Sneak a Peek at MACC’s Newest Art Installation

By Vanessa Wolf

Artist-in-residence Wes Bruce. Courtesy photo

This Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. you can meet the Maui Arts & Cultural Center’s first artist-in-residence and take an advance peek at the installation he’s currently finishing up.

Artist Wes Bruce is creating a structural installation titled Taken By Wonder: a fictional space with allusions to origins, physical and cultural development, biological characteristics, and social customs.

Bruce started out as a painter, but moved to interactive art after an unexpected set of circumstances took place.

“I was part of the staff at a camp in Northern California near Yosemite National Park, and for our final staff meeting I built a huge cardboard igloo / honeycomb fort, and we all spent the night in it.” Bruce recounted, “It was the most connective and true thing I had made. It felt worth making because of the human interaction that occurred within it.

“After that summer I was asked to be in an art show in San Diego based on some paintings the curator had seen. I said that I didn’t want to make any more paintings, but I would be willing to make a fort. That was five years ago.”

Bruce’s work is based on a metaphor he calls an “inner architecture.”

“Each one of us keeps who we are in these metaphorical rooms within us: all of our past, present and potential futures, hopes, fears, relationships, joy and mourning,” he explained. “Picture being able to enter into rooms within yourself and finding places and experiences you might not have recalled for years. I hope that a sense of wonder leaves with the people who experience this piece.”

Taken by Wonder is an interactive work.

“Clues within the layers will lead us to believe that the inhabitants have only just left the space, stirring up a curious voyeurism and questioning.”

The official exhibit opens Sept. 8 and will run through Nov. 2.

Both it and the preview on Saturday are free to the public.

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