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2019

Downtown Haliburton Sculpture Exhibition

$2,100.00

Vitessence

David Cross

David Cross belongs to a select group of Artisan Blacksmiths who work full-time in the craft, preserving its traditional techniques and aesthetics but employing them in contemporary design.  He creates both functional metalwork and sculpture.


David’s artistic practice has expanded beyond hand-forged works to include other media and methods.  He has produced castings of aluminum and silicon bronze using the ancient lost wax technique, and has created assemblies including materials such as stainless steel, repurposed machine parts, and found objects.


In some of his work natural, flowing shapes are coaxed from the metals while in others the human and organic elements are presented against the industrial, engineered environments.


A native of Galt, Ontario, David now lives in Fergus and operates Rio Bravo Ironworks in the heart of Elora. 


“I am a child of the twentieth century.  There were open roads coursed by convertibles without seat belts, and fastbacks with earth pounding V-8 engines.  Brave men piloted massive rockets into “outer space”.  We played outdoors unsupervised, went on Sunday drives.  Our black and white TV picked up seven channels (three of them from Buffalo, NY).  Blackened limestone mills were scattered about our city; their windows often agape releasing the thundering sounds of power hammers and the acrid smell of hot iron. 


All this has passed.


My life has turned in unexpected ways.  With little planning and no defined goals, I acted on a decades old desire to create; to use my hands, to make something.  I learned to manipulate metals; earthly elements.  Methods, techniques and technologies were studied, experimented with and practiced.


My sculptural work is deeply rooted in that past century; the portion I witnessed and much that came before.  But it is not nostalgic.  Art deco skyscrapers, streamliners, air-cooled motorcycle engines, sci-fi movie sets and concept cars from Detroit: these are acknowledged; not mourned.  Forms are always changing, in motion, leading me onward.  I see in them something not wholly natural, but they are alive none-the-less; a dialogue and a dance unfolds between the organic and the manufactured.  These interactions are sometimes tense and threatening, sometimes melodic and serene, always genuine.”


Artist Contact Information
Land Acknowledgment

We would like to acknowledge that we are located on ancestral lands, the traditional territory of the Mississauga Anishinaabe covered by the Williams Treaties. This area, known to the Anishinaabe as “Gidaaki”, has been inhabited for thousands of years – as territories for hunting, fishing, gathering and growing food.


For thousands of years Indigenous people have been the stewards of this place. The intent and spirit of the treaties that form the legal basis of Canada bind us to share the land “for as long as the sun shines, the grass grows and the rivers flow”.

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To find out more about all of the extraordinary things to see and do in the Haliburton Highlands in every season click here!

Location:

297 College Drive
Haliburton, ON K0M 1S0
Tel:

(705) 457-3555

Email:

info@haliburtonsculptureforest.ca

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© 2023 Haliburton Sculpture Forest

Images © 2021 Kristy L. Bourgeois | Youkie Stagg | Angus Sullivan | Noelle Dupret Smith | Teodora Vukosavljevic | Nadia Pagliaro

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