CAPTURE PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL APRIL 2016
MARCH 12 — APRIL 9
MARCH 12 — APRIL 23
MARCH 17 — APRIL 9
FUGAZI
THE MOON AND OTHER MYTHS
SPECTRES OF DESIRE
Evan Lee
Ryan Peter
Karen Zalamea
OPENING RECEPTION
CURATED BY
SATURDAY, MARCH 12, 2–4 PM Monte Clark Gallery 105–525 Great Northern Way Vancouver BC
Pantea Haghighi
Fugazi consists of visually stunning 5 x 5 ft prints created from digital scans of cubic zirconia, relatively inexpensive but highquality imitations of diamonds (“fugazi” is a slang term used in mafia films for counterfeit diamonds). The images are captured at a high level of detail and enlarged 15,000 percent to a scale that renders the gems’ internal appearance mesmerizingly random, distorted, and fractured, while the effects of digital image loss and artifacting emerge to aid in their visual transformation. The patterns and reflected colours appear kaleidoscopic and at times groundless, an aesthetic that Lee manipulates further by constructing geometric backgrounds in response to the resulting visual space. Lee’s project reflects on his earlier works, such as the Dollar Store Still Life series (2006), which also examines the economic and cultural values of fake and artificial consumer goods. Fugazi also continues Lee’s take on representations of psychedelia, illusion, and optics, as explored in such earlier works as Every Part from a Contaflex Camera . . . (2006) and the Stain (2003) and Phoropter (2012) series. Lee’s practice has always been positioned both alongside and against the grain of photography, and Fugazi continues the artist’s image production in the avant-garde reaches of the post-photographic or camera-less digital realm.
Franc Gallery 1654 Franklin St Vancouver BC
OPENING RECEPTION
SATURDAY, MARCH 12, 2–4 PM Republic Gallery 732 Richards St (Third Floor) Vancouver BC For his fourth solo exhibition with Republic Gallery, Ryan Peter presents a group of new photo-based works. An extension of his Autogram series, The Moon and Other Myths includes a selection of large-scale unique silver gelatin prints. Along with more traditional darkroom processes such as dodging and burning, the works are made by collaging and contact printing “textures” that consist of acrylic paints on translucent polyester and polypropylene films—plastic on plastic.
Developed through the lens of many disciplines, Karen Zalamea’s process involves image making through handson material engagement. As exhibited in Spectres of Desire, Zalamea creates light forms as photographic subject matter. These images demonstrate the direct relationship between lens, light, and subject and function as evidentiary threads of process. The resultant works combine the unhurried nature of large-format analogue photography and the immediacy of light and its spectral potential.
This uneasy union between synthetic materials produces uncannily natural results: fractal forms that evoke numerous phenomena, from rock formations to wood panelling. In this way, the works present a temporal excavation, resuscitating the organic ancestries of these petroleum products and, in doing so, conjure Georges Bataille’s concept of the ghost as “the perfect heterogeneous space, between life and death.” These allusions to the distant past—and the prehistoric life forms whose deaths have fuelled the future—are complicated by references to more recent imaging technology, such as Photoshopped drop shadows. The exhibition additionally includes new cyanotype prints on canvas, furthering the artist’s investigation into the relationship between painting and photography.
opposite page RYAN PETER UNTITLED (AUTOGRAM), 2015 CYANOTYPE ON UNIQUE GELATIN SILVER PRINT 16” x 20”