Culture Dose: (Interactive) Canvasses

Local artist Sylwia Tur presents her eye-catching creations at Point Shilshole Beach.

The beach currently exhibiting sculptor Sylwia Tur’s latest project is just a mile south of Seattle’s Golden Gardens. This is a fitting place for her work — the gardens may not have the broadest appeal, but they’re no less beautiful. Just days after completing a show for the Seattle Weekly’s Artopia, Tur set up the exhibit at Shilshole Beach with a grant awarded her by the 4 Culture Foundation.

Photo Courtesy: Jacek Mrugala

(Interactive) Canvasses, Tur’s most recent showcase, is presented as part of the Heaven and Earth Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition at Point Shilshole Beach. This time, her work consists of organic porcelain that has been shaped to resemble canvas and pinned to old wooden posts (as if they were blown in from the Puget Sound).

These pieces are a departure from her starker, more geometrically rigid ceramic pieces. Even Tur herself admits that she’s not yet sure how these newest pieces fit into her repertoire of installations that have always taken on themes of communication and speech.

Tur grew up in Poland and studied linguistics there, but moved to Seattle roughly 10 years ago to finish her degree at the University of Washington. While there, Tur had what she refers to as an awakening when her French class was cancelled — so she took ceramics instead. From then on, she pursued ceramics as an outlet for her interest in communication and language, bypassing the academic route altogether.

“I’m not interested in the idea of language as a communication tool but more the way we look at language, the way we analyze language,” she said. “Those delicate moments in speech that we don’t pay attention to.”

Before (Interactive) Canvasses, Tur’s pieces followed this philosophy perfectly. Most have been either stark white, or sparsely glazed with one color. The shapes nearly disappear into the walls they are mounted on almost as if one can look at the wall and see only a blip of something there, a trace of something different in the paint or shape of the building that isn’t quite perceptible.

Photo Courtesy: Jacek Mrugala

“I find people tend to look at the ornate stuff a lot more, that’s what grabs your attention,” she said. “But, I want to do just the opposite: to grab their attention with its simplicity. To see the air around the object and then see the object.”

That’s how language works, she says. Every language has its system, its rules and its structure — and no communication tool is different from this. Ultimately, that is how everyone can learn each other’s language. Sure, everyone can also learn how to use a computer, type on a keyboard or make a telephone call. However, the nuances within those rules dictate the different ways in which people communicate their emotions.

“There’s that duality,” she said. “[Communication] is simple but the complexities of it is something that we bring in ourselves. That’s what makes it so individual.”

Tur’s pieces have been shown numerous times in the Seattle area, most predominantly at the Bellevue Art Museum. (Interactive) Canvasses – along with the rest of the Heaven and Earth exhibition – can be viewed on Point Shilshole Beach until Oct. 9.