Will Gill

Camper 2021
Site-specific installation / Installation in situ
Site 6 – Roadside / Sur la route, Hodderville

Multidisciplinary artist Will Gill was invited to develop a project based in a vehicle scrapyard at Hodderville, on Route 235. Sprawling along a cliff above a surf-swept bay, the scrapyard is a paradox. A startling visual intrusion into the wild landscape, one repercussion of our reliance on oil- and gas-fueled transport, it is also an exercise in recycling: of auto parts, drained fluids and marketable metals.

Gill’s recent site-specific works have been vignettes of forms within environments, modulated by lightness and darkness. Camper was a similar approach to a beloved pan-Canadian pastime. Trailers are everywhere in Newfoundland: cheek by jowl in RV parks, in informal clusters by ponds, tucked alone in woods, perched on headlands. Varied locations suggest varied goals: “getting away” to nature, to outdoor socializing, to the promise of open roads. Is nature integral or incidental? The artist worked with the scrapyard owner and his son to locate a vintage truck and truck bed camper, then conjured a Newfoundland roadside campsite, typical yet mysteriously altered—locked, unused, all coated in white. In daylight, it was a bright invitation to speculation, reminiscence and selfies in its splendid setting. But in darkness the mundane became magical. In ephemeral glimpses created by camera flashes, flashlights or car headlights, Gill’s tableau became a glowing, spectral vision hovering in dark, uncertain space, open to the spectrum of individual responses.

PG