi. His images attract us, and cheer us up, and keep us wondering. I don’t know how he does it, but long may he continue.

Honours: Artist Joe Average wins Caring Canadian Award
The Vancouver Sun, March 13, 1998, Final Edition, p.B1

Vancouver artist Joe Average was one of 53 Canadians who received a Governor-General’s Caring Canadian Award on Thursday.

The award is presented to individuals and groups whose unpaid, voluntary contributions provide extraordinary help or care to people in the community. Joe Average has created art for AIDS Walks the last five years. Other B.C. recipients include Langley Hospice Society member Dorscie Paterson from Surrey and Roberta Friars from Little Fort.

The award consists of a framed certificate and a lapel pin for everyday wear.

Beyond Average
Monday Magazine
May 11-17, 2000
By: Yvonne Owens

Walking into the Winchester Galleries’ downtown showroom is an especially cheering experience these days- and not just because you escape the chaos and and noise of the Broad Street construction. Inside, the walls are hung with vivid shapes and bold colours in the canvases of Joe Average, showing in his hometown for the first time in 16 years (1010 Broad Street, until May 31). His last local exhibition was at Open Space in 1984, the year he tested positive for HIV.
Since then, his imagery has spearheaded the fight against AIDS on countless fronts, flowing into the stream culture and becoming immediately recognizable among the welter of pop icons. It was chosen as the conference image for the 1996 International Conference on AIDS, and for a Canadian stamp issued that year. Now based in Vancouver, he has been honoured for his philanthropic donations, activism and contributions with a Governor Generals Caring Canadian Award, Vancouver’s Civic Merit Award, Xtra West magazines Heroes of 1996 Award for community achievement, the Arts For Young People Award, and a royal presentation To Prince Charles and Princess Diana. In his championing of the life and times (and health) of Everyman, Average definitely goes beyond the mean.
His signature Pop style is suited to his avocation as a professional Common Man. He fabricated his name in response to that ubiquitous media character from fifties pop culture — the line-drawn, becomingly average “Handsome Man” ad-image. This icon has no doubt been a fetish for many, but still is for Average. His headshot-type pop portrait August the Beautiful Hybrid has all the glory and glamour of a male model. Varicoloured eyes ( like David Bowie’s) gaze out from a face that manages to look buffed and impossibly glossy. Unlike Average’s inspiration for his nom de plume, however August is not a family man. He’s strictly a love object.

Average’s paintings throb with colour. This is the main vehicle for the robust life that suffuse his canvases — that and the heavy, regular, curvilinear black outlines around the brilliant, subtly modelled hues. Antic gesture — in the expression of people, animals and even plants — fills Average’s images with wit and immediacy. His Limp Tulips reach yearningly, optimistically for the light. This signal approach has made Average’s works both ubiquitous and distinctive in reproductive media — even institutionally in his mailable multiples for Canada Post.

Although the images have fully consummated their pop purpose in becoming mainstream, they still delight and astonish. Average’s favored audiences are children, and there is much that is admirably childlike in his artistry. His approach is anything but naive, however The childlike element is composed of emotional authenticity and a sincere love of colour — as well as his obvious penchant for pure line, form, and overall design.
The ferocious zaniness of the Dr. Brute/Mr. Peanut personae of Vancouver artist Eric Metcalf, where the identity of the artist becomes an artifact of pop culture, are given salutary comment in Average’s work. The integrated, elemental design-scapes of Peter Max are also referenced, as are the conceptual approaches of Warhol, Lichtenstein, Haring Hockney, graffiti artists and Loony Tunes. This is sophisticated, informed art that keeps it’s heart open. It placates children, matching their wild, pure feeling-level. It surprises adults into response. It’s serious about its playfulness.

BCPWA’s Living Positive Magazine
September / October 2000 / Issue 8
Portrait of the artist as a philanthropist

For almost a decade, Joe Average’s artwork, generosity, and inspiration have played an indispensable role in the continued success of BCPWA’s AIDS WALK.

by Jeff Rotin

Joe Average’s voice breaks with emotion as he talks about the students of Coquitlam River Elementary School. He’s visited the school on several occasions to discuss his art and help with special projects. As someone who has battled low self-esteem all his life, he relishes the opportunity to inspire and educate the kids. “I’ve had so many letters from parents telling me I’ve changed their child’s life,” he says. “All of a sudden their self-esteem [goes] up a notch, and I got to do that for them, which makes me feel extremely rich.”

Take nine-year-old Graydon Leigh, for example. He’s Average’s “absolutely favourite little guy.” Graydon’s mother, Kim, gushes about Joe’s countless “acts of kindness.” Graydon needed to shine a little, she explains, to have a bit of the spotlight, a little bit more self-assurance. With Average’s encouragement, Graydon is blossoming. They’re best buddies now, and he calls Average regularly to report on his latest accomplishment. “He’s just so nice and generous,” Graydon exclaims. “He makes me feel so special. When he comes to the school, I just scream happiness.”

Each time Average goes to the school, all the kids mob him, seeking autographs. It bemuses him that these young kids worship him, a visual artist with HIV, like a pop star.

Joe Average is also somewhat of a pop icon in the HIV/AIDS movement. There, too, he’s well known for his generosity and acts of kindness. His instantly recognizable artwork – vibrant kaleidoscopes of technicolour, thick black outlines, whimsical images – has helped raise awareness and money for a long list of local and national charities. He’s created T-shirts and posters, and donated original canvases to fundraising auctions, for such organizations as BCPWA’s AIDS WALK, Friends for Life Society, A Loving Spoonful, McLaren Housing Society, Positive Women’s Network, and the Canadian AIDS Society. The list goes on and on.

“He’s a true philanthropist,” says Scott Elliott, outgoing Director of Development at BCPWA. “He gives his time and art. He does it for the cause because he believes in it.”

Over the years, Average has donated twice as much of his artwork to charity than he’s sold. From Average’s perspective, it’s a win-win-win situation: the charity raises awareness and money, he raises his profile as an artist, and, of equal importance to him, he “gets to do the giving thing.” He explains, “it’s a passion of mine to help people and I can’t do it monetarily. But I can do it with my art.” His colourful images, he feels, have helped to break down barriers and make AIDS awareness more accessible.

A warm, gentle, soft-spoken man, he describes himself as an introvert lacking in social skills, so his artwork is his way of contributing. He says this almost as an apology, as if to rationalize why he isn’t at the vocal forefront of the AIDS movement, actively galvanizing support from the masses. He doesn’t perceive himself as an AIDS activist. Odd words from someone who is so integrally linked to the cause, who gave a face to AIDS in Canada with the first AIDS awareness poster in 1991. Gerda Hnatyshyn, wife of the Governor General at the time, unveiled the poster, which led to a lasting friendship with Ms Hnatyshyn. He credits much of his success to her.

His friendship with Ms Hnatyshyn also led to an audience with Princess Diana at Rideau Hall in 1991. The Governor General and his wife were planning a reception for the Royal Couple, and invited 50 guests they felt would be of interest to them. Average couldn’t afford to travel to Ottawa, so his friends threw a fundraiser for him and auctioned the original AIDS awareness poster. The national press picked up on the unusual story of the artist who couldn’t afford his date with royalty. By the time Princess Diana arrived in Ottawa, it was international news and she knew all about him.

More international recognition came in 1996 when he created the powerful “One World, One Hope” image for the XI International AIDS Conference, held in Vancouver. That image was eventually chosen as the first AIDS-awareness postage stamp.

At that point, Average says, “AIDS and art melded together and became me.”

It’s a logical union. His own diagnosis with HIV is what prompted him to pursue his artwork. Born Brock Tebbutt in Victoria, B.C, he wasn’t much of a scholar in high school. He spent his late teens and twenties roaming from city to city in an endless stream of dead-end jobs. Years later, he discovered he was dyslexic, which he feels “kind of explains it all. When you’re dyslexic, you find something to prove yourself with, other than academics.”

He was diagnosed as HIV-positive 17 years ago, at the age of 25. “My diagnosis was the best thing that ever happened to me,” insists Average. “It changed my life.” It was a wake up call; it gave him a sense of purpose and drive. He realized that he might not have a lot of time left to accomplish something with his life. “I consider myself very fortunate to have had a threat on my mortality at that point in my life. People don’t get that threat until they’re really old, and they go, ‘why didn’t I do this, why didn’t I do that?'”

Aware of his mortality, at age 30 Average decided it was now or never to take a serious stab at an art career, without relying on odd jobs to pay the rent. He figured that “urban camping” would hone his survival skills, especially from an internal health perspective. He was always calling in sick to jobs that he hated. He realized, “if you keep on thinking of ways to get sick, you are going to get sick, and the disease is going to take you over. So get yourself into something that will make you want to live and is going to teach you how to survive.”

Average insists that if he hadn’t been diagnosed as HIV-positive, either he’d be dead by now or not enjoying life.

He began signing his artwork as Joe Average at the age of 19, figuring that it suited him because he was just an average guy with an average build. Average, indeed.

His canvases are engagingly upbeat. “I prefer my art to be joyful and happy,” he explains. “I like to lighten the world up, and I’ve always been the type of person to keep my troubles to myself.” Only one piece reflects his personal fight with HIV, he claims, the self-portrait entitled “Me” (featured on our cover this month), which he painted during a particularly low point. Otherwise, he’d rather leave the dark, emotionally wrought canvases to other artists. “It’s a beautiful tool for me to create happiness for myself and for other people in a world where there isn’t much.”

Of course his artwork does much more than that, as evidenced by his long-standing contribution to BCPWA’s AIDS WALK.

Nine years ago, someone from the AIDS WALK asked him to design a T-shirt for the WALK. The following year, BCPWA asked him to design the poster. It snowballed from there, and he’s designed the image for the annual event ever since. He laughs that there’s never any discussion each year as to whether or not he’ll create the poster. He just does it.

“He’s been a pillar. He’s an institution of the AIDS WALK,” insists BCPWA’s Scott Elliott. “His artwork helps set the tone. People wait for his designs and collect his T-shirts. It’s beyond a tradition – there would be an uproar if we didn’t include his artwork for each AIDS WALK. It’s an integral part of the WALK.”

Average admits that it’s a bit of a challenge to come up with a new AIDS WALK design year after year. Typically, the designs reflect whatever artistic vision he’s exploring at that time. The designs are, he explains, somewhat of a chronological documentation of his art, “like the lines on the kitchen door frame when a kid is growing.”

Over time he’s worked on creating an anthropomorphic alphabet, and this year he decided to see how it would work for AIDS WALK 2000. So far, he’s created one other anthropomorphic canvas, spelling the word “HERO”. It was a memorial tribute to Tony McNaughton, the Vancouver Starbucks manager who was killed earlier this year while saving an employee from a man with a butcher knife.

Surprisingly, for someone who has raised so much money for charity, Average still lives hand to mouth. He notes that he spends twice as much each month on medication and naturopathy than he does on rent. He’s taking things a bit more slowly these days due to recent health complications, so his art production output is a little lower. It saddens him that he’s no longer financially able to donate original canvases.

But that won’t stop him from doing whatever he can. This year, like every other year, Joe Average will be at the AIDS WALK on September 24th, grinning through his shyness and alleged social ineptness, acting as unofficial spokesperson and inspiration, tirelessly signing posters and T-shirts, shaking hands, and chatting with the press.

More than likely, he’ll also be saying hello to students from Coquitlam River Elementary School. He says he always brings AIDS WALK posters when he visits schools, to promote AIDS awareness. Afterwards, kids will say, “we’ll see you at the AIDS WALK, Mr. Average, we’re going to bring our parents.” Average thinks that’s pretty cool.

BCPWA’s Living Positive Magazine
September / October 2000 / Issue 8
Portrait of the artist as a philanthropist

For almost a decade, Joe Average’s artwork, generosity, and inspiration have
played an indispensable role in the continued success of BCPWA’s AIDS WALK.