cast bronze, lodgepole pine (burnt by wildfire), lacquer, steel

2024

Some of my early memories of water involve playing in the Elbow River near Bragg Creek, Alberta.  The Elbow converges with the Bow River in Calgary near East Village. The place where the rivers meet is called Moh-kins-tsis by the Blackfoot, whose care for this land spans time immemorial.

My interest in the Bow piqued in 2023 when the river’s flow reached the lowest level in recorded history. I began to research the Bow River watershed - its confluence with the South Saskatchewan River and eventual drainage into Hudson Bay.  I came to think of all water as one water - powerful, delicate, life-giving and sacred.

Bow River Basin depicts the river system as a singular form – highlighting the convergence of its many forks and branches into a continuous flow.  This work aims to foster connection with this watershed and all water on Earth. 

ceramics, plant-based resin, cast concrete, salvaged red oak

2023

Photos by Ryan Smitham

indigenous grasses, salvaged streetcar rails, salvaged wood, soil

2022

These steel remnants were part of an electric streetcar line that operated as the Lethbridge Municipal Railway during the first half of the twentieth century. Paved over in the late forties, this metal graft remained buried beneath 3rd avenue until 2021, residing there for over a hundred years.

Imagine standing here before the rails or roads - the ground alive with wild flowers and grasses. Blue Grama Grass fed the Plains Bison, and in turn has sustained the Niitsitapi (Blackfoot) and all other life here for many millennia.

This sculpture connects the history of the city with the land upon which it stands.

Thank you to Tobias Luttmer, Solid Supports Ltd., John Stoll, Brad Berger, Samantha Leriger and Victoria Zaba for technical assistance.

Photos by Angeline Simon and Samantha Leriger

screen-printed boxes

7’ x 14’ x 7’

2022

I began to contemplate the ubiquitous nature of shipping containers (or sea-cans) while visiting the Pacific West Coast. From a small island, I observed an endless lane of colossal container ships, each carrying thousands of sea-cans. Today there are tens of millions of shipping containers in active transport, and tens of millions more repurposed as storage or living space throughout our planet.

Inspired by ancient pyramid builders and the art of Christo & Jeanne Claude and Sol Lewitt, this work points to the scale of our footprint – to the network of steel and diesel fuel that transports products across oceans, canals and mountain ranges to reach our homes. As the human species has grown, so has its reliance on an enormous transportation apparatus. Is the convenience worth the cost?

Thank you to Megan Kirk, Victoria Zaba and Samantha Leriger for technical assistance.

Photos by Ryan Smitham

pit-fired ceramics, string, wax

2020

Photos by Samantha Leriger and Ryan Smitham

analog colour photographs (over 1300), burnt pine, plant-based resin, bronze, steel

2019

Thank you to Samantha Leriger for technical assistance.

Photos by Ryan Smitham

aluminum, thread, magnets, birch, glass, fir, poplar, paint

2013/2018

This project uses magnetic levitation to suspend two bullet-like objects in a perpetual standoff. The idea formed while contemplating the absurd cold-war-era concept that if nations amass nuclear arms no nation will be daring enough to use them, as it would lead to mutually assured destruction.

For me, the work also speaks to the polarizing of humans based on criteria such as race, gender, religion and politics. I find this work to be unsettling, like a bleak warning sign or haunting memory. My hope is that through facing this darkness one can reflect on their own capacity for love, curiosity, openness and compassion.

Thank you to Robert ‘Zak’ Zakarian, Peter Gilligan and Michelle Smyth for technical assistance.

Photos by Ward Bastian and Doug Mitchell

bronze, magnet, ferrofluid, thread, birch, aluminum, glass, fir, poplar, paint

2018

Thank you to Robert ‘Zak’ Zakarian, Peter Gilligan and Michelle Smyth for technical assistance.

Photos by Doug Mitchell

mortar shell, gold, birch, aluminum, glass, fir, poplar paint

2018

The de-activated mortar shell used in this work was procured at National Salvage in Lethbridge, Alberta. I was immediately drawn to its precise form and elegant balance. Conversely I was repelled by its designed function – to explode and destroy human targets. Gold produces a similar response from me. Its luscious surface draws my gaze, but its symbolism conjures a history of bloodshed and present-day environmental degradation.

Consider that a piece of gold jewelry today may contain within it the same gold that was once the coveted property of another. Its history simply melted away and reformed. Our species has stock piles of the stuff worldwide yet we continue to create elaborate mines to obtain more. By combining this element with the mortar shell, I am hoping to heighten the attraction/repulsion response from the audience, and to highlight the vulgarity of war as commodity (the military industrial complex).

Thank you to Peter Gilligan for technical assistance.

Photos by Doug Mitchell

lodge-pole pine, bronze, eco-resin

variable dimensions

2016

With an import permit from the Alberta Department of Agriculture and Forestry and through the generous support of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the artist harvested lodge pole pine trees affected by both pine beetle infestation and wildfire from the Kelowna region of British Columbia, Canada.  Each free standing tree top was planted within its corresponding base and accented with pine cones cast in solid bronze.  

This work reflects rising seasonal temperatures, the corresponding propagation of invasive species and to the depletion of natural resources, yet also points to the restorative impact of wildfire on the forest ecology.  In the case of the lodge-pole pine the cones may only open after a period of extremely high temperature, most often fire.  While harvesting these specimens, Smitham was heartened to be surrounded by baby pine trees.

Thank you to the Alberta Foundation for the Arts for funding this project.

Thank you to Alberta Williams, Katey Millan-Smyth, Mary-Anne McTrowe, Kevin Sehn, Catherine Ross, Michelle Smyth and Adam Field for technical assistance.

Photos by Samson Duborg-Rankin and Doug Mitchell

black glass, thread, mdf, lacquer

6' x 9' x 17'

2013/2016/2018

Composed of several hundred glass droplets and mdf rings, this work draws influence from fluid dynamics and the environmental effects of industrialization.

Each pendulum hangs from an elongated Fermat Spiral (found in nature in the center of many flowers) - the blue colour pallet was extrapolated from a photograph of an Alberta sky on a crisp spring morning.

Thank you to Alberta Williams and Nooha M. for technical assistance. 

Photos by Samson Duborg-Rankin and Doug Mitchell

Pictured alongside photograph by Edward Burtynsky (Landscapes Reconstructed, 2016) at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies and at the Okotoks Art Gallery (Time is a Flat Circle, 2018).

artist sketchbooks from 2003-2013,

ash, glass, aluminum

31" x 9" x 9"

2015

A four-inch core cut through twenty three sketchbooks (5" x 7" in scale) that were completed by the artist over the course of ten years.

Thank you to Julia Reimer for technical assistance.

Photos by Ward Bastian and the artist 

aluminum, brass

53" x 53" x 8'

2013

Daisy's petals and button were hand-formed using hammers and an English wheel.  The sculpture was placed within Il Juno, an 18th century bronze cannon which currently resides on the campus of the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.  

The cannon was cast for King Philip V of Spain in 1720.  In 1859 it travelled to Cuba, standing as a symbol of Spanish colonial rule there until, following the Spanish-American War in 1898, it was brought to New York as a spoil-of-war. 

Thank you to Adam Apostolos and Saul Schisler for technical assistance

Photos by Serry Park and Doug Mitchell

cedar, hat

22.5" x 18.5" x 6"

2013

A formal Helvetica F, a bad boy, and a good friend.

Thank you to Cyril Reschny for technical assistance.

Photos by Serry Park

black glass, thread, mdf, lacquer

9' x 9' x 13.5'

2013

Composed from one thousand black glass droplets and several hundred rings in shades of green, yellow, and white, this work addresses the dubious relationship between the luscious colour palette used by a major oil company, and the toxic nature of oil spills/chemical dispersants. 

Thank you to Saul Schisler, Katey Millan-Smyth, Darcy Logan and Colin Leipelt for technical assistance.

Photos by Ward Bastian

fir, cast iron

14.5" x 24" x 12'

2013

This large wooden tower was uncovered through the removal of many layers of accumulated paint.  The work was created in the basement of Steuben Hall at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. 

Photos by Serry Park

silkscreen prints

edition of 4

14" x 14" each

2013

A tribute to the late French mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot, whose research into roughness and turbulence led to observations of self-similarity in nature.

He is noted for coining the term fractal, and using early computer graphics to display complex geometric patterns based on repeated forms, such as those found in Romanesco broccoli.

Photos by Ward Bastian

steel, magnets

10.75" x 10.75" x 6.75" each

2012

Five pentagonal pyramid forms each consisting of five equilateral triangles. These forms can be found in geometry by cutting an icosahedron on a plane.

Photos by Ward Bastian

mdf, lacquer, enamel

22.5" x 22.5" each

2012

Each snowflake is born from a droplet of water that condenses on a speck of dust.

Thank you to Cyril Reschny for technical assistance.

Photos by Ward Bastian

digital print, mdf, lacquer

36" x 48"

2012

Fun with phi and Photoshop.

Thank you to Peter Gilligan for technical assistance.

Photos by Ward Bastian