Arizona Artbeat: Bruce Monro “Desert Radiance”

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We will show you artist Bruce Munro’s “Desert Radiance” exhibit, a collaborative effort being displayed at several locations.

Ted Simons: British artist Bruce Munro best known for his large scale work shown on location well beyond museum and exhibit halls. For the first time he's showing at a gallery. Producer Shana Fischer and photographer Ed Kishel give us a look at desert radiance.

Video: multi-media artist Bruce Munro was embarking on his first ever showing in a gallery. This exhibition has a very different feel.

Bruce Munro: I always wanted to make small pieces of work, more intimate work, but I kind of left it until, you know, I needed to do the work. You're led by the -- not only the opportunity but by an internal need to do it. I was just getting to that point in my career when I started to really wanted to make these pieces.

Video: two years ago he met world renowned gallery owner Lisa Sette. Unsure if he could pull it off he began to mull over ideas in his mind.

Bruce Munro: I felt it developed from pieces based on semaphor. Then I realized I could also use the code to basically describe pieces of work, books that I have read or equations, scientific equations, anything really, and it gave me this opportunity to put in language that I really have moved me and changed my life.

Video: What emerged was deeply personal. Following the death of his father Munro felt a renewed passion to create. Ferryman's crossing was one of the works that came out of that period. Inspired by Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha. It tells the scene between two ferrymen discussing the mundane in life as they sat on a river.

Bruce Munro: all I wanted to do was create a river with Morse code using Hermann Hesse's beautiful words and trying to evoke that feeling of reflectivity when you're standing by a riverbank on a bright, sunny day, the water is full of diamonds sparkling, that sort of thing. I just wanted to match closing your eyes and feeling that light playing on your face. Hopefully we have achieved something like that.

Video: It's a combination of wood and conical life based on a bed of nails Indian Yogis are said to meditate on.

Bruce Munro: I just use -- I have an idea and I find the materials to say what I want to say.

Video: Munro was also showing two is pieces that involve projectors. Moon watcher based on the 2001, a space odyssey. He also created nine clouds just for Lisa Sette's gallery that pays homage to the poem by William James, I wandered lonely as a little cloud.

Video: This is an attractive sculpture that evokes a happy feeling. Whatever emotion is elicited by these works, Munro hopes gallery goers leave feeling renewed.

Bruce Munro: I'm always hoping it's about the positive side of human experience. We're in very, very difficult times at the moment. I am bored of hearing the negative about humanity. I think we have to start seeing about the joy and the connection and coming together and getting rid of this fear and stress in the world today.

Ted Simons: The exhibition at the gallery goes until January 2. You can also see his pieces at the desert botanical garden until May 8.

Ted Simons: Thursday actor Daniel Baldwin joins us in studio to talk about beating drug addiction. That's it for now. I'm Ted Simons. Thanks for joining us. You have a great evening.

Video: "Arizona Horizon" is made possible by contributions from the friends of Arizona PBS. Members of your PBS station. Thank you.

Bruce Munro;British artist

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