THE SPACES INSIDE
Grottesque exhibition at library gallery showcases once trendy man-made caves
Winnipeg artist Bev Pike’s exhibition of paintings, Grottesque, inspired by the neoclassical architectural spaces of England, is on view at the Dunlop Art Gallery (Central location) until March 25 in Regina. Above, curator Blair Fornwald looks over some of the massive artworks.
When Bev Pike first found an English grotto, it was quite by accident.
She was walking through a park, “traipsing past maybe a grove of fruit trees or a pretend Roman ruin or a Greek temple,” when she noticed “a Hobbity kind of entranceway at the bottom of the garden.”
Intrigued, she ventured inside to pure darkness.
This was a decade ago. Interest piqued, she sought out other grottos.
Now, she has created paintings that reimagine those once-trendy man-made caves. Her exhibition, Grottesque, is on now at the Central library’s Dunlop Art Gallery.
According to the London Parks & Gardens Trust, “no fashionable estate was considered complete without an artificial grotto” in the 1700s.
“They were created by rich nobility just for amusement. They come under that category of folly,” said Pike, a Winnipeg-based artist.
“In these places, you’re supposed to write poetry and think deep thoughts and maybe have a little tryst, that kind of thing.”
Although pitch black at the outset, once the senses acclimatize, a visitor notices “dazzling seashell patterns and combinations with coral and with semi-precious stones like rock emerald and amethyst.”
In some, there are narrow tunnels linking several rooms, which inspired Pike to portray them as full communities in her series of paintings.
“Part of what I’m trying to do is build an underground village or town where you’d have everything you need if we have to go and live underground,” she said.
“You’d need a spa, you’d need riding stables and gazing ponds and so on. The next one I’m going to start is a room for conducting seances.”
The paintings are “quite performative,” said Blair Fornwald, the exhibition’s curator and assistant curator at the Dunlop.
Eight feet high and 20 feet long, “They’re so big and they’re hung near the floor and they’re devoid of figures, and they’re kind of like empty spaces but they ’re also very rich and lush,” said Fornwald.
“So I think they kind of compel the viewer to performatively inhabit them.”
The grottos that dotted the English countryside were a byproduct of another feature of old estates — man-made lakes.
Of the mound of moved earth, serfs would dig out a cave. In at least a couple of cases, said Pike, women would then move in to decorate.
Pike’s research into grottos — and a concurrent interest, bomb shelters — is tied to proprioception.
“It means how all your senses integrate to give you information. And when you’re in a cave, that’s really important,” she said.
“You can’t use vision to begin with, you have to wait. You just have to go into this dark space and keep your breathing stable and just wait for your senses to feed you information.
“So in all of my work over the last 40 years, that’s what I’m fascinated with, is how you feel inside a particular space.”
Grottesque is on view at the Dunlop Art Gallery, Central library branch, until March 25.
You just have to go into this dark space and keep your breathing stable and just wait for your senses to feed you information.