Driftwood

Beach Tangle by Gordon Smith

Driftwood has never looked so beautiful. The instillation “Beach Tangle” 2009, by Gordon Smith on display at the West Van Community Centre, highlights the beauty of collected flotsam and jetsam we take for granted along the west coast. 

I was lucky to have witnessed the work of art in progress, to which many close friends brought over found objects for him to incorporate… amongst them a bright orange tire.

In situ at West Van Community Centre

Although technically a sculpture, it reads like one of his iconic painting, incorporating many layers of colour and texture. The tactile nature of this piece makes you wish you could run up and touch it, really inspect it.

It makes you wonder from where the wood drifted; either lost logs from a boom or broken branches from windstorms. Each piece has a story of its passage from the root of the forest to a beautiful work of art that showcases the next chapter in the life of a forest.