Gulf Islands Driftwood News Paper reporter Elizabeth Nolan shares her experiences and perspectives of Peter McFarlane's new works.

Here's an excerpt from her article:

"McFarlane was a People’s Choice Award winner at the last Salt Spring National Art Prize for his piece Reclaim Saw, in which he sculpted a chainsaw’s blade to become the forest the tool was destined to harvest. In his new series, now showing at Steffich Fine Art as Shiny Steel, McFarlane deepens the investigation into our use of objects by contrasting refurbished, found metal objects and with hand-carved steel human figures and animals. Working with reference to the readymade’s role in modern art history, he has selected items that have an archetypical Canadian significance and/or industrial use as the base for each piece. The intention of these arrangements is to elevate the viewer’s personal experience with the found objects."

“My hope is the audience will reconsider that ‘mundane’ obsolete object, which fills our landscape and landfill, and realize that garbage is just a lack of the imagination,” McFarlane says in his artist’s statement.
For more on this story, see the July 24, 2019 issue of the Gulf Islands Driftwood newspaper, or click here to view the article online.