The call of this wild and wondrous exhibit on display at Thunder Bay Art Gallery speaks to viewers as soon as they enter the third and largest space.
Artist-architect and master-craftsman Tom Benner’s exhibit Call of the Wild is in turn graceful, fluid, eerie, symmetrical and somehow in motion even though there are no moving parts to his large installations and three-dimensional panels.
Moving clockwise through the gallery, one encounters layered watercolours in flight and just a hint of the artist’s abiding focus on nature and what he doesn’t want to lose from this world.
This viewer’s first reaction to a cluster of seven curved and lightly-ringed cones jutting upward from the floor was a jolt of pleasure, also a spooky unease. What on earth might these be: the claws of a buried dinosaur waking up? Teeth?
Benner: “When I constructed Orca I wanted to convey the sense of walking on water surrounded by the beauty of these creatures silently breaking the surface of the ocean.
Orcas are individuals, defined by their fin shape, so I carefully shaped and sanded the plywood layers into seven unique forms. Everyone who sees them has a different idea of what they are: an ant hill, pyramids, rock formations and yes, eerie feelings.”
Close by, five life-size burros or wild ponies, again beautiful with their smooth curves yet eerie because of their glowing translucency. Try standing in front of this “moving” group. Look at them head-on, as it were, and the effect is amplified.
Benner: “The African Wild Asses are intentionally translucent. They have a fascinating and remarkable history as the first domesticated species. Many were buried with their masters, several found with one of the first Pharoahs. They were believed to help the owner travel with ease into the afterlife. Their domestication was the advent of modern civilization; the last African Wild Ass died in a Vienna zoo in 1927.”
Standing next to A Landscape, one feels akin to a small child arriving alone at a secret place. This time the question isn’t what-on-earth, but how on earth did he build this?
Benner: “This was created with much labour and time over two years. I’ve worked in construction in the past, which was helpful; I also used geometry to shape the forms. Each piece was built with a plywood frame, enclosed with folded copper skins riveted together. Copper is an ever-lasting metal, one of the oldest materials used by civilization. I hope the viewer, walking into this piece, is drawn into the awe and wonder one feels in northern woods.”
We encounter his shrines: messages from the artist around his concern for species and an environment on a brink.
Benner: “I like to tell stories; most are the result of extensive research, a wide range of ideas and observations; and lots and lots of time at the library, at book stores, reading anything and everything; and listening to others telling their stories. The environment and our fragile relationship with it keeps me working and weaving stories; I hope viewers interpret them in their own way.
Respond to Call of the Wild in your own wondrous way. Here until May 26.
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