flower
Peter Bowyer
May 10 – September 15, 2000
Peter Bowyer, flower, 2000; 27'x 7'x 7'; galvanized steel
Artist Statement
A lean, tapered stem sprouts from the centre of the garden. Four branches yawn out in gentle arcs tipped with spheres. Stretching to a height of 27 feet, it occupies the grassy plain as a mute shadowy presence.
flower looks both like the plant life for which it is named and the stylized lampposts familiar from the endless vistas of paved parking lots. In abstracting and collapsing these references, the work toys with expected scale. Larger than a typical flower, it remains smaller than the outdoor lamps to which it alludes. It stands, instead, as high as an average street lamp, bringing the work down to a humanizing scale. Over the course of the exhibition, flower will weather and dull until it reaches the natural matte gray of the rest of the local infrastructure.
flower highlights the splendor of a familiar urban form. Yet, while its reference is contemporary, its smooth seamless appearance evokes a futuristic sentiment. Like Bowyer's other sculptures, the form of flower has appeared in portions of the artist's drawings for several years. From a distance, the work flattens back to a drawn form, a silhouette against the surrounding greenery.
The artist recognizes, abstracts, refines and distills a portion of functional urban landscape. It is a humanizing gesture toward a form that populates our environment in prodigious numbers. Yet Bowyer's sculpture is not merely an emblematic homage to urban design. It further reiterates a notion that beauty is a matter of recognition. It often hides before us, in plain sight and with virtual anonymity.
Text by John Massier
