DOWNTOWN
Peter Hide
After Rome, 1992
The corner of Columbia Street and 3rd Avenue
A large sculpture by Canadian artist Peter Hide, After Rome, has been re-located to a new site in Kamloops. It was previously displayed at the corner of Victoria Street and 2nd Ave for many years before being safely stored during a site renovation. Following the renovation, the Kamloops Art Gallery (KAG) worked closely with the City of Kamloops to find an appropriate new public home for the sculpture. The sculpture is now on view within a beautifully landscaped area at the corner of Columbia Street and 3rd Avenue, as a prominent marker at the entrance to downtown Kamloops and the Royal Inland Hospital.
Peter Hide is a Canadian artist based in Edmonton, Alberta. He has had a significant influence on generations of young sculptors in Canada, particularly in Saskatchewan and Alberta. Hide is known for his large-scale welded sculptures made of heavy, rusted industrial scrap steel. His work follows the Modernist assembled sculpture tradition originated by artists including Pablo Picasso. This is an approach continued by American Modernist artists David Smith and Michael Steiner and Hide’s teacher, British artist Anthony Caro.
Hide’s sculptures abandon the traditional pedestal and instead stand independently as monoliths emerging from the ground. The artist welds and sandblasts the rusted Corten steel and does not apply a finish to the sculpture, revealing the natural qualities of this industrial material.
In describing his work, Hide explains that After Rome, “although loosely based on the human figure, is an abstract sculpture, and its parts do not equate to body parts. It does, however, make a play between an angular compressive side and a loose, airy curvaceous side, and it is dynamic in space in that one view leads to another and so encourages the spectator to move around the piece ... outline and scale are particularly important in my work as ways to establish the expressive content of the sculpture.”
After Rome is from the Kamloops Art Gallery’s art collection and is installed permanently at this location as part of the Gallery’s partnership with the City of Kamloops to present its collection in public spaces throughout the city.
Peter Hide
After Rome, 1992
welded, sandblasted, and rusted low carbon steel
Collection of the Kamloops Art Gallery, gift of the Artist
Photo: Charo Neville