These images are a work in progress. The garden represented is inherited but appears to have been created by a passionate gardener. Circumstance has left the previously manicured gardens to grow unattended for several seasons. The fleeting beauty of a tangled rose garden, the contrast between the delicate roses and the thorny vines, and the vibrant colors and the decay, serve as an invitation to reflect on the fragility of life.
Portals
Multiple perspectives achieved by photographing reflections in a found mirror serve as a metaphor for living at the intersection of multiple cultures. Understanding the world around us is multi-faceted, defined by our individualities. Portals present the reality of a geographic place from multiple points of view simultaneously in much the same way as cultural intersectionality. The images reflect multiple understandings that can coexist in a disparate environment concurrently.
Water’s Edge
Dream Sequence
Dream Sequence is a small series of six self-portraits produced in 1992. In this work I paired an image of myself with night-time images of vacant streets in Montreal, Quebec, and Kiev creating a quiet visual metaphor for the state of dreaming in the landscape of both individual and social environments.
Bed Series
These images were made in 1989 during a residency at the Banff Centre for Fine Arts. They are a series of sketches which explore tonality and texture, the contrast between the human body and the sculptural form of the industrially laundered sheets.
Portraits
Throughout my creative practice I have been engaged in the exploration of portrait photography. My interest lies in the investigation of the complexities of personal relationships, the constructions and contradictions of identity, and the intricacies of community.
Portraits of the West
In the summer of 2009 curiosity and the company of good friends, took me to two small rodeos in Alberta and southern Saskatchewan. I set up a studio with lighting and a backdrop in the beer garden at both venues and offered to take formal portraits of all interested individuals. The Wood Mountain Stampede, located in southern Saskatchewan provided the lions’ share of the portraits subject material represented in this collection.
In the summer of 2010 I returned to the Wood Mountain Stampede and used the same process to take more portraits of the rodeo participants. The Wood Mountain Stampede is the oldest running small rodeo in Canada with over 120 years of history. Wood Mountain’s history is rich. The town of Wood Mountain was settled by Métis families in the 1870s after the failure of the Red River Rebellion. Sitting Bull and as many as 5000 of his followers took refuge in Wood Mountain, Saskatchewan after the Battle of The Little Bighorn in 1876. Many of the people of Wood Mountain and the surrounding area today claim heritage to this history.
I have spent most of my life living and working in Winnipeg, Manitoba. I love my home. The openness of the landscape seems to inform the sensibilities of the prairie people. In many ways the subjects of these photographs are much like the prairie landscape itself. At a glance, cowboys look the same. Their difference, like the prairie, lies in the nuance. Their strength lies in their ability not to tame the wildness of the land but rather to have formed a symbiotic relationship with the prairie.
Portrait of a Neighbourhood
For many years I lived in the West Broadway neighbourhood of Winnipeg. During this time West Broadway was garnering a reputation in the local media as ‘Murders Half Acre’ owing to violence attributed to youth gangs.
To address my mounting discomfort I undertook a two-year photography project to get to know the youth in the neighbourhood through portraiture. The resulting images “look at representation of youth, notions of civic pride, and social stereotyping” ( Reid, 2009).
Landscapes
Since 2000 I have photographed the prairie landscape. These works began as both an exercise in colour and composition (my practice was almost exclusively black and white) and as an exploration of my physical place. The landscape ‘portraits’ have become autobiographical as I revisit familiar places. Although a place or location is known, seasons and years have marked their change.