Bird Work - “Vestiges” 2003 - 2005
2005, Winnipeg Art Gallery & The Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba in Brandon
Picturing the skeletons as ancient beings from a lost civilization, I imagined a culture in which they may have lived. Carrying this idea further I produced mixed media artifacts which might have been “uncovered by archeologists”. I enjoy the idea of them being displayed as in a museum. In this exhibition I presented a faux gift shop where everything was designed to tempt. I played with the idea of the rampant commercialism which lures us to buy some tawdry memento of historical and important art.
NOTE: The small wall boxes in the installation exhibit are wooden cubes with an attached light box which illuminates the interior. Inside each box is a creation which might have been part of the birds’ imagined society. The convex lens distorts the inner view. Images with as asterisk * are interior views of the wall light boxes. All photographs designated * are by Ernest Mayer.