Self-taught Canadian Pop artist and activist Joe Common, who devoted his life to uplifting these residing with HIV/AIDS and advocating for the LGTBQ+ neighborhood by inspiring kaleidoscopic paintings, died in his sleep in his Vancouver residence on December 24, in keeping with his relations. He was 67 years outdated.
Born Brock David Tebbutt in Victoria on October 10, 1957, the artist took on the title “Joe Average” when he was 19 years outdated, in keeping with Van Dop Gallery, which has proven his work since 1996. The moniker happened throughout an evening out consuming with associates, because the artist recounted in a 2017 interview with the Vancouver Solar.
Joe Common’s “Gertrude the Green Horse” (n.d.) was acquired by the Vancouver Artwork Gallery’s everlasting assortment in 1992. (picture courtesy Vancouver Artwork Gallery)
“When I asked the doctor what [the diagnosis] meant, he said: ‘You could last six months, you could last a year, five years, 10 years or forever … we just don’t know.’ And I said: ‘I’ll choose forever,’” he stated in a 2005 interview.
Firstly of his profession, Common organized small exhibits in his West Finish condo the place works had been priced in keeping with his month-to-month hire. Initially impressed by First Nations artwork and later artists together with Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Peter Max, he developed a signature Pop Artwork fashion that took the type of public murals, prints, banners, and work, typically centering on individuals, animals, bugs, flowers, and customary home goods.
“I did a few images about AIDS — one called “My Thinking Cap (Life with HIV)” and one referred to as “Ray of Hope” — once I first began the cocktail as a result of I wished that out of me a bit of bit,” Common stated, referencing the “cocktail” of antiretroviral remedy medicine taken by HIV+ sufferers.
“For the most part though, my images aren’t so much AIDS-related — they’re more about how the child in me wants to see the world: happy and with love,” Common continued.
Joe Common adopted his moniker as an adolescent throughout an evening out with associates. (picture by Mavreen David, courtesy McLaren Housing Society)
One among his most well-known works, created for the Eleventh Worldwide Convention on AIDS, which had the theme “One World, One Hope,” appeared in Canada’s first HIV/AIDS consciousness stamp in 1996. The paintings was reproduced in 2021 as a large-scale mural that was put in in downtown Vancouver on the outside of the Helmcken Home, which supplies backed housing for individuals residing with HIV and AIDS. The work marked the fortieth anniversary of the primary reported AIDS instances in america.
All through his lifetime, Common’s advocacy work and artistry had been commemorated with quite a few awards and honors, together with a civic proclamation by Vancouver’s former mayor Philip Owen designating November 3, 2002 as “Joe Average Day” and an Order of Canada issued on December 12, every week and a half earlier than his demise.
“His art with its bright colours brings a smile to my heart and soul,” Common’s sister Karin Tebbutt Cope Carson advised Hyperallergic, including that he “helped change how people viewed living with HIV” and that “his legacy will bring hope and happiness.”
Along with Carson, Common is survived by his brothers KC and Mark, his father and step-mother, and two half-sisters.
Joe Common together with his sister Karin Tebbutt Cope Carson (picture by and courtesy Karin Tebbutt Cope Carson)
