Students dissect Victoria’s public art
Photo by Jina Mousseau.
Public art in Victoria gets a lot of flack, but perhaps those more intimate with the creation of art have a slightly different perspective.
Enter Jessica Tai, 20, and Michaela Earthy, 21, both first-year students in Camosun’s Visual Arts program. Nexus invited them to explore a few well-known pieces of public art in downtown Victoria, and to share some of their insights.
Commerce Canoe, Bastion Square
First stop, Bastion Square—home to people strolling, heritage buildings, and… giant tulips? Earthy quickly points out the information plaque, which clearly states that the large, green stalks are actually reeds cradling a canoe.
The statue, called Commerce Canoe, is by Illarion Gallant. In his artwork statement, Gallant calls the canoe a “uniquely Canadian icon evoking not only connection with the wilderness, but also the history of exploration and commerce in Canada.”
Tai: “I feel like it sticks out here—it’s too modern. I like old-fashioned art that’s handmade and made by just one artist, not steel workers.”
Earthy: “So it’s a business piece, not art, in terms of its purpose. There’s good use of complimentary colours. It’s erect—shows the possibility of Victoria to grow.”
Tai: “The canoe is a skeleton. I like that you can see what’s in it.”
Earthy: “The canoe is like a framework. Bastion Square was the start of the commerce area in Victoria; it’s like the skeleton, the bones of Victoria. The reeds relate to humans, supporting the ‘business’ of Victoria.”
Tai: “Okay, I’m starting to like it more. The more literal it is, the more people can get it.”
Avocados, the Grand Pacific Hotel
Next the ladies make their way over to the Grand Pacific Hotel on Belleville Street, home to Victoria’s own enormous stone avocados.
This piece is also by Illarion Gallant and is called, surprisingly enough, Avocados. In his statement Gallant describes that the purpose of this work was to touch on urban redevelopment and the imposition that such work imposes on the landscape.
“Stated bluntly, this work was intended to act as a Shiatsu treatment to reline the earth,” says Gallant.
Tai: “An interesting choice of vegetable—one not from here. Maybe to welcome guests here? For relaxation and calm? It’s a strange association. I do like that it’s a sit-able structure.”
Earthy: “Funny though, it forces you to sit facing the hotel instead of the water.”
Tai: “It’s weird how some parts of the stone are polished, and some are not. But I think it balances the piece.”
Earthy: “It would have looked better sitting on grass or something else. It’s rock on more rock. Very cement city.”
Night Is for Sleeping, Day Is For Resting, Douglas and Blanshard
Finally, the two stop for a rest on the life-size mattresses at the intersection of Douglas and Blanshard.
“Night is for sleeping, day is for resting,” reads the sign over the statues by Mowry Baden. According to Baden, he was trying to emphasize leisure and accommodation in this piece. “The title of this piece is a quote from John Philip Souza that epitomizes the rest and relaxation that Victoria and her guests seek,” he says in his statement.
Earthy notices that the colour and pattern on the mattresses is the same as the colour and cement on the ground.
Earthy: “Why would he do that? The whole thing is the colour of dirty salmon. I don’t find the colour relaxing; it’s bland. I guess you should want to sit on it, but the only time you see mattresses outside they are gross and stained, and being given away for that reason.”
Tai: “A public mattress… sick. I do like how realistic they are; I think he used a cast. The threading and detail is all included, that would have been difficult to do. It’s placed at a really busy corner; maybe he is saying we should all slow down?”
It appears that art is subjective and ultimately comes down to personal taste—even to those who are viewing it with an artistic context.
“I’m picky. I appreciate all art, but I know what I like,” says Tai.
“There is art I don’t like, whether it is the level of craft, or the clarity of an idea. But as I’ve learned in the Visual Arts program, you can justify anything if you can back it up,” adds Earthy.
How about if the City of Victoria contracted these student artists to create a piece of public art?
“I would do some mural paintings, a series of them,” says Tai.
Earthy describes a big sculpture that she would build with others. “Something in the park that people could play with, sit with… something that would move in the wind.”
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