If a picture can paint a thousand words, can a sculpture carve a novel?
That sounds like a silly question only because it made you look at an old saying a little differently.
If you like looking at thinks differently, if you like art that tells stories and challenges your perspective, then come to see Daniel Needham?s amazing paintings and sculptures at the Worthy Room Gallery in Cumberland.
This mildly provocative show, called?Chapter and Versus: Challenging Stories from the Past, explores tales that many of us have heard at one time or another. Stories that have come from ancient Greece and from both testaments.? There?s even a twisted nursery rhyme and a Portrait of the Artist as an Old Soldier. There are a few modern situational comedies and tragedies too, just because the stories behind them needed to be told.
What else would you expect from someone who calls himself @ikonocaustic ?
The artist also known as @ikonocaustic excels at both the reductive processes (of carving bits away) and the additive processes (of making and assembling and painting). The resulting pieces of art — whether paintings, or sculptures made of stone, wood, metal, and even cotton — are beguiling. Give yourself plenty of time to engage when you come to this show.
WHERE & WHEN
The show opens in Cumberland on Thursday, March 3, with an opening soir?e Friday, March 4 from 5-8 everyone welcome.
The Worthy Room Art Gallery is located at 2708 Dunsmuir Ave, beside the government liquor store.
Daniel?s show runs from March 3 to March 26, hours vary. Follow us on Instagram @The_Worthy_Room or on Facebook ?The Worthy Room.?
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Artist?s Statement
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Chapter and Versus: Challenging Stories from the Past
By
Daniel Needham a.k.a. @ikonocaustic
I tell stories with images.? I tell some stories with paintings, others with stone sculptures, and still other tales using mixed media.? While I have also been known to make artwork from cloth and even from gingerbread, I have yet to tell a yarn with yarn.
My artistic process is somewhat random, but it is inevitably linear.? I start by imagining, and then I architect and, finally, I paint — or I sculpt ? or I build.? The sources of my imaginings are varied, ranging from current encounters to latent responses to the doctrinal and social influences of my youth.
I believe that it is the artist?s responsibility to provide alternate perspectives, to challenge viewers? opinions and beliefs.? Some of the legends that I relate are new twists on ancient scripture and other fables.? Other stories that I depict mash up ancient beliefs with modern popular thought.
I like carving in rock best.? Rock art lasts longest.? But I do like to alternate between the reductive artistic process (of carving of bits away) and the additive (of daubing on bits of paint, and of making and assembling stuff).? That is why I usually treat myself to the painting of a picture (or the mixing of media to make an artwork) once I have completed, or at least nearly finished, carving a stone sculpture.? It is usually the case that I need to take a break between carving one stone and the next, just to give my body a rest.
I am struck every time by how three things: the medium itself, the process of creation, and my humanity, each impact my artistic outcomes.? Sometimes the results are for the worse, occasionally even calamitous, but usually the results are rewarding and exceed my expectations.
As the artist informally known as @ikonocaustic, I am driven to mock icons, rather than to destroy them.? As a modern man I see stories everywhere that beg to be illuminated.
Learn more about Daniel Needham here: https://www.danielneedham.ca/
