Pnina Granirer: The Whisper of Stones

7/30/2019 Pnina Granirer: The Whisper of Stones

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The Whisper of Stones

PNINA GRANIRER

Two Rivers GalleryPrince George, British Columbia

October 11, 2012 January 6, 2013


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Two Rivers Gallery

Prince George, British Columbia


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Pnina Granirer at the entrace to the exhibition


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The Whisper of Stones

Pnina Granirer is a senior BC artist living in Vancouver, whose work

has lately received considerable international attention. This exhibition

will flesh out in more depth the context of a series of mixed media

paintings in our collection, representing an abandoned millstone quarry

on Gabriola Island that was used as a source for grindstones for the

pulp and paper industry in the 1930s. As part of a series from the 80s

and 90s called the Carved Stones, it explored the almost surreal

sandstone formations of the Gulf Islands as a kind of homage to that

unique landscape. Thirty years on, the artist has started to revisit and

initiate new work based on this series. This exhibition provides an

exciting look at what has proven to be one of the artist's most

significant and enduring bodies of work.

George Harris, chief curator


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General view of installation


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Discovery at Gabriola, 22x30 in., mixed media on paperfrom the permanent collection of the Two Rivers Gallery


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Pnina Granirers first visit to the

Millstone Quarry on Gabriola Island, BC

1985


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Mystery at Gabriola 1, triptych, mixed media on paper, 44x90 in.from the permanent collection of the Two Rivers Gallery


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Installation view with Millstone Quarryworksfrom the permanent collection of the Two Rivers Gallery


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Abandoned Gabriola Millstone Quarry, 2012


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Abandoned Gabriola Millstone Quarry, 2012


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Mystery at Gabriola, diptych, 22x60 in., mixed media on paperfrom the permanent collection of Two Rivers Gallery


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Installation view of works from The Carved Stones Series


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Visions of Nikke at Gabriola, 39x22 in., mixed media on paper


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Carved Stones, mixed media on paper, 44x60 in.


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Time Bridge with Nikke, 30x56 in., mixed media on paper


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Humans in the Landscape Suite

umans n t e an scape mixed media on wood and plexiglass


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umans n t e an scape , mixed media on wood and plexiglass,27x19 in.


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Humans in the Landscape2, mixed media on wood and plexiglass, 27x19 in.


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Installation with works from the Blue Stones Series


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Barrier, mixed media on paper, 22x30 in.


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Blue Rock Opus 2, mixed media on paper, 30x40 in.


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Blue Rocks 4, mixed media on paper, 22x30 in.


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Stoneheads Blue, Yellow,Red


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Stonehead Yellow, mixed media on paper, 30x22 in.


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Stonehead Blue, 30x22 in., mixed media on paper


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Stonehead Red, 30x22 in., mixed media on paper

Artist talk at Opening of exhibition


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Artist talk at Opening of exhibition


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In 1986, another trip to Gabriola Island acted as a poetic trigger. On this island, fertile with sand stones and indigenous

pictographs, the artist discovered strange hollow cavities carved directly from the bedrock, now filled with rainwater and

wild grasses. These were the remains of an old millstone quarry abandoned since the mid-30s. Its absolute

strangeness gave birth to a plastic series, The Millstone Quarry, but also to poems and photographs. The triptych

Mystery on Gabriola Island (1987), below, is part of that series.

When Pninas exhibition in a Strasbourg gallery opened in 1987, a visitor compared those mysterious holes to the holes

she saw in the Vosges mountains. The Celts used rock cavities for libations. Had I been present at that exhibition, I

would have found a similarity with the sanctuary at Panias, in Trs-os-Montes, Portugal, where the Romans sacrificed

animals to the somber gods atop granite rocks where they had excavated similar cavities.

Jos Miguel Prez Corrales

Departamento de Filologia Espanola

Universidad de la Laguna

Tenerife, Spain, November 21, 2012

Documents

Pnina Granirer: The Whisper of Stones