Detail of Black Seeds by John Greer.
Detail of Black Seeds by John Greer.
JOHN GREER
JOHN GREER

Black Seeds, 1994

In the permanent collection of the WAG, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

Spanish marble, 5 elements;

First Seed: 22 x 35 x 23 inches (56 x 89 x 59 cm),

Second Seed: 35 x 24 x 20 inches (89 x 61 x 51 cm),

Third Seed: 24 x 24 x 20 inches (60 x 60 x 50 cm),

Forth Seed (2 components): each 35 x 22 x 12 inches (89 x 56 x 30 cm)

 

 

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Black Seeds - the positive engagement with the unknown silence - the silence from where idea takes form. The sustenance is absent. What is not there is as important as what is there. What was, still echoes in what is – a sheltered space for new vital unfolding.

 

Gravity is inherent in all matter. Form is a coalescence of gravity. All form acknowledged by the human mind is a mental construct. The shells are evidence of something absent - reminders of ideas subtly changing the world of mind and matter. 

 

Standing at the foot of the hill.

The story starts somewhere on the side of a mountain. I was looking up hundreds of thousands of tons of quarry tailings, stretching up about a mile. I heard a rock begin to roll somewhere on the vast field of tailings. By the sound I knew this was a large rock; and as it gathered momentum there was an urgency to see it as it dislodged other rocks and was the beginning of a small landslide. The sound of the rolling rocks lasted no more than a minute. Then silence. The mountain was now a different shape, seemingly, imperceptibly so, but certainly. It was again in its trasitional balance. This quality of transition and balance seems parallel with the way intelligence works within the human consciousness. Ideas are located in a construct similar to the construct of all matter. Ideas dislodge or are dislodged through wonder and consideration. They turn over and reform the human construct, both physically and mentally. They come to rest to make sense in a transitional balance. The realization comes with the silence. Everything always changes, yet something still remains.   John Greer

 

See also: Matter in Balance, Art Up On Life 

und in Deutsch: Materie im Gleichgewicht, Kunst Auf Ueber Leben

also: John Greer: Black Seeds, Catalogue, Glendon Gallery, Galerie Glendon, North York, Ontario

 

See also: Various Metals and Things, WAG, December 2022 - April 2023. curated by Stephen Borys, Qaumajuq Director and CEO, Winnipeg Art Gallery.

 

 

You can contact me directly here:

 john@artistjohngreer.com

Bus Shelter in Halifax with retroActive poster!
Thinking Back to Gertrude and Henrie, 2015
Installation View retroActive with Threshold, 2015; Civilization, 1990/91; PaperMoney, 2012
Wait of Water by John Greer, 2014 Bay of Fundy Detail of Wait of Water, October 9th, 2014; retroActive tied up, tide down, looking back across the bay where the piece was first realized in 1972
National Gallery of Canada : THE PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE
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