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(Wildlife Art Journal, screenshot)
REVISITING SHANE WILSON'S JOURNEY WITH FOUND ORGANIC OBJECTS: Canadian Artist is Winning Cosmopolitan Collectors Drawn To His Contemporary Designs
Written by Todd Wilkinson
Posted: November 7th 2011
"I live through my hands and tools: transforming thick, heavy bone and bronze, meant for massive collisions, into ethereal, otherworldly creations; precious oases in the midst of life." —Shane Wilson
A while back, Wildlife Art Journal magazine profiled Canadian sculptor and carver Shane Wilson. In the months that have passed since, his base of avid collectors has continued to grow. Some readers have asked us to highlight the story again in the wake of his work being featured in other magazines and following a successful showing of his work in Canada's famous Algonquin Park. You can access the WAJ story by clicking here .
Like the work above, a portrayal of tundra swans intricately carved from the 50,000-year-old tusk of a woolly mammoth, Wilson has amassed a body of work, based on found organic materials, that sets him apart among contemporary wildlife artists. In many ways, he borrows from the aboriginal traditions of artisans in the Far North and yet he bestows his tactile pieces with a modern edge.
Said Wilson earlier this year to an interview with the Algonquin Arts Centre where his works were on public exhibition: "Meaning is important to me. Original art expresses a coherent language, a language of the right-brain, whose syntax is colour, texture, form and symbol, grasped intuitively. I delight in taking found skulls, horns, antlers and bones and transforming them into fine art, expressions of the highest order, objects of rare beauty."
What Wilson does with the antlers and horns of big game animals he finds in the wild is nothing short of remarkable. He transcends the limitations of what some would consider folk or sporting art and creates pieces that are worthy of display in museums. He also takes grizzly and black bear skulls, as well as those of wolves and wolverine, casts them in bronze, then bestows them with alluring ornamentation and patinas. They have a tribal and primitive look. The people who collect and commission them aren't confined to just hunters. His collectors includes urban connoisseurs who have cosmopolitan fine art tastes and see in Wilson's work something that is both novel and likely to spark a conversation.
Wildlife Art Journal - Spring 2010
Shane Wilson: Honouring The Power of Wild Life
Canadian Artist Makes A Contemporary Statement With 'Skullpture' Written By Todd Wilkinson
Shane Wilson’s art does not conform to a known vernacular, neither within sculpture, nor carving, nor the contemporary language of found objects and mixed materials.
Shane Wilson
However he is classified, Wilson’s creations stir up something deep within us—a mystery that cannot be explained easily in words. It could be the palmate shape of a moose antler that fans the inner flame of an archetypal memory, or the tusk of an Ice Age woolly mammoth, or the ivory gleam of a near-mythological narwhal inscribed with symbolism that reads like an ancient petroglyph.
Seeing them on the wall or under protective case, it is our sublime delight—and the artist’s challenge issued to us—to try and decode the hidden messages.
Art and nature form a breathtaking confluence in an extraordinary, evocative portfolio “For me, the message is all about who we are as people today,” Wilson says. “We live in a world of intriguing duality.”
Whether we dwell in a city or remote bush community; whether commuting to work in a skyscraper or making our living off the land; whether sojourning for subsistence in the wilderness or escaping into backyard woodlots, there is something ineffable about the headgear of animals that he reinterprets.
"This art of Neolithic and contemporary tribal peoples, to me, ranks with any art of world history. Its inventiveness, rhythm and abstract design is as high in quality as early 20th century modernist art."
—Robert Bateman
Under Wilson’s command, antler and ivory not only fill a room with ambiance and character; they flood an even larger space—the 21st century imagination—with a sense of adventure, compelling us to ponder our primitive connections to a distant past and our contemporary world.
Celtic Confusion, 1998 (carved moose antler)
Like a large landscape painting on the wall of a museum or the substantive heft exuding from a mass of bronze sculpture, Wilson’s work has a magnetic effect. Regardless of its size, it can bestow even a great hall with a feeling of majesty.
For years, before making his home near the Pacific Ocean on Vancouver Island, he remained largely off the radar screen of collectors because the solace-loving artist resided in the isolated interior of the Yukon.
Wilson is making a name for himself and it is well worth our time to take notice. His transcendent blending of classical taxidermy with the fine art traditions of carving and foundry work are attracting attention from collectors and museums across the continent. “When I think of carving, I think of the great European traditions of stone carving, and the Celtic tradition of carving in antler, wood and stone,” he says.
The eminent Canadian nature artist Robert Bateman, who dwells on Salt Spring Island, near Vancouver, observes, “Wilson's work is a powerful evocation of this heritage but he goes much further in innovation and creativity. Rather than decorating a utilitarian object he produces stand alone objects of art that always seem fresh and surprising. Fresh and surprising are words that seldom apply to the vast majority of art turned out these days."
'Shane Wilson: Honouring the Power of Wildlife', Editorial by Todd Wilkinson - Trophy Rooms Around the World, Vol. 15, 2010
Todd Wilkinson has written the following editorial on Shane Wilson and his art for Trophy Rooms Around the World, Vol. 15, an annual book published by and available from Pro Guide Publishing.
Todd is an award-winning professional journalist who has covered stories from around the world for the last quarter century. In 2009 he co-founded the online art magazine, Wildlife Art Journal. He is also the author of several books, including the authorized biographies of sculptor Kent Ulberg and U.S. media mogul Ted Turner.
Trophy Rooms Around the World, Vol. 15, 2010 (pages 156, 157)
They stir up something deep within us—a mystery that cannot be explained in words. It could be the palmate shape of a moose antler that fans the flames, or the tusk of an Ice Age woolly mammoth, or the ivory gleam of a near-mythological narwhal inscribed with symbolism that reads like an ancient petroglyph.
Seeing them on the wall or under protective case, it is our sublime delight—and the artist’s challenge issued to us—to try and decode the hidden messages.
Art and nature form a breathtaking confluence in the extraordinary, evocative portfolio of Canadian carver-sculptor Shane Wilson. “For me, the message is all about who we are as people today,” Wilson says. “We live in a world of intriguing duality.”
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