#salon44to

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Salon 44 Selections from Jocelyn Reynolds, G44 committee member

Looking at Ruth Kaplan's Hot Spring, Italy instantly transports me.  All of a sudden I'm reimmersed in that time when our towels cloaked our tiny bodies entirely, shielding our fragile, shivering shapes from the unforgiving world above the water.  There was a whole other world underneath that towel, cozy and secret.

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Salon 44 Selections from Robyn York, G44 staff member

One of my favourite parts of laying out a group exhibition like Salon 44 is unwrapping an artwork that makes you wonder which way is up? Practically speaking—pretty essential for hanging a show, but on a less superficial level, something that used to be much more common when looking at paintings, and now something shared between many of the photo and lens-based pieces I have selected from *many* favourites in Salon 44. 

I could go all the way back to trips to the eye doctor as a toddler, where my opthamologist would show me pictures of nearly identical dogs through the phoropter and ask which one was upside down, and which one was blurry—but this is supposed to stay under 500 words...

Robert Bean's work, Etude (for Marconi) #5, which was recently exhibited at Beaverbrook Art Gallery, tackles communication, disorientation and divination in a way that only an artist-writer-educator who has looked at hundreds of thousands of artworks can. I love a piece that makes me simultaneously think about being a kid, staring at clouds from underneath the power lines at the cottage, and being an adult who worries about things like buzzing from the same power lines and windmill noise pollution. Bean’s full series is available from Circuit Gallery, and includes an artist statement that makes me want to backspace backspace backspace.

Sarah Sands Phillips, recent Proof alumni, Untitled No. 12 (Photographs of Canada) is from a series of some of my favourite manipulated found photographs. How tricky, to take something as archetypal and unwavering as a textbook photograph of Canadian landscape and make it your own, through removal and considerate orientation shifting. 

One of the few snow scenes in Salon 44′s sunny offering, is Avalanche, Sigerfjord Norway by Kristie MacDonald, from her series Mechanisms for Correcting the Past, shown at Gallery 44 in 2014. This installation featured a mechanical table that lifted a projector in order to correct the horizon line in an archival photograph of a house collapsing into flooded land. MacDonald’s perspective shift is mesmerizing, and along with careful printing and deliberate framing, crushes any debate about authorship, ownership and the archive.

Chris Shepherd has one of the most interesting, evolving practices I have seen. If you don’t follow his blog, add a bookmark now. His three views onto Lake Huron make me miss the summer, or maybe I miss the seasons that are a bit more nuanced in tone between overcast white and minus 30 C blazing blue. Read his thoughts on circles and the horizon line. You’ll be hooked.

Robert Bean, Etude (for Marconi) #5, 2014, 44″x32″, $2500 framed

Sarah Sands Philips, Untitled No. 12 (Photographs of Canada), 2015, Manipulated Found Photographic Print on Paper, 38x30cm, $1000 framed

Kristie MacDonald, Avalanche, Sigerfjord Norway, 2013, Digital Print, 12″x12″, Edition: 1/5, $650 framed, $550 unframed

Chris Shepherd, Huron 180 Degrees, 2015, C-Print, 12″x12″, Edition: 1/7, $200

Chris Shepherd, Huron 230 Degrees, 2015, C-Print, 12″x12″, Edition: 1/7, $200

Chris Shepherd, Huron 45 Degrees, 2015, C-Print, 12″x12″, Edition: 1/7, $200

These artworks and others are available for sale at Salon 44 - A fundraiser for Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography, 401 Richmond St W, Suite 120, Toronto, ON March 4-20, 2016 Opening Friday March 4, 6-10 PM

gallery44.org/salon44

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Salon 44 Selections from Noa Bronstein, G44 staff member

There are so many incredible images included in this year’s Salon 44. I have been completely absorbed in Kotama Bouabane, Sam Cotter and Zile Liepins’ images that speak to ‘place’ in very compelling and different ways. Sam Cotter’s On Location (Improvised Ground 2) is from a larger series that looks at the ways the film industry temporarily reconfigures the fabric of the city, something that we are acutely familiar with in Toronto but sometimes oblivious to. It’s an intriguing reminder of how often Toronto is asked to stand-in for other sites and the mutability of our cityscapes. Zile Liepins’ image Balcony is also from a larger series in which she examines the everyday in the current, yet transitory political realities of Latvia, a country emerging from the remnants of the Soviet Union and adapting to a new European identity. Kotama Bouabane’s Sunset Strip, which was taken on a road trip to Las Vegas, similarly engages with place through the uncanny layering of representations of nature. Something we will be hearing much more about in Kotama’s upcoming CONTACT exhibition at G44!  

Sam Cotter, On Location (Improvised Ground 2), 2015, 8″x10″, Edition: 1/5, $300 framed, $275 unframed

Zile Liepins, Balcony, 2015, 20″ x 30″

Kotama Bouabane, Sunset Strip, 2015, 12"x8”, Edition: 1/3, $500

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Hanging the final pieces for Salon 44. The show opens the evening of March 4th!

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Salon 44 Selections from Cristian Ordóñez, G44 committee member

When you look at the work of Ali Bosworth, you perceive his curious acute eye and natural point of view. His photographs allow the viewer to discover hidden elements of common situations communicating a sense of tranquillity and often nostalgic tones that are balanced by natural and intimate moments of his relationships. Each one of his photographs takes you to a place that seems familiar and approachable. His work “Untitled (Sinéad, lined rocks)” brings together these abilities to create compositions where subject matter, tones and textures construct an harmonic atmosphere. The blue tones created by the water in the rocks are playfully synchronized with the tones and lines of Sinéad’s dress while she rests. A magical moment and connection that seems to expand from her body into the water, a perfect visual metaphor that is perceived in this relationship with the ocean.

This work and many more are available for sale at Salon 44 - A fundraiser for Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography, 401 Richmond St W, Suite 120, Toronto, ON March 4-20, 2016 Opening Friday March 4, 6-10 PM

gallery44.org/salon44

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Salon 44 Selections from Christina Papantoniou, G44 committee member

In reviewing the entries to be included in this year’s Salon 44 fundraiser the work of Toronto-based Christine Lucy Latimer immediately stood out to me. In Strike (2013) a small flame from a lit match is repeated like an echo, paired alongside Super 8 Sun Beam (2015) where a ray of blue, copper and white toned circles cut diagonally across a soft, forgettable landscape.

Utilizing light as the central subject both works offer a safe, weathered familiarity, stirring a warm memory from within the viewer and winning us over. They also share a tactile quality, which I love in contemporary image making. Whether it is the painterly adhesive-laden edges of Strike, or the soothing push-pull of Super 8 Sun Beam’s subtle loop both effectively play with the passage of time.

Similarly, Christopher Karsarov’s Greenhouse #1 also draws our attention to the subject of light but this time from a darkened, almost science fiction enchanted landscape.  A vibrant fuchsia glows fervently behind the black cutouts of glassed in structures and trees, dulling the edges and filling the negative space with an otherworldly glow. Unlike Latimer’s works, Karsarov’s light holds menace, pulsating in an almost inhuman way leaving the viewer in a trance-like state. I can’t help but feel a discomfort equal to the need for discovery as my mind tries to decipher where exactly that neon haze is coming from.

Works are available for sale at Salon 44 - A fundraiser for Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography, 401 Richmond St W, Suite 120, Toronto, ON March 4-20, 2016 Opening Friday March 4, 6-10 PM

gallery44.org/salon44 

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Salon 44 Selections from Christopher Lacroix, G44 committee member

Justin Somjen, So Sculptural, 2015, 13″x19″, $450

I've been a fan of Somjen's since he was an undergrad student at Ryerson University where developed a sensibility and approach to image making entirely his own. His practice seamlessly moves between photography, sculpture, and installation; the aptly titled So Sculptural encapsulates this by subtly challenging the ways in which we understand and perceive depth and light in a photograph.

Alexa Phillips, Spectators, 2015, 6″x10.5″, Edition: 2/5 What are these spectators looking at? A bird? A plane? Themselves? While this work is certainly a critique of how much of our experiences are mitigated through screens--largely by choice--I like to see these 3D prints as tiny monuments for the early 21st century zeitgeist.

These works and others are available for sale at Salon 44 - A fundraiser for Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography, 401 Richmond St W, Suite 120, Toronto, ON March 4-20, 2016 Opening Friday March 4, 6-10 PM

gallery44.org/salon44

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Salon 44 Selections from soJin Chun, G44 staff member

The role of art, beyond its aesthetic quality, is in its ability to show a new perspective or allow audiences to consider a new idea.   Artists have the ability to bring an idea into an image allowing narratives to emerge from the simplest details or objects.  For that reason, I am really drawn to Erika DeFreitas’ photograph from These Textile Works series.  A piece of fabric can open a world of narratives through the act of carefully folding and arranging it within a blank white space.  

This artwork is available for sale at Salon 44 - A fundraiser for Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography, 401 Richmond St W, Suite 120, Toronto, ON March 4-20, 2016 Opening Friday March 4, 6-10 PM

gallery44.org/salon44