About 1, 2, 3 Jump
Toronto artist Roch Smith creates playful, thoughtful and imaginative sculptures.This table top piece, cast in bronze reprises his use of toy figures—objects of creative play that imply a more serious message. A man in uniform, his arm raised as if saluting, sits on one end of a teeter-totter-like board balancing on a center (fulcrum) cylinder; a horse decorated with a harness festooned with feathers rears up on its hind legs. Is the soldier about to obey orders and jump?
“When I was at art school in Vancouver, I started to use my GI Joe in photographs and sculptures and he became a way to speak about play, masculinity and memory.” Roch Smith
He received a BFA (Honours Sculpture) from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design (ECIAD - 1997) and an MFA from York University (2003). A teacher as well as an artist, he has taught classes at the University of Waterloo, ECIAD and York University. He currently manages and operates the bronze and aluminum foundry at York University. Roch Smith has exhibited throughout Canada and in the US. His work is included in private, corporate and museum collections.
