Self-taught Canadian pop artist and activist Joe Average, who dedicated his life to uplifting people living with HIV/AIDS and advocated for the LGTBQ+ community through inspiring kaleidoscopic works of art, died in his sleep at his Vancouver home on December 24 , according to his family members. He was 67 years old.
The artist, born Brock David Tebbutt in Victoria on October 10, 1957, adopted the name “Joe Average” when he was 19 years old, according to Van Dop Gallery, which has been showing his work since 1996. The name came about during a night of drinking with friends, as the artist shared in a 2017 interview with the Vancouver Sun.
‘I’m 5-8, average looking, got a C average in school. I thought, ‘This is perfect!’ It wasn’t as wild as the other names, but it suited me,” Average explained to the Canadian newspaper.
In 1985, when he was 27 years old, his life changed forever when he was diagnosed with HIV. The news reverberated Average to devote himself completely to his art practice and ‘try to make a living from art’, which until then had been more of a side hobby.
“When I asked the doctor what [the diagnosis] meant, he said, “You can do it for six months, you can do it for a year, five years, 10 years, forever… we just don’t know.” And I said, ‘I will choose forever,’” he said in one Interview from 2005.
Early in his career, Average staged small shows in his West End apartment, where works were priced based on his monthly rent. Initial inspired by First Nations art and later artists including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Peter Max, he developed a distinctive pop art style that took the form of public murals, prints, banners and paintings, often centered on people, animals, insects, flowers, and common household items.
“I did a couple of pictures about AIDS – one called ‘My Thinking Cap (Life with HIV)’ and one called ‘Ray of Hope’ – when I first started doing the cocktail because I wanted to get a little bit of that out of me ,” said Average. , referring to the “cocktail” of antiretroviral therapy drugs taken by HIV+ patients.
“But for the most part, my images don’t have so much to do with AIDS – they’re more about how the child in me wants to see the world: happy and with love,” Average continued.
One of his best-known works, created for the Eleventh International Conference on AIDS, with the theme ‘One world, one hope’, appeared in Canada’s first HIV/AIDS awareness stamp in 1996. The artwork was reproduced in 2021 as a large-scale mural installed in downtown Vancouver on the exterior of the Helmcken House, which provides subsidized housing for people with HIV and AIDS. The work marked the 40th anniversary of the first reported AIDS cases in the United States.
Throughout his life, Average’s advocacy and artistry were commemorated with numerous awards and accolades, including a civic proclamation by former Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen declaring November 3, 2002 as “Joe Average Day” and a Order of Canada issued on December 12, a week and a half before his death.
“His art with its bright colors brings a smile to my heart and soul,” Average’s sister Karin Tebbutt Cope told Carson Hyperallergic, adding that he “helped change the way people viewed life with HIV” and that “his legacy will bring hope and happiness.”
In addition to Carson, Average is survived by his brothers KC and Mark, his father and stepmother, and two half-sisters.
