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Winnipeg Free Press

Local artist explores concrete as a medium

Spatula in one hand, the other firmly gripping a silver mixing bowl, Kevin Batenchuk looks like he's about to make a cake. A cloud of fine dust rises as he stirs and folds, amalgamating the ingredients in his very own recipe for success, tweaked and honed to perfection after years of experimentation. But Batenchuk is no baker and the concrete batter he's mixing — an unappealing sludge of grey made from crushed stone, sand, cement and water, bound together with acrylic or latex admixture — is hardly fit for consumption. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Artist Kevin Batenchuk pours a concrete minimalist vase. Working from his bright and airy workshop/gallery, Kev Ten Studio on McDermot Avenue, the artist makes 'useful art objects and fun things to play with' from the material more commonly found in the foundations of buildings. 'Art is useful on its own, but I have a strange compulsion I can't get over; I have to make useful things. Most of what I make right now has a usability component to it,' says Batenchuk, 54. His lifelong fascination with architecture and brutalism, the architectural style defined by its use of raw concrete, unembellished geometric forms and muted colour schemes, informs many of his works, which can be seen at 'Notre-Dame du Haut by Le Corbusier, a giant of intellectual architecture, is by far the most important building to me and my design sensibilities. It's a building I absolutely must see in person. There are echoes of it in my work,' he says. He is also a great admirer of Japan's Tadao Ando, most famous for his minimalist approach, and Vancouver-born architect and urban planner Arthur Erickson, often referred to as the 'concrete poet.' Closer to home, Batenchuk is fond of the Millennium Library, which has had a number of architects working on it during its 50-year tenure. His artistic influences include English sculptor and artist Henry Moore, Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali and Winnipeg's Bruce Head, whose public art piece The Wall, a 127-metre-long concrete sculpture, is the longest in situ artwork in Canada. The piece, on display since 1979, may become inaccessible if the underground concourse is closed following the reopening of the intersection of Portage and Main to pedestrians. 'The Wall in the Portage and Main concourse is one of my all-time favourite sculptures anywhere. If the artwork is not to be saved, I might be chaining myself to it sometime in the near future,' he says. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Batenchuk pours the cement into moulds that he makes himself out of foam yoga blocks or Styrofoam bought from Dollarama and cut out using a bandsaw. Batenchuk's experiments in concrete began accidentally. As child he had always shown a talent for drawing, practising his skill by copying pictures before stamping his own style on them. But art wasn't something he pursued intentionally. The born and bred Winnipegger spent most of his adult life in British Columbia, moving to Vancouver in 1990. He lived in a number of cities in the province, including Whistler, Tofino and Victoria. Back then, wood was his medium of choice and Batenchuk made himself a skateboard. 'I never went to art school, but I have always been curious about how things are made and whenever there's an opportunity to make something, I make it. It's innate,' he says. 'I've always had an idea I was going to be self-employed at some point and was always thinking about how I could turn what I made into a business.' He started his own company, Farm Skateboards, painting or silkscreening the bottoms of each board, but soon realized it was a tough market to break into. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Batenchuk's creations come in all sizes. Bartending stints followed and when he wasn't doing that, he would take on jobs in the construction industry where he discovered the countless possibilities of concrete. But it wasn't until Batenchuk's return to Winnipeg that he begun to experiment with the material. The COVID-19 pandemic had limited his movements, and the artist, who was renting a small, shared studio where he made paper collages, decided he'd had enough. 'I got bored with it one day so I went to Home Depot and bought a bag of cement. I don't even know why I bought it; I had no plan. I just bought it and started to make something,' he says. The something he made turned out to an abstract sculpture of an arm with a portal through it, reaching out towards the sky. 'I described it as a window of hope through the hard realities of life,' he explains. 'It also has two wooden crutches in it. I was reading a lot about Salvador Dali and Henry Moore at the time, as I recall.' There aren't many people who, when first trying out a new medium, are immediately successful, but don't tell Batenchuk that. His first piece was captivating enough to draw the attention of an interior designer who asked to buy it. 'I said, 'I won't sell you this one — the piece had rough spots in it — but I will make the exact same thing.' So I made her another one and she was very happy with it and things started move forward from there,' he says. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Prototype Martian Library 2.0 Move forward it has. Five years later and the artist, now installed in his south-facing studio on the sixth floor of 290 McDermot Ave. is still at it with the concrete, standing at his own-made workbench, pouring his bespoke cement into moulds that, naturally, he's also made himself. 'I came up with the idea to have a library of the hundreds of shapes I've used in my art since forever. I trace the shapes onto foam yoga blocks or Styrofoam — which I buy from Dollarama — and I cut them out using my bandsaw,' he says. He first sands the forms to achieve varying textures before screwing them down onto plywood or Masonite plates. After the cement mix is poured, the entire thing is covered with plastic to start the curing process. It's a waiting game — only after a long stretch of time can the concrete be considered strong and fully cured — although Batenchuk says that a day is sometimes enough. 'Concrete continues to cure for 28 to 30 days but after 24 hours it is already at 50 to 60 per cent of its final cured strength. That's when I take all the screws out, de-mould the shapes and place them in water, to make the next step easier.' The next step is the most labour-intensive part of the process. With a handheld angle grinder, fitted with diamond polishing pads to alter the rough and pitted surfaces, Batenchuk polishes and grinds, although not every piece gets the same treatment, in order to retain varying textures. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Artist Kevin Batenchuk's concrete creations in his Exchange District studio. The resulting pieces of hardened concrete have a raw, tactile appeal. The sculptural blocks, featuring modular pieces in varying shapes and sizes, are an invitation to play. 'The thinking behind it was to make something interactive that, once it's yours, you can do whatever you want with it. Concrete isn't the first thing people would think you can play with but you can,' he says. All his life, Batenchuk has just wanted to make things. He was diagnosed with severe ADHD three years ago and used to find it difficult to finish multiple projects he would have on the go. 'That saying 'Inspiration usually finds you working' absolutely applies for me. When I am working on something is when ideas start happening,' he says with a laugh. He's decided that to move forward in his art career, he has to streamline his life, and his projects, so he has established a routine he sticks to at least five days a week. The early riser aims to be up by 4 a.m. 'I wake up, pray, stretch and meditate. Then I read small passages from three different books before I expand on the plan for today that I wrote out the night before. Then I go to the gym. Exercise is a very important part of my life,' he says. He starts work in the studio after that, concentrating on the projects he has planned out for the year. Batenchuk's journey continues to unfold in ways he never imagined. Working with the solidity of concrete has rooted him, in more ways than one. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Artist Kevin Batenchuk's concrete creations in his Exchange District studio. And now he is exactly where he'd dreamed of being for so long. 'I am living the life of an artist. It's what I felt I have always been and now it's real. Things have transpired to keep me on this path. I just make, create and leave the results to the universe. 'Really, I just want to make something and make it well.' Weekday Evenings Today's must-read stories and a roundup of the day's headlines, delivered every evening. AV KitchingReporter AV Kitching is an arts and life writer at the Free Press. She has been a journalist for more than two decades and has worked across three continents writing about people, travel, food, and fashion. Read more about AV. Every piece of reporting AV produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. 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