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October 23 to November 24, 2001 in Artword Gallery


Bruce Parsons
RE-VISIONS: NEW WORLD TROPHIES AND MEMORIALS
Constructions and Ink Jet Prints on Canvas Banners

Bruce Parsons is a painter, who was born in Montreal, studied at the Ontario College of Art and Design and is currently teaching at York University. He has exhibited widely in Canada and his work is included in many public collections.

In this show his constructions with computer parts are absurd and whimsically funny. Modern electronic junk is claimed for its compositional possibilities in order to reveal a seldom recognized beauty of colour and organization. It is also a game to focus on obsolescence, the loss of function and an indifferent archaeology of the recent past. The small monumental sculptures for world leaders incorporates the electronic and biological patterns of a world culture and the status of today's heroes or heroines.

Parsons continues his concern for the fate of our environment, the natural kind and the one of human fabrication. He takes photographic images; combined to create large imaginary banners dedicated to world leadership. These digital montage works include subjects shot in town and country, appropriated from science books and studio images of his constructions made of computer parts and other mundane found objects from his artificial museum. The digital montage process leads to large pictures that are more than grotesque hybrid images that are both ornamental and objects of erotic drollery. The immense artifice and symbolic over determination set a tone for possible connotations. They highlight social and environmental problems and stimulate contemplation on where technology is leading us and what sort of leadership we can hope for. In these works the simple photographic moment is eliminated and the large scale begins to break up into its cellular elements. It reaches a state of dis-equilibrium and decomposition. Combined familiar things are mixed and joined in a given order of colour and contrast. In the centre is the hero and in the background incompatible signs of the time. The large 5'x6' ink jet prints on canvas set up a tone of wonder, the celebration of technology and a spirit of hope in an uncertain future.