Friday, May 05, 2006
Local photographer elevates the mundane to the sublime
Bill's work is always worth checking out, and this show is no exception.
Drive Your Girlfriend Home, by William Eakin
Winnipeg International Art Gallery, 264 McDermot Ave.
To May 31
Thursday, May 4th, 2006
Lorne Roberts (Winnipeg Free Press)
With the closing of Site Gallery last December, a big hole was left in the local art scene. Suddenly there was almost no one selling work by the top contemporary artists from this part of the country.
A handful of newer galleries in Winnipeg have tried to fill that void to some degree. In addition to picking up some of the artists who were orphaned when Site closed, they've added some new choices of their own.
Right now at YWG (the shortened, airport-friendly name for the Winnipeg International Art Gallery), William Eakin is showing his newest work.
Not content to rest on his status as one of the leading contemporary photographers in Canada, Eakin exhibits new work almost continually, both here and in other cities.
His latest exhibit features close-up photos of the steering wheels of vintage 1950s-era cars, all restored to their original glory.
At first glance, these pictures (taken through fish-eye lenses that give the works that round, distorted view), seem to be just about the artistry of restored cars. But they're about more than that.
Eakin has a long history of documenting the everyday. Whether it's the frost-bound garden of his last show at the Centennial Concert Hall, or the bottle caps, trophies and decorative plates of his multi-year thrift-store projects, he's sought to raise the seemingly mundane to the level of the sublime.
The circle has been an important symbol in religious and philosophical traditions for eons; Eakin uses it here to suggest the deeper, hidden value behind things we often take for granted. More than cars, he says, this show is about consciousness.
And theory aside, the work has a visual impact that stands on its own.
Drive Your Girlfriend Home, by William Eakin
Winnipeg International Art Gallery, 264 McDermot Ave.
To May 31
Thursday, May 4th, 2006
Lorne Roberts (Winnipeg Free Press)
With the closing of Site Gallery last December, a big hole was left in the local art scene. Suddenly there was almost no one selling work by the top contemporary artists from this part of the country.
A handful of newer galleries in Winnipeg have tried to fill that void to some degree. In addition to picking up some of the artists who were orphaned when Site closed, they've added some new choices of their own.
Right now at YWG (the shortened, airport-friendly name for the Winnipeg International Art Gallery), William Eakin is showing his newest work.
Not content to rest on his status as one of the leading contemporary photographers in Canada, Eakin exhibits new work almost continually, both here and in other cities.
His latest exhibit features close-up photos of the steering wheels of vintage 1950s-era cars, all restored to their original glory.
At first glance, these pictures (taken through fish-eye lenses that give the works that round, distorted view), seem to be just about the artistry of restored cars. But they're about more than that.
Eakin has a long history of documenting the everyday. Whether it's the frost-bound garden of his last show at the Centennial Concert Hall, or the bottle caps, trophies and decorative plates of his multi-year thrift-store projects, he's sought to raise the seemingly mundane to the level of the sublime.
The circle has been an important symbol in religious and philosophical traditions for eons; Eakin uses it here to suggest the deeper, hidden value behind things we often take for granted. More than cars, he says, this show is about consciousness.
And theory aside, the work has a visual impact that stands on its own.
