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Changing perceptions of still life

GPAG Show
gpag
One of Spira’s still life works, entitled Inside.

A still life painting — that’s a bowl of fruit or a vase of flowers, right?

Three local artists are about to change your perception of the classic still life using three different mediums when they open a show at the Gibsons Public Art Gallery (GPAG) on Feb. 7.

Alan Sirulnikoff from Gibsons uses his finely tuned photographer’s eye, and Richard Nelson of Gibsons incorporates still life images into video with original music. Artist Maurice Spira of Roberts Creek will do what he does best — paint.

Though the tone is contemporary, the traditions are not forgotten. Sirulnikoff’s photos — close-ups of objects usually found in nature: a leaf, a seed pod, a root, driftwood — are shot with slide film in natural light and are not digitally manipulated in any way. Shooting film forces him to be more discerning, he explains.

“I love the tradition of it. It still resonates,” Sirulnikoff said.

Sirulnikoff takes the words “still life” literally.

“I ask myself, is there still life in these objects?” he said.

He acknowledges that he is also studying death and decay, the cycle of life in constantly changing nature. He introduces the idea of pareidolia, the tendency in humans to see a face in objects, for example, a sinister face in a driftwood stump, or the Virgin Mary likeness in a piece of toast. The viewer will understand the phenomenon better when seeing one of his works, Mythic Beast, a close-up of a scary root. And the answer to your next question is no — no mind-altering substances were used in order to see the faces. 

Nelson, when contemplating making a video of Sirulnikoff’s images, also went traditional. He decided to remain as faithful as possible to the original images, he notes in his artist’s statement. It was up to Nelson to give the photos some three-dimensional qualities surrounded by evocative music of his own composition. His 11-minute video that will be shown at the GPAG has already been the official selection at the Wildlife Conservation Film Festival in New York and at Cinemart Short Film Festival in Barcelona. 

Spira is better known for his surrealist or politically inspired visual rants. But his drawing skills, his ability to render the bones of an object, are the foundation for all of his work. He notes that he takes pleasure in painting a more traditional still life in that there is a challenge in depicting the chosen forms to reveal their intrinsic personalities. It’s the juxtaposition of the items that makes it interesting.

“I interpret them, change them,” Spira said. “I dramatize or reduce them, change the scale.”  It might be a cabbage from his garden, a mug of beer, an antique pocket watch, a wad of dollar bills — even a fish head. Half of the paintings have vintage Penguin paperbacks in them, though the titles are illegible so as not to lead the viewer in any one direction. The arrangement of objects sometimes suggests a symbolic narrative, but again, that is up to the viewer. 

The reception for the Still Life show is next Saturday, Feb. 7 from 2 to 4 p.m. at the GPAG and the artists will be available at a later date for an informal discussion about their work. Also opening in the smaller Eve Smart Gallery is False Perspectives by Torrance Beamish.