ReEPICHEEP's WAVE
2018, 20’ H x 46’ W x 19.8’ D
Mixed media including 1,296 fiber optic lines, 1,296 weights, 18,000 vacuum-cast mussel shells, projectors, speakers, amplifier
Mixed media including 1,296 fiber optic lines, 1,296 weights, 18,000 vacuum-cast mussel shells, projectors, speakers, amplifier
Photo credit: Mark Pickthall, 2018
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Reepicheep’s Wave is Munro’s most recent work of art, created specifically for his exhibition at Montalvo. 18,000 vacuum-cast, partially-recycled plastic “mussel shells” clip onto over 1,200 fibres to create the silhouette of a wave; still by day and appearing to be in motion at night. The work is accompanied by a soundscape based upon a Shepard’s tone, which is an auditory illusion that seems to be infinitely increasing in pitch, but never moves beyond a limited set of tones.
The inspiration behind Reepicheep’s Wave is found towards the end of Voyage of the Dawn Treader, when the valiant mouse Reepicheep leaves his friends behind to venture to the far eastern edge of the world—a journey he must undertake alone. As the mouse paddles off through the Silver Sea, he encounters a still wave—a glassy wall of water—that he sails over beyond the End of the World into Aslan’s country. Munro believes C.S. Lewis intended to use this image as a metaphor to describe a space in between two worlds. Reepicheep’s Wave is also influenced by imagery Munro has encountered elsewhere, including The Great Wave off Kanagawa by the master Japanese painter and printmaker Katsushika Hokusai and the 1977 Peter Weir film, The Last Wave, which left Munro haunted by the image of a giant tsunami-like wall of water descending on Australia. The artist is determined to someday realize this vision at full scale, using 2.5 million cast mussel shells in a work of the same title, making Reepicheep’s Wave a gentler version, or an artist’s “sketch” for a future project. |