Scott McFarland

Photography is a familiar topic that has been discussed during The Art Now lecture series at the University of Lethbridge. However the lecture that was presented by Nancy Towsely on the work by Scott McFarland was not only unique but triggered a new way of thinking about the photograph as an art object. Scott was born in Hamilton Ontario and studied art and photography in Vancouver. Working as a studio assistant for Jeff Wall he was able to develop a unique style within the artistic community. I have long considered the act of taking a photograph as capturing a snapshot of a moment in time. Conversely Scott believes the act of capturing the image is only one aspect of photography, and is interested in manipulating and constructing an image using technology and processes that have existed for centuries. Nancy explains that Scott asks the question “Does looking at a photograph make it a photograph?” Nancy adds “he makes rather than takes focusing the emphasis on himself as the image maker rather than the image taker” In other words he uses multiple images fused together using Photoshop to create large panoramic images that sometimes consist of hundreds of photographs taking over a period of weeks and sometimes months. The product of this is a photograph that not only challenges your perception, but also forces you to question the reality and contest of what you are viewing.

The method of combination printing is not a new concept within the photography community; rather Scott uses new technology to create works that are seamless as he is able to blend images together. In two thousand and two Scott has his first experience with composite printing as Nancy explains “the images become removed from photography, he manufactures a scene creating an ideal. He chooses the best setting that suite the figures.” Some would say his images are staged and lack content, rather I believe he takes the photograph beyond its inherent nature and begins to sculpt and mould something that only exists in a two dimensional space.  The ability to combine figures and background that alone have no immediate relationship and create a scene that seems so natural and purposeful is amazing. Viewing his work for the first time I found it hard to distinguish what is quote “copied and pasted” and what is original to the scene.

                He does make reference to classic images captured by paintings, and is also interested in the year when photography was first introduced as a new medium within the artistic community. Nancy affirms “Scott revisits a time when photographs were shared by painters in eighteen thirty nine when both mediums existed together.”  This is very apparent in his works were he makes reference to nineteenth century motifs. He enjoys working in large series sometimes changing just one element of the photograph such as the sky and placing the images side by side. An example of this I found very interesting was the work “the garden” were Scott presented two images of a garden in bloom, however he combined images of plants and flowers blooming during different seasons in the same image. This impossibility within the photograph was very visually interested. For me he creates a suspended reality, submitting his own ideals within the realm of the image. There is something beautiful in being able to make a scene that seems to satisfy all our senses and not limiting to strictly visual. Nancy agrees saying “Scott creates a visual montage, two seasons shown at the same time the impossibility of simultaneously layered references.”

                I agree that the work of Scott McFarland is worth investigating, if you are interested in photography. His unique presentation of the photograph leaves you questioning your own perceptions of reality.

Micah Lexier

          Micah Lexier's talk at the University of Lethbridge’s Art Now Series was one of the most interesting to date. Micah received his BFA at the University of Manitoba and continued his studies at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design receiving his MFA. He has been featured in over ninety solo exhibitions in North America, Australia and is currently being represented in Toronto. Micah is very familiar with mediums such as sculpture, drawing, photography and print making and enjoys working in each.

His first work that was shown was an installation piece consisting of twenty thousand coins arranged in a grid pattern on a wall. This work was commissioned by the Bank of Montreal and was to be left on display for a period of a year. Each coin is minted with a letter on the face of the coin, the coins are then arranged to spell words and also phrases. As Micah explains “there is a story hidden in the wall with hidden clues, the mirrored effect acts on multiple levels.” I found this work very fascinating as I am currently interested in patterns and textures in my own work. There is something comforting about the pattern and system of organization Micah uses in this piece. I also appreciate his attention to detail in order to create a work that consists of multiple layers that appear after further inspection.

          Another area of interest Micah finds fascinating is working with other artists in  collaborative works. A great example of this is a work he was asked to create for a high school work shop. Micah decided to create a short story consisting of as many words as there were students enrolled in the high school. Each student would contribute in their own words and writing to this story. As Micah explains “An interesting thing began to happen, you would find that each student would begin to copy the previous sentence before. Specifically the style of writing, a sort of unconscious consciousness began to take over.” A very unique thing happens when you combine a collective of artist together. The students used their own unique experiences to create a work of art that together formed one voice within the story.

                Micah’s other great passion is collecting. He elaborates by stating “for the longest time I was content with just collecting and organizing items and placing them in boxes.” Today he is interested in displaying such collections and also creates new collections from large inventory’s of found objects. When asked to construct a work for the seventy fifth anniversary of the Banff Center he found his passion for collecting pushed to the forefront. He coined the title of his work “Touch paper once.” This he explained attempts to bridge the gap between our everyday interaction with objects we so often think as empty vessels with little or no context. He used a great example as he explains “I tried to live this way for a short period of time every piece of paper that I would come into contact with I would deal with. From paying bills as I would come into contact with them, to reading magazines” He used this concept to sift through seventy five years of documented history that the Banff center has collected over the years since its inception. He would then systematically select  obscure items that he found sometimes visually and conceptually interesting. The final result was a collection of “collected” items put on display as sort of a snap shot of the history of artist and their engagements over the years. This work was particularly interesting as each item when arranged in a large group seem to cast this new content with the context it was originally conceived in.

                Micah Lexier’s work is a great example of an artist reaching out and collaborating with others to generate unique works of art that are only possible with this conscious collaborative mindset. He does not wish to reinvent art or build any lasting object, rather create pieces that exist within the moment and also bridge the gap between the present and the past.

Alison Rossitter

               The most recent lecture at the at the University of Lethbridge Art Now Series featured work of photographer Alison Rossitter. Rossitter has been working in photography for close to forty years beginning her journey at the Banff Center School of Fine Arts. She has also taught and worked commercially throughout her career. She began her exploration of photography through photograms. The body of work that developed was a series of books arranged on paper and exposed to different amounts of light. The photograms produced interesting visual textures, Alison explains “I am hoping the sum of the image is more than the sum of itself, and I am interested in how one thing leads to another.” I found particularly interesting how she used to title of the books as the title of each work giving this object a completely different visual experience expressed and captured though photography.

            Following this series Alison began using a flashlight to generate blind couture drawings. The flashlight was used to draw animals, in particularly horses which lead to looking at the role they played in art history. She began to incorporate horses from historical representation in art work creating images that referenced such poses but completely removed all contexts in which they were first conceived. You are left as a viewer with the image of a horse but rather nothing to link its origin or history. Alison soon found that by flooding the image of the horse with light she was able to achieve a more even blending of tonality. This allowed the image to have more depth and contrast between the light and dark tones. This constant experimentation leads Alison to her most recent study and focus for her current work.

            The photography as Alison quotes “peaked in the early nineteen seventies” this was a time when many types and formats of printing paper were available. Today with the insurgence of the digital format many if not all of these once plentiful varieties of printing paper are just not available today. Thanks to ability of the Internet and its ability to connect people from all around the world, Alison has made it her personal mission to seek out and collect fragments and sometimes full boxes of discontinued and expired printing paper. The work that I found most interesting was when Alison was able to expose various sheets of this expired paper to light and discovered different sets of finger prints. Sometimes these exposures could be traced back to dates as early as nineteen nineteen. This ability as an artist to bridge the past and the present with a single visual experience is what I find most successful in her work. The mark of the artist intrigues Alison and she explains “I enjoy this sense of connection with the past.”

            Finally, during this contemporary time in the history of photography Alison is looking to the past in an attempt to bring a new context to a medium that has gone through many periods of change. Creating successful works of art in Alison's mind, she states is “creating no boundary or rules when dealing with photography, you never know what you are going to find and I can’t help but be interested in this idea of photo conversation.” For anyone who is interested in contemporary photography I would highly recommend her work, and she is a great example of an artist today constantly pushing the boundaries within her field and the use of her medium.

Video Art

                Garrett Long spoke at the University of Lethbridge’s Art Now Series on November seventeenth. Garrett is a video artist who has been exhibited around the world, most recently having his work shown in England. First attending the University of Toronto he found himself  “falling into art by accident” He attributes this to the institutions strong interdisciplinary practice offered during the course of his studies. He admits “My intent was never to become the artist in the family… but was constantly surrounded by technology growing up.” His early work was first inspired by taking a sculpture class and attempting to combine video and sculpture together harmoniously. These successes lead him to exhibit around various Toronto locations and he began to focus on video’s place within the art market. Specifically how something so disruptive and infinitely reproducible could be manifested into an art object. Early works consisted of a video flip book that focused on this idea of translation between the medium and the viewer. Garrett soon found himself focused on this places where the translation would fail and break down, rather than the success of making a good translation.

These experiments soon lead him to begin to work with ventricular images. Taking various clips and images of video experiences he was able to interact with the viewer forcing them to become part of the piece. As Garrett explains “I particularly enjoy the ventricular experience as audio and everything important in these frames takes place outside frame. It’s recognizable but you still don’t seem to know what’s going on.” He admits that he is constantly struggling in these works “Am I giving enough information, is the physical moment enough to create the moment?” Continuing his idea of turning video into a physical object he sought out a printer that would translate and render video frames into three-dimensional plaster models.  He used a very graphic and disturbing video of hunters attempting to kill a lion only to have the lion turn on the hunter’s before being shoot. I found this clip very graphic and self-descriptive, and even when shown the very obscure patterns within the object that were produced; it was still hard to disassociate my original feelings from the video clip. Garrett enjoys how the video moment is encapsulated in a sort of artifact and how that translation is interrupted by turning video into a physical object. Further interested in video that on the exterior may seem disturbing but to Garrett hold a sense of beauty and visual interested he focused on the challenger disaster. Documenting a moment in time is not new in the world of art. Rather Garrett presents the video images using ventricular images allowing the viewer to control their own experience within the work.  I find this process of using ventricular images very interesting because it seems with his work the images cannot exist without the viewers as a key element. 

This constant interaction with the viewer allows the work to be experienced and controlled  in a unique way by each person that cannot be duplicated of reproduced, such as video inherently can be. I find it interesting how Garrett removes certain aspects of video such as audio and allows the viewer to inject their own interpretations within the piece. I would recommend exploring the work of Garrett Long for anybody who is interested in video and the many ways it can be presented within the gallery space and society. His work challenges our perceptions and takes something that for a long time only existed in space and time and transcends it into objects that seem to bridge the gap of translation.

Sara Barr

A familiar face graced the stage of the Lethbridge University’s art now series. Sara Barr is a recent graduate of the Fine Arts department in two thousand seven, and is now currently attending Concordia University pursuing an MFA. Sara’s work predominantly focuses on books as a material object, interested in the gestural quality as well as the process of specifically attempting to understand the notion of reading. She elaborates in saying “text has sort of a sensual and ambiguous environment.” She explains during her undergraduate study “I am interested in deconstruction books specifically literature that deals with women and the ones who experience the text.” An example of this was a piece she did in the niche gallery that consisted of reading a page of text and then gluing the individual words together. The final work attempts to express this sense of tying them together giving the small pieces a sense of volume within the space.

                Currently during her study at Concordia Sara has found an interest in collecting books. Her process and collection has become an aspect of her work.  She is still interested in the deconstructing of the physical book and in a work she showed during her talk affirmed this idea. She explains “I am interested in the book as an object, engaging with the book. I created a jacket consisting of pages of the book, my attempt at embodying the text.” I found this interpretation of the book very clever and quit interesting in a metaphorical sense. Exploring the notion that one can absorb literature in other ways other than reading is very unique way of interpreting the medium. Continuing this study of multiple interpretation of literature Sara showed a short video clip of her taking a bath with a book. This again I found very interesting as the medium seemed to be transformed into a more organic form. I found the text becoming more of a background, and the sounds and hand gestures becoming more of my focus.  Sara elaborates “Bathing with the book the water acts as a space of transition giving the book a sense of play the book fills up and groans”

                Sara will be exhibiting at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery here in Lethbridge staring on November twentieth. I was fortunate to speak with Sara following her lecture and she is very excited and encourages anyone who is interested in her work to attend the opening. The work that will be showing is an audio piece which Sara states “I find the idea of presenting a strictly audio piece very interesting and how through viewer engages with the work fascinating.” I enjoyed seeing an artist in the similar position as myself pursuing her passion and achieving success within the artistic community.

Lynne Cohen

         Lynne Cohen’s work was the subject of discussion at the most recent Art Now Lecture featured at the University of Lethbridge. Her work is predominantly photo based, but she did allude to having some formal training in sculpture possibly as an undergraduate level. Cohen enjoys capturing scenes which are sometimes simple and mysterious. Her ability to seek out such scenarios and frame them through her lens is quite remarkable and intriguing. She began her career with simple experiments using the contact print, but rather found the small nature of the size limiting. During the mid-eighties  Lynne began to enlarge the size of her images allowing the viewer greater access into her work. An aspect of Lynne’s work I found particularly interesting as she explains “I enjoy hanging the work low in the gallery space, again allowing the viewer greater access to the work. And I particularly don’t enjoy how galleries use the same frame for all photographic work.” This attention to detail and constant negotiation with space and display elevates her images beyond the print. This increased access into the scene allows the viewer to feel inherently connected to the work. Her work during this period was consistently black and white, and as Lynne confirms “the colour of the frame dictated the colour of the space within the image.”

                Lynne admits this fascination with space and affirms “I am interested in what the space offers, how close I can get to the object. I am fascinated with the presence of light and where light is coming from. Also how objects look like instruments of control.” Her work became about exploring these site specific locations and she admits that such resources as the yellow pages were a treasure trove of undocumented locations ripe for the picking. Often getting access to these places became sort of a cat and mouse game. Some access was as easy as just asking for permission, while others were meet with harsh non reproduction limitations for what Lynne thought at the time was frivolous and irrational. Her interest in rendering people’s living spaces allowed her to make art that was neither social, political. Lynne explains I am attempting to explore the real world, create a document in my head that attempts to draw a sense of correlation of all these things”

                Lynne’s work seems to consistently be asking the question as she expands “is there a story waiting to be told, and what that story is?” This constant push for exploration has allowed Lynne images to bridge multiple generations while still holding relevance and provoking critical thinking among the art community. I would recommend anybody who is interested in photography to explore the work of Lynne Cohen. Her exploration of the formal relationships that exist within space give new meaning and challenge our relationships we have with spaces both natural and industrial.

Allison Mc Taggart

Allison McTaggart’s work is currently being featured at the University of Lethbridge's Gallery. This show is running into January and is an excellent chance to see some contemporary sculpture as well as drawings and various writings. Based out of Vancouver Alison has received various awards including grants from the British Columbia Arts Council, and spends some time teaching at the university level. The force of her practice is primarily conceptual and idea based, creating objects that consist of a fusion of industrial forms as well using found objects. Her early work as an undergraduate in the late ninety’s is an exploration of projectile throwing devises. As Allison explains “I am very interested in the notion of projection specifically metaphorically also our ability of projecting ones voice and the implications that arise from it.” One of her early work deals with impressions that one of these devises would make if used to project objects. A large plaster wall was created to capture impressions and explore their possibilities. She points out “I enjoy the poetic quality of the impression” You find yourself as a viewer drawn to the mark of the object and experiencing a unique visual impression not fully understanding the context in which the impression was made. This uncertainty allows you to internalize the form in a completely different way from its physical purpose.

This interest in the impressions derived from the spoken work inspired the work in two thousand and two of the egg throwing apparatus. Allison was very fascinated with the idea of our ability to project speech and the effects it has on people. Allison explains “I am interested in the activity of speaking and how it can hurt somebody, how it could hurt somebody calling somebody names. Also what this impact would look like and how it would feel.” This process was documented with a series of egg drawings that were exhibited alongside her egg throwing apparatus. Her exploration of the effects of language I find very interesting as she creates  visual objects based on an experience and the feelings that are derived from it.

                Her current work has lead Allison to create objects that are more interactive in hopes of creating a dialog between the object and the viewer. Looking at forms that are constructed with a specific purpose such as patents she finds inspiration for her current works.  The tuning fork seems to resonate with Allison as the ability of this object to reverberate language from one person to another. Allison confirms “this objects has the ability to create a dialog with the viewer and the work of art. The viewer becomes the work.” She likes this idea of objects that could follow language and exploit this back and forth between the viewer and the object. Also in this series of recent works a group of two dimensional drawing breaking down the forms and exposing the process in which they were created.  As Allison confirms “the drawings make reference to the parts of the object and explain how the object could be potentially used.” As a viewer you find yourself feeling very tempted, being allowed into the process makes you feel as if you are part of the art work.  The drawings also as Allison explains “act as instructional tools giving you the opportunity to accept or reject the art work” I really enjoy this aspect of her work as she creates objects that are presented as forms with what seems a specific purpose. However with further investigation these forms seem to embody multiple meaning and challenge my perceptions and assumptions I have with form.

                I would recommend taking some time to experience Allison’s work within the gallery space. Her forms embody many characteristics such as novelty, integrity and utility. Her lecture was an interesting discussion and she presented her unique take on form in today’s contemporary art world