20 | WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 2011 | GULF ISLANDS DRIFTWOOD

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Arts&Entertainment

ART REVIEW

Metal masks, sculpture at

Pegasus Gallery

BY ELIZABETH NOLAND R I F T W O O D S T A F F

Sculptor Peter McFarlane, known for his creative use of recycled metal including old car parts and refrigerator doors, has gone deep into a marriage of concept and material with Shapeshifters, his latest series of work.

The show of 10 pieces based on First Nations art forms and iconography opened at Pegasus Gallery last Friday, earning much acclaim from viewers who enjoyed McFarlane’s cre-ative ability — for example in constructing a raven mask out of old chainsaw parts. The piece even includes cedar fi bre hair replicated by ropes of chain.

The sculptures are indeed beautiful and fas-cinating in their construction, but as the artist explains, the intention goes far beyond being a cool new take on a recognizable form.

“I suppose this body of work started when I moved from the city to the West Coast and into the country,” McFarlane told the Drift-wood after the opening.

“That cultural shift was very dramatic, as was the skill set required to live here. My new relationship with nature and a heightened

awareness of indigenous art and culture — so visible on the West Coast— are the two factors that have contributed most to my new work.”

The initial inspiration for the series came from the First Nations work exhibited at Pegasus Gallery, where McFarlane is also rep-resented. As he recalled, one day he noticed that a traditional raven mask had a similar form to a chainsaw case, which sparked the plan to put the two concepts together.

“It proved to be a very fertile idea, fuelling a whole series of ideas that I couldn’t really let go of,” McFarlane said.

Although it was the similar shape that fi rst opened up the concept, the development included many thoughts about “chainsaw culture” and how the Canadian landscape has been altered by such tools, completely chang-ing not just the physical environment but the cultural reality of resident First Nations peoples.

Accordingly, “Each successive piece utilized other materials that also transformed land-scape: old machetes, rototiller blades, lawn-mower blades, et cetera, all of which spoke — because all of them were deemed obsolete — of a loss of a historical culture.”

McFarlane said he has no wish to speak for First Nations people, but he is interested in raising the issue of a culture that’s been “met-

aphorically clear-cut.” He also has no inten-tion of appropriating others’ forms. Before the exhibit opened he showed the work to First Nations people, including Tony Hunt, the hereditary chief of the Kwakwaka’wakw people and a master carver whose art can also be found at Pegasus.

McFarlane’s work included studying First Nations iconography and culture as well as the actual grinding, welding and assembling of parts. In addition to the blades and chain-saw parts he also used things like old type-writer keys, which he identifi ed as a lost tech-nology from his own lifetime.

The ideas for the designs have been dic-tated by the tools and contain multiple layers of meaning. Dreamcatcher, for example, is a huge circular saw blade with a design in chain that echoes the beaver found on the Canadian nickel (suggested by the blade’s essential component). McFarlane also points out that saws and beavers, both Canadian icons, are known for taking down trees.

Ravenous belongs to the species of super-natural, cannibalist crooked beak birds. In McFarlane’s treatment, the mask includes a drooping fi sh-like blade as a metal fi gure consumes its own material. Grinder is an orca

sculpture constructed from grinder parts, including a vicious jaw of rotating blades.

“In the past, my art has been about re-con-textualizing objects or consumer products, giving them a new meaning that confuses the cultural assumptions we take for granted,” he said.

“Transforming my own landscape — taking down trees to grow new ones, for example—also made me think twice about what I took for granted, especially since, historically, I have no cultural right to this land. You might say that tilling my soil tilled my conscience, making me more sensitive to the incredible upheavals and transformations that have been infl icted upon indigenous culture.”

Shapeshifters runs until Saturday, Sept. 3 at the gallery, seaside at Mouat’s in Ganges.

Physical and cultural transformation inform McFarlane’s Shapeshifters

PHOTO BY DERRICK LUNDY

Peter McFarlane with his Dream Catcher 2011 piece.

ign in chain the e

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es of super-ak birds. In sk includes metal fi gureer is an orca

the gallery, seaside at Mouat’s in GGGGGGGGGGanaaaa ges.

PHOTO BY DERRICK LUNDY

Raven With (Home) Life.