P002 → Nightlights & Arrived, 2025
Nightlights 1 & 2, 2025
Oil pastel on paper
14”x11”
Arrived, 2025
Seastones, lacquer
Sizes variable
Smith poses next to their work as the feature artist in the “Art as Storytelling” portion of the Gulf of Georgia Cannery National Historic Site’s exhibition “Cannery REcollections”. In this exhibit, Smith was given the opportunity to choose objects from the museum’s extensive collection to respond to through artmaking. They chose a modernist side lamp and an early telegraph key.
In “Nightlights 1 & 2” (2025) and “Arrived” (2025), Iver Smith reflects on abstracted forms of communication used by seafaring people and their communities. “Nightlights 1 & 2” concentrate on the use of coloured lights to denote boat positioning and motion—side lights are green or blue for starboard, red for port, while a white lamp is used for the stern and/or masthead. “Arrived” explores the use of telegraphy to deliver messages across land and water. In this piece, sine waves are carved into sea stones. The sine waves imparted into each stone are representative of those generated by the use of a telegraph key. Each letter (or “dits” and “dahs” in Morse code) is carved across a few rocks, comparing the pulses of sine waves to skipping stones across water. For Smith, watching ship lights at night and beachcombing have always been important rituals as they grew up on the coast.
To learn more about the exhibition visit The Gulf of Georgia Cannery National Historic Site’s website here.
Photos of work coming soon.