ARTISTS
Eldon Garnet: Amalgamation
When Garnet began creating public sculptures in the 1980s, he was conscious of the constraints of physically building the structures. But these maquettes represent the full breadth of the artist鈥檚 conceptualizations, relatively unburdened by material physics and engineering.
Garnet鈥檚 ultimate goal is to examine what sculpture and public space could mean together. But presenting these miniatures within gallery walls, while open to the public, reframes the work, balancing them between the public/private spheres. The ideas haven鈥檛 changed, but the objects are now seen out of their site, removed from their original context and scale, and created with alternative materials. Regardless of whether one has encountered Memorial To Commemorate The Chinese Railroad Workers in Canada or Artifacts of Memory in their full-sized majesty on the streets of Toronto, the maquettes present a completely new, and original, viewing experience.
Miniaturizing these monuments lends them the playfully elegant qualities of Garnet鈥檚 The Narrative Body -a series of small narrative bronzes- and the maquette of sculptures for his own tomb, which were developed alongside his public sculptures over the past four decades. The artist鈥檚 use of allegorical thinking, semiotics, and narratives in either body of work is poetically rich. The figures of the Railroad Memorial are involved in an allegorical narrative, as is the man carrying a book over his head towards a large staircase.
When Garnet began creating public sculptures in the 1980s, he was conscious of the constraints of physically building the structures. But these maquettes represent the full breadth of the artist鈥檚 conceptualizations, relatively unburdened by material physics and engineering.
Garnet鈥檚 ultimate goal is to examine what sculpture and public space could mean together. But presenting these miniatures within gallery walls, while open to the public, reframes the work, balancing them between the public/private spheres. The ideas haven鈥檛 changed, but the objects are now seen out of their site, removed from their original context and scale, and created with alternative materials. Regardless of whether one has encountered Memorial To Commemorate The Chinese Railroad Workers in Canada or Artifacts of Memory in their full-sized majesty on the streets of Toronto, the maquettes present a completely new, and original, viewing experience.
Miniaturizing these monuments lends them the playfully elegant qualities of Garnet鈥檚 The Narrative Body -a series of small narrative bronzes- and the maquette of sculptures for his own tomb, which were developed alongside his public sculptures over the past four decades. The artist鈥檚 use of allegorical thinking, semiotics, and narratives in either body of work is poetically rich. The figures of the Railroad Memorial are involved in an allegorical narrative, as is the man carrying a book over his head towards a large staircase.
Artists on show
