Art Windsor-Essex respectfully acknowledges that we are located on Anishinaabe Territory – the traditional territory of the Three Fires Confederacy of First Nations, comprised of the Ojibway, the Odawa, and the Potawatomi. Today the Anishinaabe of the Three Fires Confederacy are represented by Bkejwanong. We want to state our respect for the ancestral and ongoing authority of Walpole Island First Nation over its Territory.
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- Bev Pike: Grottesque: Spectacles of Miniature & Gigantic
Bev Pike: Grottesque: Spectacles of Miniature & Gigantic
July 18, 2024 - March 2, 2025
Third Floor
Bev Pike, CHANTING GROTTO, Mystical evacuees congregate under auspicious crystalline ceilings to join in harmonious polyphony, 2023, gold gouache on paper, 2.4 m x 5.5 m.
Image courtesy of the artist.
Bev Pike percolates her monumental paintings with smaller works by several women artists. These comparative miniatures bracket her works to recreate the theatricality of four hundred year-old underground shell-encrusted grottos in England.
The real fake caves exist at a suitable distance from great Palladian houses, just far enough for fashionable guests (with their poets and painters) to wander into the semi-darkness seeking a little thrill of wonder.
There, theatrical walls have wild symbolic imagery and ancient geometric designs.
Here, unexpected enormousness beside smaller brilliance simulates experiences of transcendence within those ancient grottos.
We draw up close while feeling compelled to move about the gallery. Focusing on detail encourages the mind to wander and the body to relax. We wait, we analyse, we perceive anew. We embody awe.
Thus, every square inch of any grotto, including this metaphorical one, tells a story and encourages visitors to do the same.
Imagine a four-hundred-year-old underground shell grotto in England.
Pretend we have just wandered along a lovely garden path, past a swan pond, the bluebell woods and a few fake temple ruins. Together, we come to an ancient doorway tucked in amongst the shrubbery. Creak the door open. Carefully down those steps.
Once inside, we stop to get used to the dark. What do we see, feel, smell and hear…
Curious, we squidge along a narrow hallway. It opens into a glittering cave. The walls are covered in millions of seashells, gemstones and coral. All in ancient designs.
We discover this grotto is part of a maze. Deep in the earth.
That got me thinking.
I dreamt about living underground, just for a while. What would we need?
I fancied a ballroom for dancing, a grotto for singing, a spa to relax in, a riding stable, a hideaway for romance, a tea room for gossip, a flower greenhouse and especially a chamber for talking with the dearly departed. Those are all my Grottesque paintings so far.
To go with them, I chose many small passionate works from AWE’s collection by women.
That makes this show just like the shell grottos. Why? Four hundred years ago, women built those dazzling refuges. Then, they filled them with ideas.
So, grab an imaginary cup of tea, do a little swirl, smell the make-believe roses. Go ahead and fantasize your splendiferous sanctuary. – Bev Pike
About Bev Pike
Bev Pike is a Winnipeg artist known for gigantic immersive paintings of architectural utopias. She bases her current series on eccentric three hundred year-old subterranean grottos in England.
These grottos provide ornate places of contemplation within pastoral landscapes. Interiors are encrusted with sea shells, semi-precious gemstone chunks, small quartz shingles – all within intricate and mystical designs.
Pike’s fascination includes other underground refuges, like bomb shelters and romanticized hideaways like Anchorite cells. She is interested in spaces that transcend above-ground catastrophes.
To that end, Pike is creating paintings that lead from one to the next within a grotto labyrinth. Her web of caves contains such amenities as stables, dance hall, lakeside tearoom, spa, séance parlours, a secret rendezvous spot and a greenhouse.
In all her work, Pike makes allusion to eccentric architecture of the past and its embodied experience in the present while imagining antidotes to an apocalyptic future.
Pike shows her work in major public art galleries across Canada, most recently at the Dunlop Art Gallery (Regina), Museum London (London), and St. Mary’s University Art Gallery (Halifax). In addition, she is the recipient of many major grants from the Canada Council, Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council.
Pike also creates humorous, provocative and feminist Agony Aunt columns in artist books that are in international special collections such as the Victoria & Albert Museum, Tate Modern, University of Bristol and others in England, Canada, Iceland and the USA. She has been a guest speaker from coast to coast and in England.
