Elizabeth Zvonar, We Come in Peace, 2012, inkjet print
Opening today: Phantasmagoria
Presentation House Gallery is pleased to announce Phantasmagoria, a group exhibition showcasing new works by emerging artists from Vancouver. Like the perceptual trickery of the eighteenth-century magic-lantern projections from which the show takes its name, the artists in this exhibition exploit the deceptive illusionism of camera images. Their photographs, moving pictures and sculptural works explore the elemental qualities of the photographic at a critical and historic moment of change for the medium.
The exhibition profiles diverse experiments with analogue and digital camera processes.Raymond Boisjoly’s sun-exposed, construction paper prints, Ron Tran’s underdeveloped images that threaten to disappear, and Julia Feyrer’s mixed-media construction emphasize analogue approaches to photography. Such strong material sensibilities are also present inRachelle Sawatsky’s painted slides and Andrew Dadson’s blacked-out lightbox sculpture, as well as in the hybrid constructions of Elizabeth Zvonar’s collages and Dan Siney’s painterly treatment of inkjet prints.
Investigations of the rhetoric of abstraction prevail throughout the exhibition. Corin Swornmakes pictures of ideas as abstract shapes, as in the reductive forms of Allison Hrabluik’s moving images. Photographic qualities are almost invisible in Mathew McWilliams’s subtle images. The optical illusions in Jessica Eaton’s photographs come from rigourous experiments with analogue photographic techniques. Evan Lee’s intricately collaged details from phoropters reference the optical illusions of lens perception.
The artists respond to the image-saturated world by effectively redirecting image flow and slowing down modes of perception. Christopher Brayshaw’s digital pictures come from a process of scanning and grabbing from an unlimited field of information. Two of the artists have made web pieces that will become ongoing archives: Kevin Schmidt solicits images from individuals and Jay Bundy Johnson captures “free” photographs from Craigslist.
Recently, I revisited Field truth, and came up with a new edit that I’m happy with. Hoping to print it this summer…
The Glacier Study Group consist of scientists, artists, activists and people who are interested in glacial and polar activities in the Arctic Circle. The approach of the group is broad in terms of its scientific methods of investigation, data collection and glacier sampling. Global warming has seen an increase interest in glaciers and the group spend long periods each year (often as much as 6 months) at the extreme conditions of the Arctic investigating the melting of glaciers and its impact on the surrounding flora and fauna of the Arctic.
The images were taken during a 8 month periodin 2011 when one of the biggest glacier in the Arctic receded by more then a third of its volume.
This expedition is a collaboration between the Glacier Study Group (Svalbard) and The Institute of Critical Zoologists (Japan).
Port Radium, NWT, Canada
Caption: A sign with a jar of used sand from the first atom bomb explosion July 16, 1945, on display in Port Radium
I am running a workshop during Summer School by Erin Nelson at Project Space. Please consider supporting the project: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ejn/summer-school
SUMMER SCHOOL
A project by Erin Jane Nelson and Ming Lin to be held at Project Space located in Vancouver’s Chinatown (www.projectspace.ca) from July 20th- August 28th.
Summer School will turn a Vancouver-based Artist-Run-Centre (Project Space) into a free pop-up school for one week. Classes will be taught by Lin, Nelson, and several local guest teachers and will cover a wide range of topics such as:
• Sustainable Dye Techniques
• Homemade Looms and Back-Strap Weaving
• Air-Tasting
• Making Chapbooks out of Anything
• Solar Photograms
• Mushroom Spore-Printing and Edible Mushroom Identification
• Creative Analysis and Redesign of Local Flora
• & More!!
In addition to the school component, Nelson and Lin will also be mounting anexhibition of the works of art and design created by students + teachers of Summer School which will be on view in Project Space for the entire month of August. We will also host public artist talks and openings. Finally, Project Space will be publishing an accompanying book, Lesson Book, which will feature instructions from all of the classes, curatorial essays, images of the projects, and other surprise material. So, if you don’t live in Vancouver, you can still learn from Summer School.
In the meantime, here are some great links to get acquainted with our contributors:
According to the Museum of Natural History there were no megafauna in Canada or Mexico. Just the USA including Alaska (and Europe, for the record, on the side you can’t see.) Y U no put animals everywhere, museum? How come state borders irrelevant to the period portrayed?
(via standardgrey)
David Semeniuk, 2012
Like all of the west end at once
David Semeniuk, 2012, Digital collage
David Semeniuk, 2011
“We Canadians have a particular reason for being concerned with the course of Russian aggression…But perhaps there is one thought we should keep in mind since man unlocked the secret of the atom. Radium became the most impotent single military possession. There are two great known deposits of radium in the world, one in the Belgian Congo and one in Northwestern Canada…the Canadian deposit is…about three hours flying time from the nearest Russian airfield.”
Ontario Premier George Drew, March 11 1946
Cut out figure study #1 (repatriation), 2012
Scott McFarland
Cornelius Krieghoff (1815–1872)
Breaking up of a Country Ball in Canada, Early Morning (The Morning after a Merrymaking in Lower Canada) 1857
Oil on canvas
60.9 x 91.3 cm
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Bridgeport65
