The Loud Future

Today I sent my application to the Canada Council for the Arts for a project called The Loud Future. It is the third time I have applied to this program. The first two did not land. This one feels different, because this time the idea is finally clear enough to say in one breath:

“The future won’t look as different as we think — just bolder. Louder colours, louder textures.”

That sentence is the whole project. Every painting, every film, every wall of the exhibition hangs off it.

Why louder

Science fiction keeps showing us a future that is sleek and minimal — chrome, glass, everything smooth and quiet. I don’t buy it. I think the real future will be louder: more colour, more texture, more maximal everything. Look at my paintings and you can already see where I am headed. Impasto you could get lost in. Colours pushed until they hum. Surfaces that catch the light differently every time you walk past.

My concept fashion lives in the same future — electric latex, silver deco, sequins that don’t exist in any fabric store yet. The paintings are the texture of that future. The fashion is what people wear in it. Same world, two doors in.

What the project actually is

Over twelve months, starting spring 2027: around fifteen large textured paintings, from 12×16 inches up to 32×48. Three to five short films drawn from my concept-fashion collections, made to be projected big. And a public exhibition here in Toronto in 2028, with a projection room so the films get the scale they deserve.

The grant decision comes around March 2027. Whatever happens, the work is happening — the idea finally has a name, a plan, and a timeline. I have been painting toward this future for years without knowing what to call it. Now I know.

The future is going to be loud. I plan to be one of the people making the noise.

Follow along in the gallery — the loudest work is still ahead.