Item 2017.009.01 - Hospital Tunnel No. 2

This piece was part of an Instagram supported digital exhibit alongside other pieces by Ward and Gary Blundell. Blundell and Ward run a joint artist collective/Instagram account @hotspurstudio. During the fall of 2016, they posted a series of 24 images inspired by the history and changing landscape of the Lakeshore Grounds.

The artist’s statement/caption of this piece: Tunnels are stories in the Earth; the brick roof, the last remnant of the patients effort.

Gary Blundell was born in London, England and immigrated to Canada in 1962. He remembers lying in a field as a child watching some balloons disappear into the vast emptiness of the sky. He remembers looking at everything on the ground. After graduating from University, he traveled throughout Europe looking at art. He then began to paint. He is inspired by Rembrandt, Turner, Soutine, Bonnard, Anselm Kiefer, Rothko, Van Gogh, Francis Bacon, Egon Schiele, David Milne, Paterson Ewen, John Brown and Susanna Heller, among other visual artists, and dozens of musicians and authors like Kate Bush, Joni Mitchell, John Lennon, Jonny Greenwood, Virginia Woolf, Patrick White and many more. His work has been exhibited across Canada and in England. He was artist-in-residence at the Art House in Yorkshire England, the Straumur Arts Commune in Iceland, the Norfolk Arts Centre in Simcoe Ontario and at Pouch Cove in Newfoundland. His work can be found in collections throughout Canada, the USA and Europe and on his website.