Local Venues & International Symposia

Caitlin McRae of the New Westminster Public Library invited me to show my Chambers of Predetermined Outcomes during Climate Action Week.  While the piece appeared "provocative" to some viewers, it sparked discussions about the judiciaries role of enforcing injections designed to shield the fossil fuel industry from civil disobedience. .   

Tsleil-Waututh elder Reuben George unveiled my Chambers of Predetermined Outcomes before a live audience at the Longhouse Church in East Vancouver. It was a fitting launch considering the three judges portrayed refused to recognize the overwhelming injustices imposed by the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion project on Indigenous Nations and the environment.  

A Trickster's Joy, A Warrior's Toy is my  tribute piece to Bill Reid. It was shown at the Bill Reid Gallery throughout the Bill Reid 100th Centenary exhibition. The aroma of the yellow cedar brought back many memories of carving the terrified men in the clam shell of Bill's Raven and the First Men at UBC 40 years earlier.

In 2010 I launched into a series of archery pieces beginning with a parody of Jasper Johns infamous target paintings. I then performed a series of action paintings resulting in Pollock like canvases. These works involved my archery skills as a metaphor of the intuition and kinesthetics of studio practice.

Persistence of Instinct is a sculptural work that documents a bear walking across 17 meters of clay. I molded the results in silicone rubber and cast the work as a circumpolar map of the night sky.  The piece has 8 wall panels and 8 rubber negative panels that sit on the gallery floor, on alder frames. Completed in 2010 this work  has not yet been shown. 

 The Epiphany of St. Pithicus  was an installation event at Artropolis 93. It was an architectural kiln with Pyrex windows where viewers could see my oversize stainless steel sasquatch skull glowing at 2500 degrees F. The piece portrayed various beliefs regarding the sasquatch in terms of myth and science and it functioned as an outdoor a meeting place for discussions.

I created rubber strap-on attachments of actual Grizzly track castings from the West Coast, took them to the Alps for hikes that served as writing on the ground beneath retreating glaciers and alpine valleys. Ursus Arctos, the Brown Bear once served as a mentor for human cultures across Europe and throughout the northern hemisphere. 

I carved Ette Hogens Ande, (Spirit of the Burial Mound) and landscaped its large granite components  into the earth beside Sofiaro Castle at Helsingbourg, Sweden. Curious viewers contemplating the massive carvings  become an integral part of the composition, The large ear component was carried to the site at the unveiling by hundreds of local Swedes. .

On the most westerly tip of Brittany, at Plougurneau I sited this monumental eye. I polished the iris exposing the black granite with white flecks that appeared as stars in the night sky. This was the bay where sailing ships departed for North America, orienting their voyage by the the constellations. 

Black Wand/Slave Killer is a representation of  anthropologist Wilson Duff's  visions regarding ancient artifacts and their potency as purveyors of communication. One end of the piece conversely represents a missel, a phallic emblem of modern power and control. The red neon lit figures in the glass panels are a collage of world anthropology. The piece speaks to the profound influence of Wilson Duff on the public consciousness and artists and the broad topic of human agency and control. The piece is carved in black limestone from Texada Island. It wights 2.5 tons, the gravity is an essential aspect of the work.

  Pyrolith is a large granite, marble and bronze work representing two individuals being consumed in a pyre. Their bodies, lying in state, appear to levitate inside a column of smoke, its honeycomb representing the combustion of matter. The symbolic fire is fueled from beneath by a bronze frieze of world deities. This cultural fuel sits on a 6-ton black granite altar. A Phoenix-like heron skull descends into the flames from above. 

My intention was for the viewer to read through the iconography of the stacked components like visual chapters of pre-literary European iconography. 

 I carved this reflection composition in a four ton block of Italian Carrara marble over a 14 month period in 1975-76. I entitled the piece Catastrophe, based on ancient Greek beliefs that the first heroes, humans and animals were transferred to the earth as stars by the gods, (a catasterism ), and how falling stars fertilized the earth with life. Catastrophe Theory is also the mathematical study of conflict between three elements resulting in abrupt change.

The body pose forms a triangle that is reflected to form a 6-pointed composition..