Wild Rose

Rebecca Belmore & Osvaldo Yero // 2015

Stainless steel
Quarters Armature

About

This stainless steel sculpture is based on two symbols that represent Alberta – the wild rose and the lodgepole pine. Eighteen feet in height, Wild Rose appears to be an over-sized flower. Up close, the detail of the original materials used to make the sculpture reveal themselves. The stem is a weathered lodgepole pine tree stripped of its branches and bark. On its upper reaches, a piece of cloth, pierced by the pole, billows with the wind, taking on the appearance of an abstract flower. The artists intended Wild Rose to stand as a contemporary and symbolic marker of belonging, in a landscape imbued with Indigenous history, and rich with a diversity of natural resources.

Rebecca Belmore & Osvaldo Yero

Born in Upsala, Ontario, Rebecca Belmore is an artist currently living in Vancouver, British Columbia. She attended the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto and is internationally recognized for her performance and installation art. Since 1987, her multi-disciplinary work has addressed history, place and identity through the media of sculpture, installation, video and performance. Belmore was Canada’s official representative at the 2005 Venice Biennale. Her work has appeared in numerous exhibitions both nationally and internationally including two solo touring exhibitions, The Named and the Unnamed, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver (2002); and 33 Pieces, Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto at Mississauga (2001). Her group exhibitions include Houseguests, Art Gallery of Ontario (2001); Longing and Belonging: From the Faraway Nearby, SITE Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico (1995); Land, Spirit, Power, National Gallery of Canada (1992); and Creation or Death: We Will Win, at the Havana Biennial, Havana Cuba (1991).

Cuban-born artist Osvaldo Yero completed his studies in sculpture and drawing at the prestigious Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) in Havana, Cuba. Prominent among the early 90s generation of Cuban artists that garnered international attention, Yero’s early work was deeply rooted in the context of Cuba. Appropriating kitsch ornaments typically found in many Cuban homes, this work explored the cultural values and nationalistic associations found in vernacular culture. Since immigrating to Canada in 1997, Yero’s work has become less specific in its contextual referents while retaining a socially conscious approach. Internationally exhibited since 1994, Yero was one of three artists to represent Cuba at the first Johannesburg Biennale (1995) that took place to mark the end of apartheid. His work is contained in collections in Cuba, Germany, Canada and the U.S.A. Currently Yero lives in Vancouver and teaches in the art department at the University of British Columbia.

Quarters Armature

Wild Rose

About

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