Brandon Vickerd Sculptures

The expression phantom limb describes the persistent sensation of a missing body part. It suggests an unresolved tension, a yearning for something that once was and has since been lo...

The sculptures in the Beast #1 and #2 (2020) explore our contested understandings of nature, posing the question about how humans experience the physical presence of animals. In obst...

The sculptures in the Beast #1 and #2 (2020) explore our contested understandings of nature, posing the question about how humans experience the physical presence of animals. In obst...

Purposely diverse, my work straddles the line between high and low culture, acting as a catalyst for critical thought and addressing the failed promise of a modernist future predicat...

The sculpture Atlas (2019) explores the role of monumental figurative sculpture in our post-modern age. The sculpture is a re-visitation of the Greek myth of Atlas, a titan condemned...

What would a perfect future look like and how would it be represented for future generations to examine and question? What would we choose to preserve from high art and mainstream cu...

What would a perfect future look like and how would it be represented for future generations to examine and question? What would we choose to preserve from high art and mainstream cu...

What would a perfect future look like and how would it be represented for future generations to examine and question? What would we choose to preserve from high art and mainstream culture? How will our successes be depicted and will we account for our failures? Perhaps our contemporary mythologies will replace the ancient Greek and Roman gods and goddesses of yore with superheroes, extra-terrestrials and science fiction characters devastated by technological advancement. Brandon Vickerd works in a realm of unreality where the perfect future is chimeral, where there are more questions asked than answers presented. In his recent pieces currently displayed at Art Mûr, we find skeletons of humans and primates. They are dressed in spacesuits, as seen in Monument to the First American in Space, or trailing tentacles and zebra mussels in The Sub-Mariner. The pieces are evocative, and somehow manage to come across as realistic; incongruous bodies and objects have been integrated into fluid forms. Generally, there is either a lot of movement (literal as well as implied) in Vickerd’s work, or a stasis, as seen with these beings frozen in action. They are unabashed in their theatricality. The polished, vibrant sculptures in these galleries represent a kind of death and memorialization. The forms are stripped of flesh and dressed in protective suits (potentially after the implied catastrophes), which appear either manufactured or suggestive of the organic. Ghost Rider...

What would a perfect future look like and how would it be represented for future generations to examine and question? What would we choose to preserve from high art and mainstream cu...

The term illumination can be defined as an observable property and effect of light, as well as the process by which human thought is transformed and expanded. Illumination in the phi...

Brandon Vickerd is a Hamilton based artist and Professor of Sculpture at York University, where he also serves as Chair of the Department of Visual Arts and Art History. He received ...

Brandon Vickerd’s artistic practice includes a range of forms, from sculpture to performance to site-specific interventions, and he frequently explores the myth of progress ingrained...

Brandon Vickerd’s artistic practice includes a range of forms, from sculpture to performance to site-specific interventions, and he frequently explores the myth of progress ingrained...

Brandon Vickerd’s artistic practice includes a range of forms, from sculpture to performance to site-specific interventions, and he frequently explores the myth of progress ingrained...

Brandon Vickerd is a Toronto based sculptor and Professor of Visual Arts at York University. He received his BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (1999) and his MFA from the University of Victoria (2001). In the past several years his exhibited projects have been diverse in form and content, including site specific interventions, public performances and object based sculpture. Projects such as Dance of the Cranes (Toronto, 2009) and Dance of the Cranes, Requiem for Architecture (Brooklyn, 2012) are community based projects outside the gallery that seek to transform the cityscape into a stage for performance. These performances consist of choreographed dances executed by high-rise construction cranes perched upon condo developments while viewers watch from the street bellow. Public works such as Satellite and Northern Satellite are similar attempts to engage the public in a discourse about our conflicting ways of understanding landscape. In gallery exhibitions he engages the audience through employing the language of monumental figurative sculpture subverting dominant cultural narratives by creating monuments to popular culture characters (Dead Astronaut...