Loose Trucks
New Work by Artist Shayne Ehman
By Nancy Saunders
Local artist, filmmaker, and illustrator Shayne Ehman’s upcoming exhibition, Loose Trucks, invites visitors to experience how decades immersed in the world of skateboarding have shaped his choice of subject and his way of seeing.
Ehman started skateboarding on homemade basement ramps while growing up in rural Alberta. Nearly 40 years later, he skates almost every day, and has been a constant presence in the local skateboarding scene since moving to Thunder Bay in 2012. The creativity and self-expression fundamental to skateboarding carry through to his latest show at Co.Lab Gallery + Arts Centre.
A series of roughly 20 photographs taken over the last five to seven years captures local skaters, often mid-trick. “The peak moment of a trick holds a little extra magic,” says Ehman. His photographs freeze the fleeting instant when effort, balance, and risk align. “It’s a form of empathy, watching people skate.”
Using stone salvaged from the ditches along the highway expansion between Thunder Bay and Hurkett, Ehman carved minimalist forms that quietly reference skateable surfaces. He describes his approach to carving as collaborative. “When I approach a material, I try to meet it at a certain point; I meet it half-way. I respect what it is,” he says. Ehman describes the sculptures as “awake but relaxed” and their carved faces “exuding a chill expression.” He imagines these forms scaled up one day as public sculptures, fully skateable and integrated into shared spaces. It’s easy to picture them as features in a skatepark, quietly observing while providing sturdy support. They are, after all, as Ehman adds, “a bit of a reflection of me.”
Rounding out the exhibition are pencil drawings depicting what Ehman describes as “dreamscapes” or “manufactured landscapes.” Reflecting on his drawing practice, Ehman notes that “you don’t really know how you see the world until you start putting it down.” He likes working with materials, including older types of paper, that have their own history and “voice,” and that “allow you to move with them,” an approach he likens to skateboarding itself.
Loose Trucks reflects Ehman’s steady attentiveness to how people, materials, and places meet. Through photographs, sculptural forms, and drawings, the exhibition moves beyond skateboarding’s usual associations with speed, noise, and intensity by presenting it with care and deliberateness.
See Loose Trucks February 18–March 4 at Co.Lab Art Gallery. For more information, visit colabgallery.ca.
