One of Glenbow’s highest priorities is to celebrate artists from our community — which is why we’re excited to announce the acquisition of TAILBITER / I Tried and The Wellspring, two works that Alberta artists DaveandJenn donated to Glenbow in 2024.
With purple bodies coiling and twisting, lunging and turning, TAILBITER / I Tried and The Wellspring are sculptures of remarkable dynamism and drama. In both works, the artists present us with a contemporary interpretation of the Ouroboros, the mythical serpent who eats its own tail — an ancient symbol of infinity, eternity, and the cycles of life and death. In TAILBITER / I Tried, this sea serpent is coiled around a raft it appears to crush as birds flee above, but in The Wellspring, it has let go of its tail and its body is wrapped around a female figure rising from the sea floor. “When shown together the two works create an immersive sculptural tableau that viewers can absorb as they walk around and in between, with lots of smaller details to pull them in,” the artists explain, noting that because The Wellspring was created as a continuation of TAILBITER / I Tried, “the materials and colours were made to match.”[1] This strategy allowed the artists to develop two entwined stories that surround viewers when the sculptures are shown together.
For DaveandJenn, TAILBITER / I Tried and The Wellspring mark significant turning points in their creative practice. Each artwork was initially shown separately, in exhibitions that signalled new directions in their art. TAILBITER / I Tried was first shown in A Natural History of Islands, a solo exhibition at Nickle Galleries in 2016 — their first solo exhibition of sculptures. A year later, The Wellspring was shown in a solo exhibition at Glenbow as part of their first large multimedia installation. In some respects, these projects might be thought of as culminations: in the early years of their career, DaveandJenn were known for their paintings — richly detailed compositions created through dozens of layers of paint. It was a radical change for the artists to explore their ideas in three-dimensional forms, but they saw it as the fulfillment of an early goal — discussing The Wellspring exhibition, they noted that from the beginning of their work together, “they envisioned that one day they would make a painting you could walk into.”[2]
TAILBITER / I Tried and The Wellspring are outstanding examples of DaveandJenn’s artistic style. They are known for artworks with numerous forms that overlap, collide in layers, and make an enormous range of historical, cultural, and scientific references. Describing their commitment to this density in their paintings, they noted, “All the work that we make [… is] always like the summation of a lot of different parts and a lot of little stories that make up the whole symphony.”[3] In TAILBITER / I Tried and The Wellspring, the density of stories is intense: these works have references to Norse mythology, Italian baroque art, eighteenth-century porcelain, and My Little Pony toys from the 1980s, to give only a few examples.[4] The sheer range of accumulated stories and histories in the sculptures rewards viewers who take time to study them in depth.
The incredible visual richness in these works is possible because the sculptures bring together an enormous range of materials, each with their own historical and social associations: bronze and gold leaf have been used for sculptural masterpieces for thousands of years; polymer clay is commonly used for hobby and children’s crafts; neon is widely used for commercial advertising. Bringing all these materials together in TAILBITER / I Tried and The Wellspring has given the works great variety in textures, reflective surfaces, and colours. As well, the artists have used their materials to create exceptionally fine details and patterns, from the serpent’s scales and the birds’ feathers in TAILBITER / I Tried to the ridges of coral and planks in the boat in The Wellspring.
With TAILBITER / I Tried and The Wellspring, DaveandJenn have created an extraordinary body of work that brings together nature and myth, decorative art and popular culture. Their approach to sculpture is highly inventive, and they are writing a new chapter in the history of sculpture in Alberta. We are thrilled to welcome TAILBITER / I Tried and The Wellspring to Glenbow, and we’re very excited about the energy these works bring to the art collection.
References
[1] DaveandJenn, “Artist Statement,” January 9, 2024.
[2] Nancy Tousley, One New Work – DaveandJenn: The Wellspring (Calgary: Glenbow, 2017), 1.
[3] Stephen Hunt, “DaveandJenn blend personal details with mythic settings,” Calgary Herald, January 17, 2015, https://calgaryherald.com/entertainment/local-arts/daveandjenn-blend-personal-details-with-mythic-settings (accessed December 14, 2024).
[4] “Artist Statement.” Tousley, One New Work, 2.
