MUSIC: Gurl Twenty Three keeps the ‘Beat’
A generation of artisans quietly came of age over the last few years at Vancouver’s grunt gallery. They produced the Beat Nation project — originally an exhibition and a website — to showcase the artistic influence of urban youth culture on aboriginal culture. The project hit a nerve. It’s since evolved to include a performance art/hip hop musical collective featuring Kinnie Starr, and last week launched a full-scale, mainstream exhibit at the venerable Vancouver Art Gallery. Beat Nation: Art, Hip Hop and Aboriginal Culture features 20 artists and innovators from across the continent.
And several of those artists are from right here in Vancouver, some of whom were on hand for a media walk-through last Thursday. One woman in particular caught my eye: short and solid, with a feather twisted into one of the long braids coming down each side of her face. She looked tough, but when she smiled everything sparkled with a kind of radiance that made me stop thinking she’d like to kick my ass. Larissa Healey, AKA Gurl Twenty Three, is a street artist who made her rap debut just a few weeks ago at the PuSh Festival. Now, the mural she co-created with Corey Bulpill is on the wall at the VAG. Healey still can’t quite believe that this is how her life is turning out. Standing in a room filled with art by her peers that mixes past and present traditions, Healey opened up about her art, finding her voice and overcoming the darkest aspects of her troubled past.
