By Giancarlo Cerquozzi
For twenty-two years now, L. A. Pai Gallery has been a fixture of the ByWard Market.
Director and owner, Lisa A. Pai, is an art dealer and curator with a passion for discovering and promoting contemporary Canadian artists to an international audience. Her focus is to present inventive new ideas and daring experiments, foregrounding artists who use the past and their backgrounds to produce future alternative ideas.
The National Jewelry Student Competition (the Competition) is but one way that Pai creates space, both within her own physical gallery and amongst the Canadian arts scene, to elevate young and emerging creators.
When asked whether jewelry is more ornament than art, Pai is unequivocal: jewelry made by artists is art. Through the Competition, Pai is waking the world up to the raw and fresh talent of Canadian jewelry artists and designers.
Students of any year from a Canadian diploma-granting educational institution are invited to apply to the Competition. Finalists will have the invaluable opportunity to have their work—whether they be one-of-a-kind objects, jewelry, or production prototypes—reviewed by a jury of national and international artists.
Previous international jurors have included Shannon Stratton, Curator, MAD Museum NY; Kristina Parsons from the Architecture and Design Department, MoMA; Susan Cummins, Art Jewelry Forum; and Leo Caballero of Klimt02. National jurors include the late Shirley Thomson, former director of the National Gallery of Canada; Vicky Henry, former director of the Canada Council Art Bank; and Melanie Egan, Director of Visual Arts, Harbourfront Centre.
The primary award presented to the Competition’s winner is a solo exhibition at the L. A. Pai Gallery. Selection for this exhibition is based on technical excellence, ingenuity, and strength of creative vision.
Kicking off L. A. Pai’s Spring/Summer 2022 exhibition season is Knuckle Dusters—an exhibit by Caleb Witvoet, co-winner of the 17th National Jewelry Student Competition (2020).
Born and raised in Calgary, Caleb graduated in 2020 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Jewelry and Metals from the Alberta University of the Arts, receiving the Board of Governors’ Graduating Student Award for his academic efforts. Unbeknown at the time, prior work at his father’s home-renovation business would become the theoretical framework for Caleb’s emerging contemporary artistic practice.
The lens Caleb uses to inform his work is intriguing, continuously challenging the doctrines governing the renovation process; specifically, the stringent building codes which set clear expectations and standards that structures must conform to.
Of his pieces, Caleb writes:
Renovation is a process for the renewal and restructuring of existing buildings, ranging from the many layers of built spaces to their underlying structures. I encountered these sites of deconstruction at a young age in the home my parents were renovating, and later working for my dad in home renovation. Now I integrate forms and materials sourced from renovation in my jewelry practice, making the body a site for rebuilding. This kind of body renovation is a symbolic approach to inner development: how are experiences built and affected by the underpinnings of being? Understanding how a wall is put up and its purpose informs a relation to it. What is the wall preventing me from facing? Becoming aware of the fault is only the first step in the process of self-renovating.
The exhibition series of “Bent Wall Frames” are base forms perhaps in a state of wrecking or rebuilding, sometimes both at once and now are not in either. Wood is recycled and left broken, seemingly stuck in peculiar degrees of finish and far from what is considered done. Structures in progress remind me that “undoing” is active and creates possibilities for new direction. The bent form repeats across my work, each time as a redirection of some structure which seemed rigid before the act of renovation.
Caleb’s pieces are both sculptural and interactive; in fact, he encourages patrons to view his jewelry as both wearable pieces and table-top or wall adornment.
In Liminal Cedar Brooch, for example, the wearer can participate in the “renovation process” by using a tiny crowbar to pry a silver nail, which releases the brooch’s back panel from its frame. This work can be worn on the body or placed on the wall. For Caleb, this piece underscores the in-between state of renovation, and the body’s role in deconstructing and then building back.
Based off the construction of 2×4 stud walls, Caleb uses Knuckle Dusters to again push the adage of jewelry as solely ornament. The series of rings need not be worn at all; rather, these little structures can stand on their own, acting as whimsical centrepieces. The rings are offensive and can be uncomfortable to wear, either by restricting movement or by forcibly posturing the hand. Each one is named in the style of rock and pop love songs “because the fight is really about being loved as one’s inner self.”
On what’s next, Caleb is planning a move to the Netherlands to home in on his craft.
Knuckle Dusters runs from April 14 to May 4, 2022, at L. A. Pai Gallery (13 Murray Street).
For more information about L. A. Pai’s Spring/Summer 2022 exhibition season, please visit www.lapaigallery.com or the Gallery’s Instagram account (@lapaigallery). To keep up to date with Caleb and his upcoming endeavours, you can follow him directly on Instagram (@calebwhitefoot).
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