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How do random internet searches become art? Find out at this New West exhibition

He starts by punching random keyboard entries into a search engine. He ends up with art. Makeshift, featuring work by Robert Fee, is on at The Gallery at Queen’s Park until Sunday, Oct. 27. An artist talk is set for this Sunday, Oct. 6 from 3 to 4 p.
Robert Fee, Makeshift
Work by Robert Fee is on display at the Gallery at Queen's Park until Oct. 27.

He starts by punching random keyboard entries into a search engine. He ends up with art.

Makeshift, featuring work by Robert Fee, is on at The Gallery at Queen’s Park until Sunday, Oct. 27. An artist talk is set for this Sunday, Oct. 6 from 3 to 4 p.m.

A press release about the show notes that Fee’s recent work starts with him punching “deliberately uncoordinated keyboard entries” into a search engine.

“Fee is interested in how the Internet interprets and represents the new random ‘word’ created from this process,” the release says. “Usually an indecipherable arrangement of unrelated numbers, letters and characters provide images that initially seem to be random, but at times seem connected.”

Fee picks from the disparate images and begins to develop a single image, forming new connections and patterns.

“The further act of painting hybridizes, edits and distills the scrambled drawing into a specific composition,” the release notes. “The resulting piece becomes a representation of Fee’s initial search and eventually finds its own place in the digital landscape, co-existing with its incidental origins.”

Fee, originally from the Okanagan, is an artist and musician now living in New West. He completed an art degree with a major in drawing and painting and also spent many years playing jazz and blues in clubs in B.C.

Fee will be joined by two other musicians for a free jazz performance at the gallery on Wednesday, Oct. 16. (More details to follow.)

The gallery is in Centennial Lodge, Queen’s Park. It’s open Wednesdays from 1 to 8 p.m. and Thursdays through Sundays from 1 to 5 p.m.

For information, see www.acnw.ca or call 604-525-3244.