Shown here: a futurist image of the Hollow World, an inner paradise--deep inside the "Earth."

Inspired by Hessay’s dynamic paintings and fascinating life story, Guochen Wang filmed a documentary which includes interviews with people who knew Carle Hessay and his work. Finding the real Carle Hessay (artist, pianist, gymnast, prospector), so many decades after he died dancing at a New Year’s party on January 1, 1978 was a challenging task. Victoria poet Linda Rogers narrates the documentary, and bill bissett, a famous sound poet from Toronto, ends performing his poem about Carle’s process of making an action painting.

Featured in the Exhibition will be Hessay’s war art, BC wilderness landscapes, and futurist paintings. Carle Hessay’s experiences fighting fascism in the Spanish Civil War and World War II are the subject of many of his powerful war paintings, which have a surprising contemporary relevance. Leaving his sign shop in Langley, where he earned his “bread and butter,” Carle went prospecting each weekend into the remote regions of the Fraser Canyon to seek spiritual restoration and to store up images for his dramatic landscape paintings. As part of a Canada Council Explorations project, Carle painted images of what life might hold for mankind in the distant future when bold engineering feats will make possible the creation of new worlds.