Golden Flower – Stephan Wright

Press Release
The Maillardville Cultural Appreciation Society is pleased to present an exhibition by Stephan Wright. Through personal narratives, classical literature and philosophical texts Wright creates sculptural works that address the nuances of non-being and persona. Often addressing a tension between the body and architecture Wrightʼs work alters the method of navigating space within the gallery through various sculptural extrusions in the space itself. In this exhibition works are primarily composed of scavenged material organized into a large scale installation making specific use of lighting and auditory aspects within the gallery. The work moves from the personal into the public, creating a path between the life of the mind and the body that supports it.

Solutions for living
A guru of any kind is only worthwhile if they manage to fulfill the things they teach, and the best of them talk as much about their own imperfections as anything else. No matter what is said there is always the problem of translating an ideal into an action or an object, as we are always caught up in the banalities of our own desires, fears and needs along with the rest of the world. When we try to understand the abstract through the concrete, something ends up broken, as if an idea could fall out of our heads and shatter on the ground like a vase. The world seems full of aesthetic shells that once held importance or intention long since evaporated or now indecipherable. Yet what comes unintentionally, what is developed from time and not intent manages to remain.
In a conversation about charity, the idea was put forward that living as a kind person was the only non-abstract way to be charitable. The conventional conduits for altruism usually just involve money and leave you uncertain of where that money ends up. This came after you said that the best way to care for others is to care for yourself and that only by being truly personal, vulnerable and specific could someone ever actually make something relatable. But this is hard to do. It’s easier for us to treat life like a plant where we break off, inspect, and discuss fragments thinking that this will somehow give us a deeper understanding. Eventually when we can’t break it down any further we finally realize, after our inspection, that the only thing that seems out of place are all the breaks we’ve made or the words we used to cut everything up further.