Jesse Gray
Artist turns beach debris into bronze works as a way to escape environmental despair.
Jesse Gray, “Mesomonuments: Scrap Figures after Elza Mayhew,” 2020, beach plastic cast in bronze (photo by Dennis Ha)
Nanaimo-based artist Jesse Gray's solo exhibition, Mesomonuments, presents two bodies of work, each the result of a rigorous process that starts by gathering debris from beaches, mainly on the traditional territories of the Snuneymuxw, Stz-uminus and Snaw'naw'as First Nations on Vancouver Island.
Displayed on a single shelf along the perimeter of the Artspeak gallery in Vancouver is Gray’s impressive series, Mesomonuments: Ex-situ, which reveals her collection of discarded remains – bottle caps, coffee stir sticks, disposable flossing utensils and the like – each cast in bronze. They maintain their distinctive form and character but have been transformed into objects that seemingly carry greater value.
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Jesse Gray, “Mesomonuments: Ex-situ,” 2020, beach plastic cast in bronze, dimensions variable (photo by Dennis Ha)
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Jesse Gray, “Mesomonuments: Ex-situ,” 2020, beach plastic cast in bronze, dimensions variable (photo by Dennis Ha)
Most are recognizable except for one recurring piece I could not comprehend: a cylinder that splays out dramatically at one end into three, four or five arms. Curator Bopha Chhay identified them for me as the remains of shotgun casings swept down a river from nearby hunting grounds.
Recontextualization and commodity circulation are significant themes; visitors are encouraged to select a piece from the Ex-situ series. I was thrilled at the thought of taking home a weighty bread-bag tag, but then began to wonder why I did not feel the same way about the original plastic version. How is it that we esteem metals and repudiate plastics when they both endure far longer than a human lifespan?
Jesse Gray, “Mesomonuments: Scrap Figures after Elza Mayhew,” 2020
beach plastic cast in bronze (photo by Dennis Ha)
Gray’s second series, Mesomonuments: Scrap Figures after Elza Mayhew, uses similar found objects cast in bronze, but fuses them into distinct figurative forms. As the title suggests, this series, displayed on tables in the centre of the gallery, is based on works by Mayhew (1916-2004), a Victoria artist whose large-scale Modernist sculptures gained her international acclaim.
Jesse Gray, “Mesomonuments,” 2020, installation view at Artspeak, Vancouver (photo by Dennis Ha)
Gray studied Mayhew’s sculptures over a few months, eventually producing 55 of her own renditions. These miniatures, never exceeding several inches, resemble toy-like automata: a button with two peg legs or a bent nail in lieu of a sassy hand-on-hip gesture immediately ascribe to a comedic posture. This figurative tendency is enforced as each sculpture is situated on a customized plinth, thus centralizing notions of individuality.
Jesse Gray, “Mesomonuments: Scrap Figures after Elza Mayhew,” 2020
beach plastic cast in bronze, dimensions variable (photo by Dennis Ha)
Gray feels anguish about environmental crises and, in a 2019 article in the online magazine, Creators Vancouver, said that “working through ideas with my hands keeps me (mostly) from falling into despair.” Beyond that, she specifically uses found objects to remark on ideas of excess and mass consumption.
In many ways, her work adheres to the Capitalocene theory proposed by American sociologist Jason W. Moore, who attributes environmental crises to the neoliberal agenda. Yet Gray also sheds light onto a possible response: to embrace precarity while finding humour and solace in the debris. ■
Jesse Gray, Mesomonuments, at Artspeak in Vancouver from Oct. 30 to Dec. 12, 2020.
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Artspeak Gallery
233 Carrall Street, Vancouver, British Columbia V6B 2J2
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