EXHIBIT
Clint Neufeld's Powertrains and Peacocks
Where: Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (LAB Gallery)
When: Opening and artist's talk today, 7: 30 to 9 p.m. Runs through Oct. 28
Admission: $13 adults, $11 students/senior, $2.50 youth, $28 family, children and members free
It isn't often that you see a piece of art and think, "Hey, my grandma could really bond with a grease monkey over this."
But such may be the case with sculptor Clint Neufeld's ceramic reproductions of classic engines, detailed with dainty flowers and perched on French provincial furniture.
The Saskatchewan-based sculptor has been gaining international attention for the dichotomous creations, including a spot in Oh, sa国际传媒! at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), the largest survey of Canadian art outside the country. He'll bring two of those pieces, along with three new lightboxes, to his show at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, opening today.
While re-creating engines has something to do with Neufeld's history in traditionally male realms - he served with UN forces in Yugoslavia after high school and trained as a firefighter before entering art school - it's the engine's cultural history that appealed to him.
"I always liked the idea that it was something that people tinkered with - and that's something that has disappeared in our culture," he said on the phone from his home outside Osler, Sask.
(population 1,100), where he lives with his wife and fourmonth-old daughter. "And I like how they used to be these sorts of gathering points for men."
There's also simple beauty in pre-computerized mechanical design. "In a lot of ways, it goes back to my love of beautiful things," he said. "I like taking these functional, manly things and making them useless and delicate."
Casting something in ceramic - a material that conjures images of teacups and fragility - makes it new, said Neufeld, who sees few sculpting materials as neutral. If he'd cast the engine in bronze, for example, it would take on a vastly different meaning.
Neufeld seems to take a relaxed view of art - preferring to leave his own intentions out in favour of creating something the average person can draw meaning from on his or her own.
While his lightboxes - presented for the first time this spring at Saskatoon's Mendel Art Gallery - may appear divergent from his previous work, they show a similarly scrutinizing eye on our culture. This time, he focused on the sillier elements, beginning with the chandelier.
"They're really kooky things. I think they're really beautiful, but ostentatious," he said. "Someone said to me: Their whole purpose is to draw attention to themselves. I really liked that idea."
He stenciled the form out of vinyl, but it felt a bit lonely, so he thought more widely about useless and showy things - landing on the Trans-Am. "When I was growing up, every 14-yearold wanted to save their money to get a Trans Am," he said. "Now they're just ridiculous cars that people who are stuck in their glory days drive, like people in their 40s who were the prom king in high school."
The figure of the peacock - an animal so flashy that it has earned its own verb - rounds out the trio.
Neufeld graduated with a bachelor of fine arts degree from the University of Saskatchewan and a master's degree from Concordia University in Montreal. But with some distance from the world of academia, where artists are constantly analyzing their art, Neufeld says he's just making things he likes now - and his work is the better for it.
"We [artists] make things we want to see," he said. "They're for our own enjoyment first. It's just really great when other people see value in them too."
