By Jeanie Riddle
Director of the Parisian Laundry Gallery in Montreal Qc.
For his solo exhibition at Parisian Laundry, Saskatchewan based sculptor Clint Neufeld continues to find beauty in the banal while interrupting gendered stereotypes of male identity. Two delicate ceramic cast sculptures of car engines and eight car transmissions will be installed throughout the gallery. Nostalgia and memory play a key roll and act as the contextual impetus behind these aesthetic objects, rendering them useless of their design. They present a dichotomy of a romantic tension of memory and masculine and feminine clichés – delicate motif and car envy. Starting from the personal, Neufeld minds his regional prairie past and relationships with male figures in his life. Men who were not necessarily there emotionally but who, in their ways and language connected the artist to time and observing the extraordinary in the everyday.
“Whenever my hands would get paint or stain on them he would get out the old red gas can have me cup my hands and fill them with gasoline, then he would rub them until they were clean. It was kind of an odd act of kindness, something harsh, something that people would never do now, wash a small child’s hands with gas, but it was done with love.”
Clint Neufeld currently lives and works on a farm in Saskatoon. He earned his BFA from the University of Saskatchewan and a MFA in sculpture from Concordia University. His work was recently shown at the Mendel Art Gallery as part of Flatliners, curated by Dan ring & Jen Bundy . He has upcoming solo projects at Two Rivers Art Gallery. Prince George, Estevan Art Gallery. Estevan, SK and Art Gallery of Prince Albert. Prince Albert, SK.