An art exhibit that elicits plenty of double-takes and questions is on display at the Estevan Art Gallery and Museum (EAGM): Ian Johnston’s Selected Work from the Reinventing Consumption Project.
“The project is an exploration of the ceramic process I invented involving vacuum-forming a bag, like a clamp, around veneers of wood that are glued together,” said Johnston.
There are four pieces in the entire body of work, which took about three months at various ceramic art residencies across the globe, from Red Deer to the Netherlands, and entail a commentary on the processes entailed in consumption culture.
The works displayed at the EAGM include large pieces affixed to the wall of the gallery, entailing plastic shrunk over moulded wood, creating peculiar repeated textures. This pieces are part of a broader work called the Antechamber, and give the walls an alien look.
A looped video is on display, as well, depicting Johnston’s far more unwieldy work and larger scale version of his art style, The Chamber. The Chamber entails a large pile of objects covered by an expanding and contracting nylon bag, alternately hiding and revealing what is underneath it.
“When you put objects into the plastic bag, the bag is this amorphous thing, and then you shrink it down, and all of a sudden, what’s inside appears,” said Johnston. “It’s half the size of the room, at 30 feet long by 20 feet wide, and 15 feet high. It has its own soundtrack.
“When the lights would go down low, you hear the sound of flowing water, and when it deflates, the lights go bright and harsh, and the sound of burning wood fills the room.”
Although the process Johnston used to create his pieces is striking, he notes that there is more to it than just creating strange-looking artwork. Johnston has a background in architecture, and has done a great deal of prior artwork using ceramics. He created pieces like The Antechamber and The Chamber to give himself a new artistic direction, through a process of exploration, after 10 years of working with ceramics.
“I’m very drawn to materials, but I’m also pretty obsessed with the way-stream, and consumption culture, and how it is out of control, yet just continues,” said Johnston. “I try to look at it from as many different perspectives as possible. It goes from being a way to mock or duplicate it, to looking at a behaviour behind it. It’s a lifelong obsession. I’ve been trying to run away from it, but it pulls me back.”
Selected Work from the Reinventing Consumption Project will be on display at the EAGM until April 28.
