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Held at Gallery Lambton
August 27 to October 1, 2005
ISBN 1-896636-20-9
The painting and collage you see below is a historical portrait of photography. The authentic photos used for kitsch are from the 1850's to the 1960's. That is why the daguerreotype gets the penthouse and then Ambrotype and Ferrotype and so on.
"Daguerreotype City was never the same when the others appeared"
36'' x 54'' 2005
acrylic on canvas with antique found objects
Close up
Detail of the third floor.
Detail of the fifth floor.
Detail of 1853 Little Gem Tin Type (Size of postage stamp)
WHY COLLECT OLD PHOTOS?
" Photos for $1.00 selling mysterious and beautiful unknown strangers, frozen in a past of forgotten memories, sharing their untold stories in the present.
An antique photograph is a found object with an image of silver particles on glass, tin, and paper, thus turned into memory images discarded by people unknown. Some of the found objects have writing and information where some do not. The scribbles on the backs are like riddles, titles for the lost forgotten face now remembered by a future stranger, inspired!.
These "human memory cards" played from the deck of Life is sacred history inside family circles until a generation comes along throwing these heirlooms into an ocean of yard sales.
Others wash up as bric-a-brac on junk collectors shelves to be recycled by me, the Artist, incorporating the canvas into "The Rest of the Story". Photos were made for social reasons,
a remembering that was portable and wondrous to the eyes of the generation that dawned photography.
Star Mother Stories by Firelight
10'' x 12'' 2005
Antique Photo with India Ink and Acrylic
Now in a private collection
Mothers and Fathers Write on Our Chalk Boards of Who We Are
10'' x 14'' 2005
Antique Photo with Archival colored India Ink
Back Side
"Deer Mother: We're all fine and we've made five bucks out here in the British Columbian Frontier.Love Your Daughter; Jane Doe"
8'' X 10'' 2000
Antique Photo with India Ink
WHY RENDER OLD PHOTOS?
This exhibit is a collaborate effort involving the handwork of a photographer from the past, with my signature today. As an artist, I recognize the labour of another Artist capturing the essence of history while honouring the photographer's traditional printing methods in the creation of each image. I see artistic potential incorporating themes and serendipity while weaving "our past' and "their future" into a visual relationship asking, "Can you imagine?"
The found object photograph somehow comes to the truthful unartistic closeness to trueth for the one that pressed the shutter button. Someone from the past freezing with a archaic camera, a moment from getting old. They become snapshots as social anonymous memoirs, snapshots as social memory.
As artists and writers, as hoarders and exploiters of snap shot imagery, who are inspired by discovering meaning within lost and abandoned, overlooked objects. That searching and experimentation for a new raw material. I personally cherish the memories of what the past represents, as well as what a Century Old Smile of happiness really looked like!
Yeah Yeah Baby, thats right, I'm a Sagittarius...the most philosophical of all the signs
12'' x 16'' 2000
Antique Photo with India Ink
Now in a private collection
Tribal Princess
8'' x 10'' 2004
Antique Photo with India Ink and Acrylic
Backside
Our Night Outside
6'' x 6'' 2004
Antique Photo with India Ink and Acrylic
Backside
There exists others on this planet that explore the anonymous concept such as Micheal Blagsden, Norm Barney, Micheal Wilson, Norman Kulkin.
A traditional expressionistic photographer (Cairenn L.A. Russelo) will speak now on The "Photo-Again" Collection.
Rotate back time's hands to an era when photography was non-expressive and struggling to earn a place beside traditional art forms. The Photo-Secession movement, pioneered by photographer Alfred Stieglitz in 1901, introduced the photo print medium as an articulate epoch in the art world. In 1754, the English author Horace Walpole inducted the expression "Serendipity" as diction. artist Jon-Erik Kroon, in 2005, asks the question, "Could the past ever have imagined our future?" in his exhibit collaborating non-expressive photography with serendipitous renderings expressing "Life Then and Life Now".
Suggestive Subconscious Future
7'' x 9'' 2004
Antique Photo with India Ink and Acrylic
The photo alone asks...who are these people? What are their stories? Where are they now? Why were they photographed? When were they photographed? How did they envision the future?
Guardian of Lost Knowledge
8'' x 10'' 2004
Antique Photo with India Ink, Acrylic,and Gold Leaf
The Photo rendered asks... Whose birthday is it anyway? What came first, the chicken or the egg? Where did the Carpet Bagger Crain take the Mushroom Queen's Baby? Why are we genetically growing people? When did our children's toyz become so violent? how do we get to Jasper Park to see the U.F.O's?....and who the heck is Star Child?
Mother Cozmos and the Star Child
6'' x 8'' 2004
Antique with India Ink and Acrylic
Note: Now in a permanent private collection
Back side
The Artist begins his journey with a traditional photographic portrait as a mini canvas. using his mind's eye, he ventures through visible and invisible shadows creating metaphors of what is and what isn't already there.
A Beautiful Stranger
10'' x 12'' 2000
Antique Photo with India Ink
"I start by asking questions. who are you? Where did you come from?I study the overall condition of care the picture traveled to reach me here on this path. I ponder the photographer's presentation through use of technique, tone, props, back-drops, mood, posture, and attitude. Every set of eyes has a certain direction and reflection within. What are these eyes saying?(Look at the harsh glare of a stone cold heart perceived in "The Grintch of the 1800's," reflects this questioning)".
The Invisible Friend
9'' x 11'' 2004
Antique photo with India Ink
now in a private collection
"A vignette background exhibits an angelic aura to a young face. A hand appears to be holding something. A fur blanket with folds that appear to resemble the spirit of an animal. Hair in the shape of a bird. There is natural serendipity within a natural fold of a skirt". (Distinctive in "The Invisible Friend").
Look Mommy I Built Us A Bomb
9'' x 12'' 2004
Antique Photo with India Ink and Acrylic
3 Halo Savior Child
8'' x 10'' 2004
Antique Photo with India Ink and Acrylic
" I reinterpret a life trapped within each character captured in the photograph. Images identified with names form an intimacy between the subject and myself . Yet at the same moment there is an intimacy between myself and the photographer."
The American Man
8'' X 10'' 2004
Antique Photo with India Ink and Acrylic
" I spend hours, sometimes days, within each image before recreating something else from the bones of another creation."
Annie Blackburn, Queen of the Hawk Women
8'' x 10'' 2004
Antique Photo with India Ink and Acrylic
These photos derive from a vision of life, once simple, yet conform into a portrait of complex existence stirring anxieties of reality within us. Do we chuckle at the shadows of our past? Or are we shying away from illumination of their future? We ponder the loneliness in the non-smiling portraits of strangers while the artist's interpreted truth bewilders our conscious emotions.
Who's Birthday is it?
9''x12'' 2002
Antique Photo with oils
Were these unknown individuals to view these renderings in their era, these prophecies would interpret as realism representing surrealism. As viewers in today's awareness, we understand these theories as realism representing realism.
Yo Yo Baby
11'' x 14'' 2000
Antique Photo with acrylic and India ink
Note: Now in a permanent private collection
We wonder.....what serendipitous future haunts the negative spaces within our generation of photographic keepsakes?
Could the women of the Past Ever Imagined a World of Vertual Sex?
8'' x 10'' 2000
Antique Photo with magazine collage
Note: now in a permanent private collection
A Curious Occurrence
11'' x 14'' 2000
Antique Photo with India Ink
Toys for children
11''x13'' 2002
Antique Photo with India ink and Collage
Charmion Estella Slatter
8''x10'' 2003
Antique Photo with India Ink and Acrylic
Artists Note: This name was scribbled on the back
Village Beauties Then and Now
11''x14'' 2000
Antique Art Card with India Ink and pencil Crayon
The Legend
10''x14'' 2000
Antique photo with India Ink
One Eyed Photographer
5''x7'' 2001
Antique Photo with India Ink
Rosita's Serendipity
9''x12'' 2000
Antique Photo with India Ink
She Always Wanted to be in a Picasso
5'' x 7'' 2001
Antique Photo with India Ink and Acrylic
Note: Now in a permanent private collection
Our Future
5''x7'' 2000
Antique photo with India Ink and Silver metallic paint.
Olive's Gift
8''x10'' 2000
Antique Photo with India Ink and Acrylic
Artist's Note: This was the name scribbled on the back
Ollie and Mimi are Looking Hot
11''x14'' 2003
Antique Photo with India Ink and Acrylic
Artist Note: These names were scribbled on the front.
Note: Now in a permanent private collection
The Mushroom Child Will Dream the Arithmetic of Trees
8''x10"" 2003
Antique Photo with India Ink and Acrylic
Mr. God
4''x6'' 2001
20th century photograph with stamp,scratched vocabulary
Miss Bertha Good
8''x10'' 2002
Antique Photo with India Ink
Artist's Note: This was the name scribbled on the back
Now in a private collection
Mickey Mouse Club
5''x7'' 2000
Antique Photo with India Ink
Lots of Luck Betty
5''x7'' 2000
Antique photo with India Ink and Acrylic
Artist's Note: "lots of luck " was already written on
Johny Unkown
8''x10'' 2000
Antique photo with India Ink
Jasper Park Lodge
5''x10'' 2000
Antique Photo with India Ink
Take a trip
4'' x 8''
20th Century Photograph with Gold and Black Ink
Hey Teach
8''x10'' 2001
Antique Photo with India Ink
Grandmothers of Heart and Soul
5''x7'' 2000
Antique Photo with India Ink
Note: Now in a permanent private collection
The Grinch
5''x7'' 2001
Antique Photo with India Ink and Acrylic
Greetings Agnes
4''x6'' Oval 2001
Antique Tin Type with India Ink
Genetically Grown People Some Day
8''x10'' 2000
Antique Photo with India Ink
Note: Now in a permanent private collection
The General "Rocky Mountain Way"
5''x10'' 2000
Photo with India Ink
Keepers of the Fire Fly Drum
14'' x 18'' 2002
Antique Photo with India Ink and Acrylic
False Face
5'' x 7'' 2001
Antique Photo with India Ink
Eskimo Chief "Reflection in Hand"
5'' x 10'' 2000
Antique Photo with India Ink
Enemies
6'' x 7'' 2000
Antique Photo with India Ink
Dearest
8'' x 10'' 2000
Antique Photo with India Ink
Note: Now in a permanent private collection
Dear Diary
5'' x 7'' 2001
Antique Tin Type with India Ink
Mr. Clyde Hamiline
8'' x 10'' 2001
Antique Photo with India Ink
Artist's Note: This was the Name scribbled on the Back
Note: Now in a permanent private collection
The Original Expressionist
6'' x 8'' 2000
Antique Photo with India Ink and Acrylic
Chicken or the Egg
5'' x 7'' 2000
Antique Photo with India Ink and Acrylic
The Mushroom Queen's Baby
8'' x 10'' 2001
Antique Photo with India Ink
Note: Now in a permanent private collection
The Bull frog Brothers
10'' x 14'' 2003
Antique Photo with India Ink and Acrylic
Deer Family
5'' x 7'' 2001
Antique Photo with India Ink
Note: Now in a permanent private collection
American Big Foot Family
5'' x 7'' 2002
Antique Photo with India Ink
Mr. Adolfus Hicks at his own New Years Party
6'' x 9'' 2001
Antique Photo with India Ink
3 Virtue Muses
5'' x 7'' 2000
Antique Photo with India Ink and Pencil
1 comment:
Interesting Idea to take very old photos and make them into something New!
I have seen your Show in Sarnia, Ontario, when it was on display at the Art Gallery. I wish, they would have purchased the Show for their collection, because I think this is a first of any one to think of preserving old photos, although they have been altered - into a new demention.
Nice job!
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