Botanical Canoe

Botanical Canoe

Originally created as part of a performance art piece in which the artist portaged a carved canoe along forgotten portage trails. This canoes has been installed as lighting features and re-imagined as an opulent hanging chandeliers, like a Moroccan pierce-work light with a Canadian twist.

Garrett Gilbart

Garrett is a professional sculptor from Douro, east of Peterborough Ontario Initially studying welding and fabrication at Sir Sandford Fleming College, before receiving their BFA from NSCAD University in Halifax, and briefly studied abroad at the Gerrit Rietveld Acadamie in Amsterdam.

Garrett describes themself as “a carver of unnatural materials, instead of wood and stone, I carve discarded tools, car parts and other salvaged steel objects collected from the forests and scrapyards of rural Ontario”. Each piece is hand carved with a handheld plasma cutter, a welding torch used for melting and cutting steel. Often mounted on a computer controlled track system, Garrett’s skillful manipulation allows them to carve a variety of materials that are beyond the capabilities of even the most advanced robotics or lasers. Through the imaginative use of a precision fabrication tool the artist unlocks a dimension of creativity that cannot be achieved through the technical expertise of the engineer.Focusing on tools, their work explores the faded aura of utility and labour these tactile objects exude. Broken or discarded tools retain their symbolic dimension, as receptacles of personal narratives and cultural values, even after their initial purpose is spent.Additionally offering to create commissioned work using heirloom tools for individual clients to explore their shared history and relation to labour, craft and the tool object.  Tools are often handed down well beyond their utilitarian function.The main body of work consists of salvaged metal hand tools, car parts and other steel objects intricately hand cut with historical textile patterns and motifs gleaned from the Arts and Craft movement. This practice is similarly grounded in a commitment to skilled craftsmanship, history and the accessibility of arts that the founders of the Arts and Craft movement were dedicated to. The most recent body of work is influenced by the silhouetted shapes of dead wildflowers over the long rural winter, these botanical forms are carefully re created, cut into the salvaged steel of object he finds in the forests, fields and local barns. The native floral elements spring from the steel of the found objects, merging the contexts of their existence within themselves. These objects range in size from a single screwdriver, to a full plow overgrown with a variety of local native wildflowers.This diverse body of work explores a range of relatable experiences with a dense web of access points for the viewer to engage with, both conceptually and emotionally.