Rain or Shine (above)
Wallpaper (below)
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Eric
Snell is a mid-career artist who has exhibited in more than 50 solo shows in Europe, Canada, the United States and Japan, and
in numerous international group exhibitions. His
work can be found in public and private
collections in Europe, Canada, and the United States. Since 1994, he has been the Head of the School of Art and Design at
Guernsey College, Channel Islands, and is
currently on sabbatical while doing a residency in Roswell,
New Mexico. During his residency in Kelowna, from March 15 - 24, Snell
produced projects for the Reynolds Gallery and Rotary Courtyard.
Snell has worked
in a wide range of media and situations since the late 1970s
- sculpture, installation, public art and performance. While his work has dealt with natural materials, phenomenon and
“transformative” processes (burning wood, for
example to draw with), his installation for the Reynolds Gallery
also considers his observations regarding life in North American. His installation, Wallpaper, amplifies the perceived
North American obsession with watching television,
not only at home but also in public places. Three
walls of the Gallery are “domesticated” - covered with wallpaper
from the clearance bins at a local store. The paper selection was however, in part, dependent on sufficient quantities
being available, thereby reducing the need for an
aesthetic decision based on the criteria of ‘decorating
taste’. On each of the papered walls a television monitor has been
mounted replaying a real time videotape of the paper itself. Hence, the background to the television monitors becomes the
subject for the television transmission itself -
ever-present and silent, but glowing - with no
discernible beginning or end.
In a similar
fashion, Snell’s approach to the Rotary Courtyard project was to
occupy the space rather than placing something within the space - emphasizing the architecture as the eye is drawn up to
the sky. As with his Reynolds Gallery project, he
decided to work with available “local goods” - inexpensive
umbrellas found at a liquidation outlet. The umbrellas are opened
up and suspended in an irregular pattern and heights from a wire grid stretched across the top of the courtyard. Snell chose a
range of floral patterns rather than the standard
issue black umbrella, because they suggest protection
from both the sun and rain. Hence the title, Rain or Shine. There
are many other cultural connections: the appearance of umbrellas and parasols in Impressionist painting at the end of the 19th
century; surrealist imagery of the 20th century
(the umbrellas extended as if being held by an
invisible crowd); and the contemporary global traffic in trade goods
- umbrellas made in China being used in North America.
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