The materiality of Tim Whiten's composite piece is reduced to the essential element of his chosen site: the Pre-Cambrian shield. Danse includes two skeletal figures sand-blasted into the rock. Rendered on the slope of a hill, the first figure is dark and visible from a distance, beckoning us towards the second which lies on higher ground. The joints of these life-sized images are deftly articulated, while the veins of the granite crisscross within the etched boundaries of the bones, enhancing the gestural vitality of the figures. Exuding a kind of mischievous jubilance, both characters don instruments: one beats a drum slung around his hip; the other plays a xylophone strapped around his neck. Coupled with the depiction of an hourglass, the refrains of mortality reverberate: the rhythms of life coalesce with "the dance of death." While echoing traces from prehistoric rituals, Whiten's imprints on the landscape are reminiscent of fossilized forms embedded in the earth's surface. The temporality and brevity of human life merges with the imperceptible movements of geological time. As "bones of the earth," the rocks remain both host and witness to the endless processes of regeneration.
Carolyn Bell Farrell, "Axis of Time," The Tree Museum, (The Tree Museum, 2000)
this installation was started in 1998 and finished in 1999, there are 4 figures and three separate carvings of roses.
Tim Whiten is a highly prolific senior-career Canadian artist whose pursuits have long been rooted in the Transcendental. In over forty years of exhibiting, he has sought to navigate the territory of the human condition and it's transformative potential with a body of work encompassing a myriad of forms both two- and three-dimensional, including site specific works, real-time systems, ritual performances, and mixed media installations. He perceives expressions of being in the world as markers in a series of passages, while considering mortality itself as a threshold. Tim is well-respected by his peers, and has been instrumental in influencing generations of aspiring artists as Professor of Fine Art at York University. His work has been featured in numerous international venues of merit, including exhibitions in Mexico, Brazil, Germany, the United States of America, and the Republic of China; and can be found in the collections of The National Gallery of Canada, The Art Gallery of Ontario, The Art Gallery of Hamilton, The M.H. De Young Museum of San Francisco, the Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and many others.