|
|
|
 |
|
Dale Roberts' East Coast upbringing shines through in sculpture by Danielle Hogan World famous east coast Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery once wrote, "The woods are never solitary-they are full of whispering, beckoning, friendly life. But the sea is a mighty soul, forever moaning of some great, unshareable sorrow, which shuts it up into itself for all eternity." That notion of the sea as a mighty soul is remarkably invoked in the works by Victoria artist Dale Roberts. Born and raised in an outport village of Newfoundland, he has a unique and intimate sculptural connection to many of the materials allied to life near the sea and draws seemingly constant inspiration from it.
Labour-intensive and varying in scale from that of an adult male to something the size of a shoe box, Roberts crochet and knit sculptures are utterly inspired. His exhibition Intersections, now on at the Martin Batchelor Gallery, is loaded with works that seem to transform before our very eyes from the abstract forms into shapes echoing everything from sea creatures and sex toys to roots pulled raw from the earth or soft cuddlies designed for newborns. In 1997, Roberts began the work "Synets," the title for which is derived from The Ashley Book of Knots, well known to fisherman and rock climbers alike. The three works in the series hang from driftwood wall mounts and stretch down and out from the mount as though they are being dragged along the wall. Each piece is made from cotton thread, lead sinkers and brass hardware. These pieces represent Roberts' first crochet works using the one stitch-taught to him by his mother-he has know since the age of five. Roberts was initially interested in the long net-like design because it resembled those deep-sea trawlers he saw in a book published by the Newfoundland Department of Fisheries. He explains it was the tension, the strong pull and drag of the nets as they moved through the water collecting their catch, that first captivated his imagination. Roberts also states that beyond the practical interests of collapsibility for shipping, he was interested in the fact it is only through thension and gravity that "Synets" acquire space and form on the wall. With "Androgyne," Roberts has made a leap from his more abstracted forms to address the figure. His original idea for this work was to create a piece personifying King Neptune, however "Androgyne," both raw and poetic, turned out to be a figure that captures something universal about both the male and female forms. Then there is "Oligactis." A floor sculpture made from crocheted and corked tarred-hemp, rope and burlap, all French-knit on a homemade loom. This piece looks like a cross between a meaty pile of bull kelp and a large hammer-headed jellyfish. Roberts has a superb tenacity for labour intensive construction and his ongoing series "Distorts," currently 125 soft sculptures, is a prime example of this. Knotted, netted and crocheted, each one uses at least one crochet stitch and fits roughly within the dimensions of a shoe box. The sculptures vary in medium and colour using various combinations of rope, yarn, thread and found objects. These works are mature and fantastical, simple and complicated.
Intersections |
|
