THUNDER BAY - For sculptor, John Books, art is like honing an instrument. It should challenge the audience and create understanding in a way that is unique to the viewer. It’s about creating a relationship.
“I’m not going to tell you what this is,” Books said. “It’s your relationship to it. If you care to get more involved, it’s your relationship that is going to make the experience for you. That’s what I’d like to encourage.”
Books exhibit, Oxen of the Sun, is the newest installation at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery. The exhibit features bronze, wood, and resin figures and statues, some as large as four feet tall and others as small as 10 centimeters.
Inspiration for Oxen of the Sun has been part of a six year journey for the Grand Marais-based sculptor, and it all started with a dream.
“I had a couple of images that I woke up with one morning,” Books said. “They were linked with my concern about climate change and about what was happening in the world and how people were so resistant to change and denying what they were seeing in front of their eyes.”
Along with the statues and figures, the exhibit also features footprints on the floor representing tracks found in Africa 3.5 million years ago. According to Books, the tracks were left by early hominids fleeing a volcano.
“The sky was falling on their heads as they left that area,” Books said. “We have that story left by them. That, for me, is hopeful that as a species we survive. The world can be falling apart, we can survive.”
Books added that survival, art, and science are closely linked, because in the end it’s all about storytelling.
“This is how we inform ourselves about the world and how we investigate, imagine the other,” he said. “How can we communicate? It’s through storytelling and through art.”
While the show as a whole ties together themes of change, adaptation, and survival, for Books, who comes from a theatre background, each figure has its own story.
“For me these small figures are each rather theatrical,” he said. “I see them within their own little story or play. They tell their tale.”
The process for creating each individual figure can be rather labour intensive, according to Books. Each figure is sculpted in wax first, which is then used to make a mold. Bronze is then used to make the finished sculpture and the entire process can take up to a week.
Setting Books show apart from many others is what Books asks of the audience. He said he put a lot of thought into each individual piece and he wants the audience to slow down and focus on the sculptures, but not just with their eyes, he wants you to reach out and touch them.
“I hope [the audience] will have a different appreciation, a different sensibility of sculpture,” Books said. “In this show, I am going to invite them, unlike any other gallery you’re going to go into, to touch the pieces. This is how I made them and this is how they should be experienced, through touch.”
Oxen of the Sun is on display from Nov. 9 until Jan. 8 at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery.
