The Steven Shearer solo show currently on at Polygon Gallery on Vancouver’s North Shore is like a quaint trip through your parent’s photo album- if your parents lived a blindingly wild life with ruthless devotion to thrash metal.
The show unfolds with vibrant candy-hued portraits from the Vancouver artist’s 25-year catalogue. With shots as varied as rocker Alice Cooper in the pool, to someone doing a handstand on the toilet, to a collage of cat photos, there’s an almost diary-like feeling to the massive spread of photographs displayed on the far wall of the gallery. Glimpses of out of context moments in random order, by the time you walk to the end of the collection, you get a feeling of the arc that Shearer’s life has taken.
Wrapping around the main room, Shearer’s photos and paintings surround the show’s centrepiece, a giant cube sculpture made entirely of plastic plumbing. As you walk around the zig-zagging pipes, you’ll notice how it creaks and sometimes jostles like real plumbing does when in use. It makes me imagine a rogue tradesman effectively doodling with his materials while still getting the job done.
There’s an uncommon sense of shrugged fun that runs throughout this show. Not to say Shearer isn’t serious in his work, but you get a clear feeling that he doesn’t care what you think. In all of the posturing and pretension that modern art can convey, it’s nice to feel like none of us are in on it, instead of feeling isolated from those who “get it.”
Or maybe I actually just didn’t get it. But I have a feeling that Shearer won’t mind either way.
*Cover photo care of Polygon Gallery
*Article photos by West Coast Curated