Michael Belmore
Smoulder

installation image of Smoulder, a round pile of stones placed directly on the floor with inlaid copper that gives the impression that the contact points of the stone are glowing hot.
Michael Belmore, Smoulder, 2010-11. Carved stone, gilded copper.
Collection of the MacKenzie Art Gallery, University of Regina Collection; Purchased with the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisition Assistance Program, 2013.
Smoulder consists of carved and fitted stones coming together to offer a feeling of warmth. Copper is inlayed, giving the illusion of the shimmer and glow of a dying campfire... We have all been there: lost, looking into the lingering light emanating from the coals... This sense of solitude has probably existed ever since humankind first made fire. Smoulder speaks to these things. Simply put, it is about capturing a quiet shared experience we all understand in all its complexities.

-Michael Belmore, 2013

Artist bio:

Michael Belmore is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and graduated with an AOCA. in sculpture/installation from Ontario College of Art and Design in 1994. Belmore's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is represented in the permanent collections of various institutions and in numerous private collections. His most recent exhibitions include Into the Woods: Two Icons Revisited, at the Art Gallery of Ontario; Land, Art, Horizons, at the North American Native Museum, Zurich; Shapeshifting: Transformations in Native American Art, at the Peabody Essex, Salem, MA; and HIDE: Skin as Material and Metaphor, at the National Museum of the American Indian–George Gustav Heye Center, New York.

Seemingly small things, simple things, inspire Belmore's work; the swing of a hammer, the warmth of a fire, the persistence of waves on a shore. Through the insinuation of these actions, a much larger consequence is inferred.