David Starfire Facepaint Timelapse

And the Award goes to…

Each year, the fan-driven Monday Magazine “M Awards” celebrates local arts & culture leaders with award categories like “Best Local Filmmaker” (Scott Amos!), “Favourite Record Store” (Ditch Records!) & “Favourite Live Music Venue” (Lucky Bar!). And then there was Urbanheart. Monday Magazine reports as follows:

“Last year’s winner of Favourite Emerging Visual Artist, Kristin “Urbanheart” Grant has really made her mark on the visual art scene in Victoria. Widely known for her airbrush body painting, Grant also creates custom canvases and paints windows and walls. One of the highlights of Grant’s work for the 2012 season was Stand Together: Art for the Love of BC, a fundraiser for the Dogwood Initiative’s NO TANKERS campaign.”

What’s next for this amazing, talented, awesome & supercool contributor to our arts scene (and Sunset, in particular)? Well, we don’t actually know the answer to that. What we do know is – you won’t have to wait long.. Kristin is one extremely active artist! To stay up to speed on her artistic magic, visit her website at www.urbanheart.ca.

To read the whole Monday Magazine article and see ALL the winners, go here!

Monday Magazine cover
2012 M Awards Edition
Urbanheart wins “Favourite Visual Artist”
Photo: Louis EyeoftheMind Bockner
Ukelele Addition: Grant McKenzie

Vote for Kristin in the M Awards!

Monday Magazine M Awards Ballot!:
http://www.mondaymag.com/entertainment/193606001.html

It’s that time again! The Monday Magazine M Awards are a huge opportunity for Monday Magazine to recognize the arts, music & cultural community that constitute our local scene. More importantly, it’s a huge opportunity for US to recognize the artists that make our cultural scene so amazing!

And – you would have to be living under a ROCK to not know how much Kristin Urbanheart Grant has kicked ass this year! We’re certain this is why she has been nominated as ‘Victoria’s Favorite Visual Artist’!!

There are a few elements that might make her deserving of ‘Favorite Visual Artist’. First, there is her work itself. Kristin is a mixed-media artist of unbelievable talent. Whether working on canvas, on windows or on bodies – you are going to be blown away. Her passion for colour & complexity always comes through, and her attention to every vibrant detail has her works jump off a wall – or sometimes off a ballet floor – with undeniable boldness.

If the ONLY thing she did in the last year to deserve to be our ‘Favorite Visual Artist’ was her ‘Stand Together: Art for the Love of BC’ art collection, this would be enough. This self-initiated volunteer fundraiser project for Dogwood Iniyiatives ‘No Tankers’ campaign involved more than 30 artists, models & photographers and generated a ridiculous amount of exposure and more than $1800 for the campaign.

Her bodypainting exhibitions were a huge highlight at events including the Moss St Paint In, the Beauty Night Fundraiser (Vancouver), Zombie Walk 2012 and music video projects for Open Sails, Soulfix & Sachika (over 100,000 views!). She has now painted numerous top level music producers including Desert Dwellers, DubFX, Flower Fairy & Smoke Sign. She has also been invited to perform at festivals like Earthdance, Astral Harvest & the Victoria Electronic Music Festival.

Always a generous contributor to Victoria events, she has performed live for Victoria’s Spoken Word Festival, the Stone Soup Community Fundraiser and Top Guns Fundraiser for the BC Cancer Foundation, as well as having volunteered as a live performance painter at Sunset Room, various community weddings, various model shoots with Vancouver Island Models & Photographes (VIMPs) and others!

Just last weekend Kristin volunteered her time to go to ALBERTA for the Big Hearts for Big Kids fundraiser where her donated live painting generated more than $6000 at auction for a kids emergency shelter!

We could go on, easily. We won’t. We hope between her amazing artistic works and her unbelievable community spirit you feel HUGELY compelled to nominate Kristin as ‘Victoria’s Favorite Visual Artist’!

VOTE FOR ‘KRISTIN URBANHEART GRANT’ HERE:
http://www.mondaymag.com/entertainment/193606001.html

Art of the Week: Green Faerie

Canadian bodypainters, photographers and models are Standing Together to create an art gallery show featuring vivid, edgy, beautifully inspired artwork that raises awareness about the risks of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline and raises money for Dogwood Initiative’s NO TANKERS campaign. Read more about our cause: http://dogwoodinitiative.org/no-tankers/

This piece entitled Green Faerie highlights model Nina Faerie Hirlaender, painted by Urbanheart and captured by Nicole Brown Photography.

“Now is the time to remember the spirits of nature. Beings of the mountains, ocean, wind and trees are our companions in this time of planetary transformation. …Be still and awaken to the gentle light that reveals the beauty of our ancient belonging. Listen for the message whispered on the winds, calling us to reclaim our place as lovers and stewards of the land. As we remember who we are, our hearts begin to unfold the promises we have made and our realities begin to illuminate with endless possibility.” -Nina Faerie Hirlaender

The final group show will be November 28th at Discovery Coffee Oak Bay (1964 Oak Bay Ave), from 7-9pm, featuring live bodypaint exhibition, music and a showcase of the printed works. You can also purchase these prints online until December 30st!

Join us for the event!

Art of the Week: Urbanheart Dwellers

After an inspiring performance at at Sunset Room last Saturday (music & video to follow!), The Desert Dwellers Amani & Treavor (stay tuned for Rara’s shoot soon) met up with bodypainter Urbanheart and Dodd’s Eye Media for a collaborative photoshoot.
The paint was inspired by the colours of the new Desert Dwellers website design, and include sacred geometry, metallic paints and digital patterns! Enjoy…

Art of the Week: Urbanheart – Wolf

Kristin Urbanheart Grant transforms model Eric Mazimpaka into a wolf at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria’s 25th Annual Moss St. Paint-In. Prints from Kristin’s newest project Stand Together: For the Love of BC were showcased at the event, featuring photographs of bodypaint from 8 Vancouver Island photographers. Each image was a collaboration with Urbanheart bodypaint. The theme; the Beauty of British Columbia and what’s at risk of the Northern Gateway Pipeline. The project is a fundraiser for Dogwood Initiative’s NO TANKERS campaign. Images are being sold for the fundraiser. Please find more about the project here!

Art of the Week: Reptillian Goddess

This week’s featured art piece “Reptilian Goddess” is another amazing collaboration between Kristin Urbanheart Grant and local model extraordinaire Night Sprite. This first teaser from their project is just that, and there are MANY amazing images yet to be unveiled from the forested day-long shoot. Night Sprite says “I want to make art with my body. I want to step beyond the boundaries of my everyday comfort zone. I want to be a part of something adventurous, inspiring, creative, and fun.” The whole team!: Model Night Sprite, Photographer Prairie Shadows Imagery (Phil Haskins), Hair by Victoria SableFox Shazzam and Bodypaint & prosthetics by Urbanheart!

Art of the Week: Urbanheart

Our recent adventure to the World Art Expo at Science World in Vancouver was quite the trip! The bodypaint competition that Kristin was invited into was only one part of the overall event, and there was familiar faces everywhere – well, and lots of unfamiliar ones too. The day started early – morning was time to get Night Sprite’s hair handled and the painting began shortly after that! Kristin working her magic over 5 hours of painting ‘every square inch’, as they say. Competitors in the bodypaint competition were allowed to paint offsite, but by late afternoon it was time to head for the expo!

Night Sprite got her exercise for the month in a sustained get-no-paint-on-the-taxi squat that was at least 20 blocks. When we arrived at Science world we joined the other artists & models and had a bit of time for extra touchups on the models. It was immediately clear that the competition was very high level and that placing, let alone winning, couldn’t be taken for granted! 13 stunning models in an array of epic colours and designs filled the room, and various media, judges, artists and assistants floated through the room with either big smiles – or stressed faces. You could certainly tell who was participating, and who was just enjoying the prep!

And now for your enjoyment, here we present Night Sprite – as expressed by Kristin Urbanheart Grant for the 2012 World Art Expo! More photos and video of the event yet to come – and stay tuned to urbanheart.ca for additional info on the competition, and what’s next in her bodypainting adventures!

Event: Vancouver Art World Expo 2012, Body Painting Competition.
Artist: Kristin Urbanheart Grant
Model: Night Sprite
Hair: Lola Scandalosa
Hat: “Cage Head” by Silly Hats Only
Earrings: KooKoo MaMa Designs
Undies: Lyssa’s Stitchery

Art of the Week: Metamorphosis

Metamorphosis! Created by Kristin Urbanheart Grant during 2 inspiring nights of live painting.. first at Omi Khan’s show Metamorphic, at Sunset Room, and then at the Top Guns Charity Gala, at Upstairs Cabarat. The piece features a hand painted butterfly with airbrushed cherry blossoms and stencil details. The pink ribbon is the symbol for breast cancer awareness. The painting was sold in the fundraiser’s silent auction to raise money to purchase a new machine for the breast cancer division of the Victoria General Hospital.

Secret Garden PhotoShoot