Event Details
Julia, colour photograph, 4'x5'
Bruce Kirton
October 25th, 2013 to December 7th, 2013
Opening: October 25th, 5-8pm
Artist Talk Saturday, November 2nd, 3pm
Exhibition Brochure
Identities: Lost and Found is a two-tiered, photo-based collection of works that considers representations of identity as conveyed through: a) personal objects assembled in private spaces, i.e. bedroom dresser tops and b) re-contextualization of ‘lost’ 19th century portraits of anonymous human subjects. Both bodies of work ask questions of implication. What do these private collections of personal objects imply about the character of the assembler? How does re-working formal visual representations provide new possibilities for speculative or mutable identities?
The dresser tops were photographed by Kirton with an 8”x10” large format film camera, not dissimilar to the types of cameras that would have been used to create the original tintype portraits utilized in ‘b)’. The dresser top images are printed ‘neutrally’ and at large scale (4’x5’) while the tintypes have been re-worked with added colour and montage elements and are printed quite small (9”x9”).
“I feel that these two groups of photographs work well in conjunction with each other, as they both deal with the implied identification of one’s character.” – Kirton.
Identities: Lost and Found will encompass both the main gallery space and the project space. The exhibition brochure includes a response text by Jeanne Randolph.
The artist will be present at the opening reception on Friday, October 25th and will be giving a talk about his work on Saturday, November 2nd at 3pm.
Both events are free and open to the public.
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Bruce Kirton lives and works in Winnipeg. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) from the University of Manitoba in 1983 and his Master of Fine Arts from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1985. His work has been shown in several group exhibitions at galleries in Canada. As well he has had solo exhibitions at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, Gallery 1C03 at the University of Winnipeg, The Adelaide McDermot Gallery (Winnipeg), the Floating Gallery (now known as PLATFORM: Centre for Photographic and Digital Arts), The Buscaglia-Castellani Art Gallery, Niagara Falls, New York, The C.E.P.A. Satellite Gallery, Buffalo, New York and Plug In ARC (now Plug In ICA) also in Winnipeg. Bruce also worked as a sessional instructor in photography at the School of Art, University of Manitoba from 2000 to 2008.
Jeanne Randolph's latest book is OUT OF PSYCHOANALYSIS: ficto-criticism 2005-2011, published by Artspeak in Vancouver. Jeanne sequesters herself in her scriptorium to read and contemplate such topics as philosophy, anti-philosophy [a.k.a. advertising], visual culture, boxing, the history of infinity, consumerism and the life cycle of frogs.
