Marcus Bowcott explores the relationship between nature and industry in Endlessly Rocking

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      You might have already seen Marcus Bowcott's commentary on the relationship between nature and industry in Trans Am Totemthe large sculpture made from an old-growth cedar tree and a stack of crushed cars on Quebec Street at Milross Avenue. He continues this discussion with Endlessly Rocking, an exhibition of his work that draws attention to the effects that mass consumption and transportation have on the world around us.

      The most eye-catching piece sits centrally located beneath the Pendulum Gallery's namesake: A silver Pontiac Firebird mounted on a large 14-foot diameter old-growth cedar slice that rocks slowly back and forth.

      It's no coincidence that the car moves in synchronization with the pendulum; Bowcott believes that it's important to reference the location of an installation, just as he did with Trans Am Totem.

      "I wanted to reference Alan Storey's fantastic sculpture in the pendulum, but it also came in part from the installation process of putting the totem together," said Bowcott in an interview with the Straight. 

      "There was a moment where one of the cars was just rocking back and forth, and my wife and I just looked at each other and laughed," he said.

      Bowcott's wife, Helene, played a large part in creating the piece, and draws a connection between it and Walt Whitman's poem, Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking.

      "I see the Trans Am in this period in 1978 where we weren't as aware of what was going on in our environment," she said. "The poem has a relationship to coming of age and waking up to the realities of life," she said.

      Other pieces in the exhibition that showcases 12 years of Bowcott's work include a series of maquette sculptures that closely resemble his lifesize sculpture on Quebec Street. These pieces served as models for what Trans Am Totem would look like. 

      Also part of the exhibition are paintings from his Cut Block series, which depict scenes of log booms along the Fraser River; a landscape that Bowcott, a former deckhand and longshoreman, is all too familiar with. 

      His artistic practice stemmed at first from a fascination with Claude Monet's paintings of water surfaces, and over time his work evolved to reflect his environment.

      "Out on the river, I was surrounded by these trees that were horizontal on the water, and you could see cars everywhere lining the river. This theme of water surfaces and the beauty of landscape and these piles of cars emerged," he said. 

      Endlessly Rocking will be at the Pendulum Gallery until September 18, with the grand opening on Thursday (September 10).

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