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Peach City got an appetizing taste of the Big Apple Friday night when the Penticton Art Gallery simultaneously hosted the opening of Bentley Meeker's stunning "Immaculate Refraction" exhibit and a full-on dance party complete with generous libations and noted music-spinner DJ Shakes.
The music played, the drinks flowed, the exhibit dazzled, and many of the guests inevitably tried out their sickest dance moves.
It was a heck of an evening that ramped up even further when Meeker himself strolled through the door at 9 p.m.
It must be said. Acquiring a show by an artist of the calibre and notoriety of the New York-based Meeker is a real coup for Gallery curator Paul Crawford and a boon for regional art lovers.
In the Project Room Friday evening, it was all about lasers and the way they interact with common items.
The effect was downright trippy, and many visitors just sat there staring into the whirl of colours, seemingly transfixed.
But the big show was reserved for the Bench 1775 Gallery, where more than three dozen illuminated sculptural pieces were strategically positioned on walls throughout the space.
Each piece was different from the next, and the impact, individually and as a whole, was spectacular.
Light art is nothing new to Meeker. He's worked with lighting since he dropped out of school at the age of 14.
He's built a globally renowned staging and lighting business out of it, and his art pieces have been commissioned by the likes of Michelle Obama and Billy Joel.
The guy is big news, and having him here in Penticton is straight-up cool.
And all it took, apparently, was a phone call. "Paul found me on the Internet three years ago, and called me to ask if I'd do a piece for his Grasslands exhibit," said Meeker.
The artist obliged and Crawford went bonkers over his contribution. So last year Crawford figured he'd reach out again – except this time for a one-man show.
"I spent seven years in Guelph, Ontario when I was young," said Meeker, "and I'd never been to Western Canada. So I thought what a great opportunity to see it. And Paul's just a really good guy."
Meeker, who's as unpretentious as they come and chats with you just like you're an old buddy from college, says the Penticton show is most definitely not small potatoes.
"Even one piece isn't small potatoes. You gotta care about it the same way you care for a massive public works installation."
And he truly is all about the lighting. "Mae West said the first thing she does at a show is go (have sex) with the lighting guy. That's good enough for me," he laughs.
"I worked with light for most of my life, mostly in the commercial space. But when I did Burning Man (where he's long been a featured artist), it really changed my relationship to light. That kicked off my career as an artist."
Meeker described the process behind Immaculate Refraction, saying it was assembled from start to finish "in New York on 36th Street and 5th Avenue."
Each of the 42 pieces, he says, feature a birch plywood enclosure and a front and rear surface. The solid rear surface is a gessoed canvas, and the front surface - the one with the circular holes and the erratic finish - is fiberglass-backed resin.
Two light sources are fixed to illuminate the rear panel - a cool 5600 degree Kelvin light on one side and a warm 3200 Kelvin light on the other.
Two light sources also illuminate the front - except they're reversed from those at the rear. And that's how the magic happens.
"So the nature of the beast," said Meeker while pointing to various ridges on the front surface, "is when you start to see the 3200 and the 5600 meeting at a given points. You see the different lights across the face of the piece."
Meeker, who says he believes "school makes your brain smaller," fell into commercial lighting sometime after he dropped out of school. And his life since reads like a movie script - the kind of script that seems too wild, too good to be true.
"I did commercial lighting for five years. I used to work at the Palladium (famed New York hot spot) back in the 1980s. I was on the house lighting crew there. So Andy Warhol would be drawing a birthday party show, Jean-Michel Basquiat would be painting the backdrops, Andy would be directing everything and I'd be up there setting up the lights."
"And I was watching guys who are legendary now but they were broke then. So for me, I said I ain't gonna (expletive) live like that. So I went into doing commercial work, but the art never got out of my blood."
With his company, Bentley Meeker Lighting and Staging, Meeker has illuminated stage shows for personalities such as Elton John, Arianna Grande, Prince, and Barry White.
His biggest thrill? "The best sound check I ever saw in my life wasn't even one of my shows. I was demoing some speakers cuz we were getting into the audio business. And it was a Leonard Cohen sound check. There were five people in the theatre because nobody was allowed in there."
"And it wasn't a sound check where they play a couple of chords and then piss off to the hotel. He got up there and played three songs in their entirety. And then the bass player drops in, and the other guitarist drops in, then the piano player, then the drummer. And I have a Leonard Cohen concert all to myself."
Meeker once sculpted a commissioned piece for Michelle Obama, and calls the Obamas "super cool." Donald Trump, on the other hand, was a no go.
"The Trump team called me for the inauguration and for state work, but I wouldn't do it. I've been in New York for 37 years, and I know this guy. Everybody gets (expletive) around by this guy.
"I have friends who did the Inaugural and they're lawyering up right now. All the profits they made on that gig, they're now spending on lawyers."
Immaculate Refraction was shown in New York before Penticton, and will show again in New York after Penticton.
In the meantime, you have to May the 12th to see it for yourself at the Penticton Art Gallery, 199 Marina Way.
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