'Well of Patience' is the first installation by the American artist Dan Reeves ever exhibited in this country. The installation was transferred to Liverpool from San Francisco, USA.
Artist's Statement:
"'Well of Patience' is comprised essentially of three elements, representing heaven, earth and the horizon. The heaven element is a smooth ceiling painted matt black. Hanging from it in pairs are simple glass wine goblets and small workmen's hammers: four fans act on these to produce chiming sounds.
The floor, or earth element, consists of outward facing seating, and a circular arrangement of rottraps, and small Amida Buddha figures the symbol of boundless compassion. The third, 'horizon' element is comprised of a smooth reflective wall, on which four video tapes, three entitled 'Try To Live To See This', one called 'Turning the Stream' are projected. The tapes are made up of video recordings and film shot all over America, Europe, Africa and Asia which together provide a landscape that charts the human responses and relationship to the cyclic order of existence: creation, sustenance and destruction.
My original choice of workmen's hammers, wine goblets and rat traps was made purely on the basis of their use as kinetic sculptural elements. It is interesting to note that each item when considered as representative functions in a cosmological division of creation, sustenance and destruction fall neatly into place: hammers primarily used to build and create, glasses to provide sustenance and traps to destroy.
The Amida Buddha iconography is a fusion of the two other aspects of this cosmological order, the concealment of divine nature in name and form and the aspect of the unfolding of the stream of compassion or what is often termed revelation or grace in the west."
(Re-staged Installation.)
[LESS]'Well of Patience' is the first installation by the American artist Dan Reeves ever exhibited in this country. The installation was transferred to Liverpool from San Francisco, USA.
Artist's Statement:
"'Well of Patience' is comprised essentially of three elements, representing heaven, earth and the horizon. The heaven element is a smooth ceiling painted matt black. Hanging from it in pairs are simple glass wine goblets and small workmen's hammers: four fans act on these to produce chiming sounds.
The floor, or earth element, consists of outward facing seating, and a circular arrangement of rottraps, and small Amida Buddha figures the symbol of boundless compassion. The third, 'horizon' element is comprised of a smooth reflective wall, on which four video tapes, three entitled 'Try To Live To See This', one called 'Turning the Stream' are projected. The tapes are made up of video recordings and film shot all over America, Europe, Africa and Asia which together provide a landscape that charts the human responses and relationship to the cyclic order of existence: creation, sustenance and destruction.
My original choice of workmen's hammers, wine goblets and rat traps was made purely on the basis of their use as kinetic sculptural elements. It is interesting to note that each item when considered as representative functions in a cosmological division of creation, sustenance and destruction fall neatly into place: hammers primarily used to build and create, glasses to provide sustenance and traps to destroy.
The Amida Buddha iconography is a fusion of the two other aspects of this cosmological order, the concealment of divine nature in name and form and the aspect of the unfolding of the stream of compassion or what is often termed revelation or grace in the west."
(Re-staged Installation.)
