The Cultch Gallery shows East Van streets through Rodney DeCroo’s lens, November 3 to 29
Exhibition of 20 works includes images from the artist’s George Ryga Award–winning book Night Moves: The Street Photography of Rodney DeCroo
An untitled photo by Rodney DeCroo, from his current exhibition at the Cultch Gallery.
The Cultch presents photos by Rodney DeCroo at the Cultch Gallery in the Historic Theatre until November 29
RODNEY DECROO WOULD no doubt find it far too highfalutin a word to describe himself, but he is nothing less than a polymath. A restless creative spirit, the U.S.-born East Vancouverite has moved from creating poems and songs to writing and acting in plays. In each area, DeCroo proves himself a cut above the dabbler or dilettante by rising to a level of excellence that marks him as a true artist and craftsman.
Rodney DeCroo
He got there, as he told Stir in an interview last year, by not being afraid to be terrible at each new venture, at least at first.
“There’s something about starting a new discipline and knowing you suck—like, knowing how bad you are,” DeCroo said. “That turns me on—that excites me. Because it’s like, ‘I’m going to stick with this and then watch the pieces start to slowly come together, and then reach a degree of competency.’ You have to really grind. You have to invest yourself in that.”
In recent years, DeCroo has turned his attention to street photography, training the lens of his digital camera on the urban landscapes of the Commercial Drive area, primarily. Many of the resulting images can be found in Night Moves: The Street Photography of Rodney DeCroo, published in 2025 by Anvil Press.
This past July, Night Moves won the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature, with the judges writing:
Rodney DeCroo uses his lived experience, life trauma and keen inner eye for the underclasses to create songs, poetry and, for the past five years, photography too. The verses and images of East Vancouver in Night Moves are gritty and poignant—rarely-chosen scenes that illuminate the often-desperate lives of people in Vancouver’s Commercial Drive and Downtown Eastside environs.
Photo by Rodney DeCroo.
From now until the end of the month, the Cultch Gallery will exhibit 20 of DeCroo’s photos, including some from the book in addition to new work.
The show starts on November 3, with an opening reception on November 4, from 6 to 8 pm. 
Related Articles
