Robert Froese, a Moose Jaw artist who has continually shown his work here at home throughout his impressive career, debuted a new exhibition on Feb. 7 at the Moose Jaw Museum & Art Gallery.
The show, titled Measured Composition, is an exploration between the physicality of Froese’s ceramic pieces and the sensuality of musical composition.
Froese saw a connection between his creative process as a potter and also as a pianist and began visualizing the rise and fall of improvised music performed in a physical space.
The combination of pottery, wood platforms, colours, and spatial design in the exhibit are meant to express the connection between the creating of clay shapes and the creating of musical melodies, laid out in a physical experience.
“Generally this show is about spatial composition and musical composition, and the parallel that exists for me and my attempt to kind of express the elements of music like rhythm, syncopation, tone, harmony, all those things through objects,” said Froese.
Measured Composition is laid out in a certain way, guiding visitors on a path through different movements of the exhibit. This makes for a unique experience, one that is as fluid as music itself.
“There's an entrance with the tape, the paint. It's kind of a tuning note, and then the introduction and flow, and there's space to walk through the sort of sectioned off areas,” said Froese. “I want things to connect, but I want to show them as distinct pieces too.”
Froese has utilized different colours and textures alongside physical arrangement, with some pieces glazed and some still bisque, which was inspired by the time he spent in Japan.
“I would go to the beach every day in Japan, walk the beach and all that study of really strange objects that you find washed up on the shore after a typhoon, for example, that kind of found its way into my sculptural work,” said Froese.
From there, Froese made the connection between how he shapes music on the piano through improvisation with how he shapes clay as a potter.
“I began to think of that way of resolving chords as the way you resolve a finished piece of clay, like spinning on the wheel,” said Froese.
As the exhibit visits other galleries, it will change its shape to fit the gallery space and potentially become an entirely different show.
“It's very improvisational,” said Froese. “The goal, for me, is to initiate some kind of a feeling for people. Like, it might remind people of diving or walking the beach or some experience they might've had and that is open to everyone.”
Some of the pieces are works that were developed as part of Froese’s Master of Fine Arts at the Alberta College of Art and Design in 2018, while the rest is more recently created.
Froese was pleased with the opening night of the exhibit and followed the evening with an In Conversation artist talk on Feb. 8, with MJMAG coordinator Jennifer McRorie — videos of the event are available on the MJMAG Facebook page.
Measured Composition opened alongside Peter Tucker’s exhibit Predisposition, which takes up the front part of the gallery with Froese’s exhibition in the back.
Both Measured Composition and Predisposition will be available to view at the Moose Jaw Museum & Art Gallery until May 3.
