​Ken Bray​

15 July 1986 - 9 August 1986
Opening Reception 15 July 1986 8pm

West Gallery:

Ballast

Mercer Union presents an exhibition of sculpture and related drawings by Toronto artist Ken Bray. Ballast opens on Tuesday July 15 at 8:00pm and continues through August 9, 1986.

Ballast refers to counterweight and is employed figuratively and metaphorically in Bray’s work. It also signifies “a sense of accumulation of man’s abilities to implement materials and processes as a stabilizing and balancing response to conditions given by nature.”

The imagery is derivative of aspects of the artist’s personal history and heritage, and the working lives of his ancestors, of fishing and coal-mining.

In Wave Forms the undulating configuration of water has been constructed in wood, the material of boats. For the artist, “The necessary relationship between the form of water and of boat signifies a critical creative relationship between man and nature.”

Part of the World/Shoreline, a relief map in the form of a dome represents the Straight of Canso, Nova Scotia. This body of water divides the areas of land where the two sides of Bray’s family had lived. Implicit in the images of land and water are associations to “female” and “male”. The form of a sphere and the image of water further evokes the notion of “shelter” and “womb”.

Made from knotted rope, Carrier references a large-scale sweater reminiscent of the type worn by the artist’s Maritime ancestors.

Ken Bray was born in Nova Scotia in 1956. He received his BFA from the University of Regina in 1982 and his MFA from York University in 1984. His previous solo exhibitions have included ones at the Norm MacKenzie Art Gallery in Saskatchewan and the IDA Gallery at York University. Ken Bray has also participated in several group exhibitions in Waterloo, Regina and Toronto.