Initiated in 1996 by six undergraduates at the University of Manitoba, Canada, The Royal Art Lodge turned heads early in its career for producing playfully eccentric collaborative drawings and paintings, where one artist begins and then passes the work along to another, and so on.


Their quirky and surreal imagery often alludes to day-dreams or snippets of fantasy, sometimes with text which appears to provide narrative clues or ironic truths. Members share a great diversity of interests, including Fluxus, children's art, comic strips and science fiction, and they appear committed to a shared vision, albeit one that accounts for individual tastes. For within all their work there is a democratic anonymity. No one artist of the group holds the floor; the message is collective whether in collaboration on drawing, painting, videos, music, puppets, props or costumes.


In their new installation, Garbage Day, The Royal Art Lodge continues this approach presenting a series of 300 modest panels that form an epic frieze of painting, drawing and collage. Panels are characterised by bright colours, simple compositions and the use of a candid child-like line. Within the overall collection, smaller separate stories emerge and populate the walls like key chapters or themes. 700 /ears of Dying features tombstone markers for selected famous historical and cultural figures, suggesting a wealth of biographical stories to be told, remembered and archived. Similarly, Alphabet Code suggests new ways to organise on communicate information, as different facial types are assigned to letters.


In between these smaller narrative groupings one finds eccentric single panels that baffle and intrigue, like a collection of unconnected one-liners: Raised by rats portrays a cat being held aloft by two tiny strong rodents; Wood nymph features a woman in white bra and panties frolicking in an empty landscape; Head depicts a young female cradling the blue and bloodied face of a cadaver. Reflecting the sheen volume and diversity of The Royal Art Lodge's imagined characters and realms, Garbage Day highlights the continuing prolific output of this engaging gnoup of artists. SJP

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Initiated in 1996 by six undergraduates at the University of Manitoba, Canada, The Royal Art Lodge turned heads early in its career for producing playfully eccentric collaborative drawings and paintings, where one artist begins and then passes the work along to another, and so on.


Their quirky and surreal imagery often alludes to day-dreams or snippets of fantasy, sometimes with text which appears to provide narrative clues or ironic truths. Members share a great diversity of interests, including Fluxus, children's art, comic strips and science fiction, and they appear committed to a shared vision, albeit one that accounts for individual tastes. For within all their work there is a democratic anonymity. No one artist of the group holds the floor; the message is collective whether in collaboration on drawing, painting, videos, music, puppets, props or costumes.


In their new installation, Garbage Day, The Royal Art Lodge continues this approach presenting a series of 300 modest panels that form an epic frieze of painting, drawing and collage. Panels are characterised by bright colours, simple compositions and the use of a candid child-like line. Within the overall collection, smaller separate stories emerge and populate the walls like key chapters or themes. 700 /ears of Dying features tombstone markers for selected famous historical and cultural figures, suggesting a wealth of biographical stories to be told, remembered and archived. Similarly, Alphabet Code suggests new ways to organise on communicate information, as different facial types are assigned to letters.


In between these smaller narrative groupings one finds eccentric single panels that baffle and intrigue, like a collection of unconnected one-liners: Raised by rats portrays a cat being held aloft by two tiny strong rodents; Wood nymph features a woman in white bra and panties frolicking in an empty landscape; Head depicts a young female cradling the blue and bloodied face of a cadaver. Reflecting the sheen volume and diversity of The Royal Art Lodge's imagined characters and realms, Garbage Day highlights the continuing prolific output of this engaging gnoup of artists. SJP