SHAYNE DARK

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Sculpture Magazine - Review - May 2005 

JOHN K GRANDE - Writer and Art Critic

Excerpt from Review 'Kiwi Sculpture Garden Project'  

Canada's Kiwi Sculpture Garden represents an interesting anomaly in the sculpture garden genre. This site is a rambling affair, with greenhouses and landscaping activities, renowned for its selection of over 3,000 perennials. the sculptures are sited almost randomly along trails, in open space, and near walls. With the support of director/landscaper Paul Loiselle and Annie Creighton, the Kiwi has developed into a more popular and eclectic brand of sculpture garden. Its "Father's Day in the Garden" show (when local artists and artisans are invited to exhibit their work for the visiting public) and other annual exhibitions are more open in their choice of artists.

Each summer, with some collaborative assistance from the Edward Day Gallery in Toronto, the Kiwi invites younger and mid-career sculptors to create site specific works in and around the extensive grounds. Mary Sue Rankin, director of the Edward Day Gallery and curator of this year's show, found the Kiwi Sculpture Garden inspirational: "I saw the site and it seemed like an amazing possibility for sculpture, a great setting for the work of professional artists." Features that evidence the agrarian culture and history of this long settled region of Ontario are found near the sculpture, providing an unusual juxtaposition of nature and art. These artifacts include an antique wooden sewer pipe that used to run under the road, an old wooden zig-zag snake fence, and a meandering dry wall that parallels a new trail section through the woods. Sculptors who have participated in earlier Kiwi exhibitions include Tom Dean, who has represented Canada at the Venice Biennale, and Grimsby-based Reinhard Reitzenstein.

This years crop of invited sculptors includes Shayne Dark, whose Into the Blue   involved collecting trees from around his home near Kingston, Ontario. This gesture of collecting and assembling is like a Natura Povera, as opposed to the Arte Povera-inspired appropriation of object-products we often see in contemporary sculpture. The vertical antennae-like orientation of these beautiful undulating forms makes them look strangely synthetic, like a hyper-sized plant from a sci-fi film - this effect becomes particularly evident when the elongated tentacles are coated with ultramarine blue paint. Dark believes that this unusually iridescent paint (used for theatre set design), adds a new dimension to his sculpture. the colour emanates out into the surrounding environment. Like Anish Kapoor's or Wolfgang Laib's experiments with pure pigment on matter, Dark's sculptures  acquire an aura of life.