Nike
This is the last stop on the Downtown Art Walk. As a bonus, if you’d like to explore one more gallery, the Tofino Gallery of Contemporary Art is tucked away between buildings at 430 Campbell Street.
Michael Dennis uses the natural lines of salvaged cedar trees to create human forms that show both the original tree shape and human silhouettes. Nike (2015) is bronze cast from a wood original. Named after the winged goddess of Victory, it captures a figure in flight. From another angle, as the artist points out, it resembles a whale’s tail as it dives.
Michael moved from California to Denman Island, BC in the 1980s. This move came after a successful career in science that began with a PhD from Stanford and included time as a professor of medicine at Harvard and the University of California, San Francisco. His move to Denman Island marked his movement into the arts.
Michael uses cedar logs that have been salvaged from the islands. Now his huge sculptures can be seen on the mainland in Vancouver at SFU, UBC, and Dude Chilling Park, and are also featured in art collections across the globe.
To learn more about the artist and his work, please visit: www.michaeldenn.is
