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Paul Lambert - My Backyard

2/17/2018

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​“The value of a picture is not proportionate to the trouble and expense it costs to obtain it, but the poetry it contains.”  Peter Henry Emerson (1856–1936)
 
I use my camera as a means of visual expression to explore my feelings about places, people, and experiences. Inspired by texture, geometry, and light, I strive to make images that portray the ordinary in a way that serves up something new to the viewer.
In the end, representing reality isn’t important to me. I’m not a photojournalist. I consider the raw image a starting point; a digital canvas to be manipulated into something that reveals how I feel about the image, rather than what I literally saw.
“My Backyard” expresses my feelings about London, ON, a city I’ve lived in all but four years of my life. Familiarity breeds contempt, and after living here for so many years, the city often feels dull and uninspired to me. This collection of black and white photographs depicts familiar places with a sense of emptiness I frequently feel about London, but in a way that makes them seem more intriguing. ​
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Rob Nelson - My Backyard

2/17/2018

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​In the darkroom since the age of eight, Rob Nelson is a second generation photographer. His work has appeared in Saturday Night, The Look, Elm Street, Interview, and the business magazines for both National Post and The Globe & Mail. With subjects such as Prince Andrew, Kirsten Dunst, Karen Kain, and Margaret Atwood, Nelson has not only captured memorable names and faces, but he has also helped introduce notable newcomers such as musician Basia Bulat. 
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Derek Boswell - My Backyard

2/17/2018

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I’ve always lived in the quintessential Canadian city; London, Ontario: A place too small to reliably be on everyone’s map, yet too large – and lacking any outward character or charm – to be an inviting location. I’m yet to hear of someone who treats this city as anything but a stopover on their vacation. In contrast to those sophisticated international cities we have reverence for, London, Ontario lack an overt incentive to come visit. Yet, as someone who has spent their entire life here, I’ve come to find that aesthetic pleasure isn’t nonexistent in London – it’s just a bit harder to find.
In many respects, a backyard is a space for exploration. The Sifton Bog and the local suburbs were a condensed version of the world that I investigated with my sense of childhood wonder: I could navigate the interface between the plants and the animals, the houses and the humans. Photography enables me to do much the same by expanding and documenting that backyard – that space for exploration and inquiry – to the entirety of London. Here, photography acts as a patron searching through the shop-worn bargain racks of a department store; seeking that diamond in the rough. Its existence may have been disarmed by its surroundings, but when that object is viewed in an alternative context – through photographic composition, rather than the naked eye – It has the power to be just as captivating as any other sight
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Jeff Heene - My Backyard

2/17/2018

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Jeff Heene was born in Hamilton and has a BFA 1999, in Interdisciplinary Fine Art from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. His focus at NSCAD was on Lithography and Photography. Jeff has worked as a web programmer and freelance graphic designer. For the past nine years Jeff has taught Lithography and Photography and is currently the Head of Visual Art at Bealart.
 
My Backyard
"For me, My Backyard infers all that is close at hand: the objects and people of my everyday.
 
Dark corners of the dining room hide the wrinkles in the baseboards that frame the window that allows the trickling sound of the pond in my backyard into the house. The unexpected and out of place encounters of objects I observe in my path cause me to consider my own position in space. The light of the day illuminates banal compositions of colourful parking standards against the beige of ubiquitous neighbourhood buildings. These are the elements of an experience; one that weaves together an understanding of myself as well as those around me and defines an infinitely nuanced grammar of interaction."
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Though the photograph functions as a means to record these interactions they cannot offer any analysis. This disfunction is an opportunity to highlight how the record of an experience is contextualized by records previously encountered and results in an interpretation that is unique and special. By creating intentionally disorienting visual interactions of photographic images I hope to explore this disfunction, to weave together randomly encountered objects and scenes of someone that is looking to decipher his place in relation to all that is close at hand.
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Everett and Huggins at Westland Gallery

2/9/2018

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A bold new exhibition at Westland Gallery features art by Londoners John Huggins and Michael Everett.
 
Michael Everett is primarily a photographer, following his creative muse through mediums ranging from painting, drawing and photography, to sculpture and found objects focusing on texture, industrial materials, colour and mirth.
 
A strong influence from Greg Curnoe is evident in two works entitled “Mid Conversation”. In bold colour, the graphic text reads “No wolf can blow my house down” and “Honestly I have no idea why I said that.” The phrases are overheard fragments of conversation that Michael has recorded and reproduced in attention-grabbing scale and colour. He demands that we take time to consider these words spoken in unknown context, from an outside perspective.
Deconstructing and reconstructing is an important part of Everett’s process and content. In “Tuesday Afternoon (Push Pull)” Everett reassembles a found door, creating a physical analogy of the ups and downs, or push and pull, of life itself. Everett also deconstructs the figure in his paintings, depicting simplified human forms or cutting up and stitching back together his figurative photography.

​Michael’s work is playfully experimental but also a bit dark and twisted. This exploration of opposites is echoed in John’s work which presents another compelling comparison.
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John Huggins has always brought together modern illustrative characters with serene landscapes in his work. A childhood in Timmins Ontario and a love of nature inspires the peaceful lake scenes and the urban influence of his later years in Toronto can be seen in the quirky illustrations.
 
For this exhibition, John examines the calming solace of the Ontario wilderness, in contrast with the age of information overload in which news headlines bombard us constantly.
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Just as for Michael, text is an important tool in John’s work.

City sounds in a bright yellow font stand out against a backdrop of foliage and two geese chat in cartoon-bubble form while gliding across a calm lake.
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John playfully and provocatively references art history, film and pop culture. His comical cartoon frogs lost in the Renaissance, his callout to Peter Paul Rubens in the title #timesupRubens and his Wizard of Oz characters expressing frustration at today’s political and social situation will make you laugh, but also make you think.
Michael and John’s passion for their art and creative comraderie have made for an exciting, energetic show with a lot to say.
 
John Huggins studied at Sheridan College, gaining formal training and accreditation in interpretive illustration. Michael Everett attended Bealart and Western for Fine Arts.
 
The exhibition runs from February 13th – February 24th with an opening reception Saturday February 17th and an Artist Talk on Wednesday February 21st at 7 pm.
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