Shelter

About Shelter

This contemporary outdoor figurative metal sculpture is by Roch Smith.

Canadian artist Roch Smith’s playful and thoughtful visual language often tackles big life themes in an imaginative way.
Here, Smith’s ‘Shelter’ sculpture is a clever mix of ‘work and play.’ A tower of tree branches forged in bronze sits on the back of a hunched-over male figure who is also holding a branch in his hands. Smith is making a statement about the prohibitive cost of basic shelter—‘the back-breaking element’ of building or affording a home. The figure stands on a Jenga-like stack of wooden posts modelled after toy building blocks.

“I believe we have an innate need to construct things - whether they be ideas, concepts, doodles or buildings - and that playing around with thoughts in our minds is what denotes creativity. It is both playful and a bit dark at the same time, but I ultimately see the figure as heroically and methodically building the structure of his life. Kind of a Canadian Sisyphus.” Roch Smith

Roch Smith received a BFA (Honours Sculpture) from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design (ECIAD - 1997) and an MFA from York University (2003). As a teacher and 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.