Bev Pike – 2012 Major Arts Grant

Bev Pike is a Winnipeg polymath.  Since 1993, she has been exhibiting her large-scale paintings across Canada from two series: Microscopic Remains and Hysteria Chronicles.  This work investigates perceptual regimes that create spectacle, that extend beyond the frame and engage the viewer in a complex spatial relationship.  Pike also writes neo-baroque satire, artist-books and creates videos about women’s research.

Bizzaria View: Painshill

This project hybridises architecture, body and land.  Pike’s large painting entitled Bizzarria View: Margate is the first piece in her new Folly series.  She is using two-dimensional paint to evoke the mystery of being within an underground shell-encrusted grotto.  Each new painting will be part of a gigantic Baroque serpentine of passageways and chambers.  Bizzarria View: Painshill will continue Pike’s investigation of theatricality and grand illusion.