Genius Loci

May 24 to August 31, 2003

In 1993, the Canadian Clay and Glass Museum's inaugural exhibit opened. It was titled Vision to Reality but I have come to think of it most often by the title of Alan Elder's accompanying catalogue essay, Moving the Spirit: Canadian Sculpture in Clay and Glass. For the original exhibition initiated this space into a gallery which can, and indeed has, moved the spirits and senses of those who have visited. The 10th anniversary exhibition, Genius Loci, celebrates this decade-long infusion and collaboration of art, space and spirit. To describe the works in Genus Loci as diverse is something of an understatement. While they all share commonality of material insofar as they are constructed primarily of clay, glass or enamel; the variety of styles, subjects and techniques used by the artists are positively multiplicitous.

The artists invited to participate in this exhibition were asked to choose unlikely and out of the way places in the gallery space to situate their work. Nothing could be placed on the floor. Some artists chose the spaces they wanted while others left the decision to gallery staff. Of those that did chose there were some serendipitous and unintentionally humorous pairings: for example Renato Foti's untitled fountain is placed in front of a bust clutching a broken and ineffectual umbrella (Misplaced Faith by Nancy Farrell.) Some groupings occurred naturally, responding immediately to a particular aspect of the building, such as stained glass works hanging in the window. Other placements are unexpected invoking sometimes tension and sometimes delight in the viewer. Ying-Yueh Chuang's Plant Creature #3, at ground level, might be a fanciful errant plant which has found its way into the gallery space from the grounds outside. While Peter Bustin's terracotta figures appear precariously vulnerable, lurching about at great heights, seemingly poised on the verge of tumbling down to their ultimate destruction.

Untitled: Renato Foti

Muybridge's Eve: Peter Bustin

As far as the subjective response to the theme of the exhibit, the works deal with art, design, nature, architecture, culture, relationships, history, function, fantasy, abstraction, representation and the spirit. The following is only a sampling of some of the work which makes up Genius Loci, yet it nonetheless gives a sense of the infinite variability possible when working with clay, glass and enamel.

Grace Nickel's Terminus #2, an urn, which references Art Deco and Neo Classicism art movements, looks functional but isn't. Rather like the "window" recess in which it is placed. Alan Perkin's Do you think Piet Mondrien & Frank Lloyd Wright Were 20th Century Icons? is effectively integrated with the building's architectural features, subtly exploring the natural synthesis between art and architecture. Composed with enamel, lettraset tape and pencil, the completed work looks like a flawless painting. The artist's critical rigour is readily apparent.

Do you think Piet Mondrien & Frank Lloyd Wright Were 20th Century Icons?: Alan Perkins

Points of Departure by Jim Thomson are a number of "rocks" effectively set in a random pattern against the cement wall. There is a subversive kind of dialogue between the rocks and the wall. Cement, of course, is made with ground rocks which are then processed and formed into primarily non-organic shapes. These rocks, which are in made up of clay and glaze, have been reformulated into other organic shapes. Thomson's creation retains an aspect of the natural, while the wall becomes the transformation from the natural into the manufactured.

Heather Woods's etched glass pickets stand on a beam, suggesting aspects of both art deco design and gothic architecture. The light and fragile quality of the glass is heavily and effectively contrasted with the dark, rigid steel of the girder. Like the Gothic cathedrals which aspired to great heights in order to get -- literally -- closer to God, the placement of Wood's glass structures cajoles the viewer into looking up. Sally Michener's mosaic sculpture in the Tower Gallery reinforces the sense of scale in the architectural space in which it is placed. Perched on a ledge, it beckons to viewers like a city atop a mountain while the vast expanse of the Tower continues to loom above it like a limitless sky. Two figures on swings by Kasia Piech are promised plenty of room to play in the large, airy main gallery space. Looking slightly incongruous in their unidealized naked state, the figures allow one to appreciate the breadth, depth and scope of the gallery space as each viewer envisions the potential path of their projected swing.

Ribs: Heather Wood

The Harlequin's Jacket by Kate Hyde, not only references theatre and performance, but on a more abstract level can symbolize the many "roles" that each and every one of us assumes on a daily basis. In the same way, Alexandra McCurdy's Mothers/Daughters: The Ties that Bind takes on both particular and broad connotations. Consisting of hand and finger prints on porcelain this work, which ressembles a quilt in its construction, becomes a commentary on relationships, and intimates about the nature of change which is almost always certain to occur as time progresses.

The Harlequin's Jacket: Kate Hyde

Mothers/Daughters: The Ties that Bind: Alexandra McCurdy

R. Lynn Studham's November 9th, 1938 evinces a dark solemnity as it references Kristallnacht, which marked the beginning of Hitler's pogrom against the Jews. Four earthenware casements enclose fragments of burned books, held tightly in place with pieces of sharp, rusting metal, becoming silent evocations of the tragedy that would befall six million people and an entire culture. A painted enamel work on copper, titled Ecology: Galicia by Eduardo Gaya, results in a narrative which combines classical landscape elements with a stern warning of the consequences of environmental degradation and loss of natural resources. The beautiful and the dire become inescapably meshed together.

From left to right: Ecology: Galicia by Eduardo Gaya, Ripples by Tim and Katherine McManus, Urn Family by Claudia Bergen, and, Flight Test of the Dart by Patrick Bureau.

Several of the works on view, as well as being delightful to behold, are also functional. High Tea (Katrina Chaytor) is an ornate vine-covered tea pot; Ripples by Tim and Katherine McManus is a light and colour-infused platter; and Claudia Bergen's Urn Family serve as both vessels and objets d'art. And where there is function, there must also be fantasy. Works which tangibly represent the realm of the imagination are also in evidence. Charmain Johnson's Gargoyles peak out at the viewer from dark shadows and dim crevices. Suspended from a beam, Flight Test of the Dart, by Patrick Bureau is a fanciful un-flying machine, worthy of a place in Roald Dahl's or Ian Fleming's literature. Meanwhile, Michael Flynn's Spirit of the House crouches poised, ready to pounce on any unsuspecting wanderers that happen his way. The placing of art in various locations where viewers wouldn't necessarily expect to see it, forces a re-evaluation and questioning of how one perceives and preconceives events and experiences. It also increases our sense of anticipation as one wonders what will be happened upon next. How we actually see and understand what we see is further challenged, either through medium, style or placement. Life-like gourds tease with their suggestion of organic viability. Stained glass floats in a suspended copper frame which creates a visual mimicry of the gallery's warm wood window frames. Some things are not what they seem to be initially.

Dawn Detarando's installation Flock: Migration Series works on two levels. These birds are skillful representations of inhabitants of the natural world. Like the swallows in a barn, or startled starlings in a forest, the flock rises and falls as one animate undulation. Symbolically, birds represent the soul or spirit as they were believed able to transverse both the earthly and the heavenly realms. As a metaphor, it would seem as if the spirit world was literally flocking into the museum.

Right: Flock: Migration Series by Dawn Detarando

Each piece in this exhibition surreptitiously leads you to another. And that is truly something unique that only art can offer: art can be a guide, allowing one to see something that might ordinarily be missed. It becomes a means of discovery and allows for new ways of looking at things. Many people go to exhibits, look casually around and then leave. In so doing the exhibit space takes on an often unseen, taken for granted aspect. Lip service, but no real attention is paid to it. Viewers don't really "see" the space any longer. An exhibit like this won't allow you to do that. You have to change your orientation; preconceptions have no place here. An exhibit like this ignores traditional and conventional expectations. Why not have art in a crevasse, on a girder, hidden in shadows or displayed on a window ledge? And with each change of the viewer's position as s/he progresses through the exhibition, an opportunity is given for a change of perspective -- the physical experience parallels the metaphysical.

This is a fresh opportunity. Until the rocks were placed on the wall did one really appreciate the height of the Tower Gallery? The sculptures on the girders allow viewers to focus again on the structural beauty of the gallery's construction. The diversity of the works and their unexpected installation gives one the chance to fully appreciate once more the strength and infinite mutability of the gallery itself. In Genius Loci the gallery is an integral and important part of the composition of the exhibit. Effectually, it is the exhibition's raison d'etre. It has, physically and metaphorically, become the container for the "containers". And while the art work contains the spirit and inspiration of their creators, the Gallery has become the container for the art and for the experiences of the viewers. The many, many exhibitions held here, the numbers of works that have become part of its permanent collection are the medium by which the Gallery as an institution communicates with. Who a gallery is and what defines it are reflected in these and ultimately are what move the spirit in the viewers who attend.

Top: Spirit of the House: Michael Flynn Bottom: Plant Creature #3: Ying-Yueh Chuang

Genius Loci isn't about one style or type of work. Rather this exhibition presents viewers with a space peopled almost, with the "spirit" of the artists who have shown there over the last decade. The Gallery is infused with work which references not only the Gallery's history, but the history of art, generally, and clay, glass and enamel as media, specifically. Often when going to exhibitions one brings along a memory of previous experiences, noting how a new work here...a different lighting effect there...all change how one looks at the space. Genius Loci gives a concrete form to this previously intangible experience. And with the works in places where one wouldn't necessarily expect to see them, viewers are forced to re-evaluate and question how one perceives things. These unexpected placements allow for simple moments of joy and delight as works are discovered, thereby giving the viewer not only an interaction with the art work but also a fresh appreciation of the beauty and uniqueness of the Gallery itself. Genius Loci becomes an exhibition where the art and the space become perfectly interwoven with one another. -Virginia M. Eichhorn Download this essay (pdf file)

The Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery appreciates the support of Ball Construction, The Record and M&T Printing Group in bringing you this exhibition. We would also like to thank the 44 artists who submitted their work to Genius Loci. Their interest in the project and their care in getting to us sometimes very fragile work gives the abundance and diversity you see in the exhibition.

Genius Loci Artist Information

Click on the name of an artist to download his/her Artist's Statement and Curriculum Vitae (pdf file).

Or, you can download the entire Genius Loci Catalogue (pdf file, 3.4 MB).