Don Maynard
"Don Maynard" by Ben Darrah, Spring 2007, pp. 112-13
Don Maynard is best known for his formal wall pieces. He usually employs encaustic paint, wood and metal components, such as the coils from the guts of industrial air conditioners. His sculptural installation at verbgallery, the absence of light, is something of a departure. This work embodies a political critique that is emphasized by the confines of the gallery space and a sense of claustrophobic isolation.
Upon entering the dimly lit gallery, one is confronted by a large black object with an outline like an aircraft carrier; it seems about to bear down on the viewer. The surface of the sculpture, which is made of wood painted with black beeswax, has a slight sheen, almost the texture of sweaty skin that has cooled down quickly. It occupies the bulk of the narrow gallery, leaving the viewer only a few feet in which to negotiate passage around it. Slabs of the object appear to splay out so that the top of the sculpture is much wider than its footprint.
At the rear of the work is an opening that looks like a fissure in a rock wall. It is so dark that it is impossible to judge its dimensions and whether it would be big enough to walk into. Despite having already seen the outside of the sculpture, we consider the possibility that the dark space within holds a larger, possibly enveloping space.
Included in the installation is a didactic wall panel explaining that the absence of light is Maynard’s response to the Canadian citizen Maher Arar’s extradition from the United States to Syria, where he was incarcerated and tortured. Maynard specifically drew on Arar’s description of his Syrian jail cell—a dark space, measuring three by six by seven feet, that Arar referred to as his grave.
Maynard’s sculpture occupies the same volume as Arar’s cell and, in an abstract way, evokes the sense of bleak despair found in Arar’s description of it, highlighting the tragedy of Arar’s experience and the larger question of the Canadian government’s blind and bungling lack of concern for human rights.
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