After the Rain, BC Place

About the Work

After the Rain, BC Place turns a very Vancouver inconvenience into the suite's most luminous surface. A shower has just passed; the plaza before the stadium lies glazed like dark glass, dragging every light down into it — the golden arc of the 'BC PLACE' roofline, the violet dusk, the white crowns of the light standards, the small bright figures of fans streaming toward the gates. A family crosses the foreground under the glow, one child dribbling a ball through the puddles, while trophy banners flank the approach and the last storm clouds burn pink as they leave.

Pius gives equal weight to stadium and reflection, roof and mirror, so the city seems to hold two BC Places — one built, one dreamed. Rain, the painting argues, is not the enemy of a Vancouver summer; it is the varnish.

Process & Technique

Acrylic on textured canvas, the wet plaza executed in long vertical pulls of a soft-edged knife, each reflected colour streaked downward and then broken with tiny horizontal ticks of white to make the water skin shiver. The stadium above is painted crisply by contrast, its lit roofline drawn in ropes of pale gold impasto that stand physically proud of the surface.