When Art Meets Tin Cans

Works by Ben Pearce. Images supplied by Artist.

I’ve written about Napier artist/sculptor Ben Pearce before – click on his name in the label line below and you’ll be able to read about him in his studio for instance. Now he’s emerged from his home-based workplace to present a new show at Hawke’s Bay Museum & Art Gallery called Utterance. It’s all about survival, adaptation and communication - “work that explores the physicality of altered and protected memoryscapes; a kind of memory map town, using the image of the tin can to allude to survival, disasters and preservation.” Ben has also made a full-scale grandfather clock as “a kind of tribute” to his great-grandfather, who worked as a watchmaker but he views the piece as “a kind of treehouse at the same time, a place for solace and isolation.” Ben’s world of ‘fantastic creatures, of writhing chrysalis-like forms that appear to colonise tin cans carefully created from hardwood timbers, is set to open in Napier on March 7th and runs until May 17. www.hbmag.co.nz www.benpearce.co.nz