Kira Braden Steps Lightly Across the Threshold Into “Grandfather’s House” and Beckons us to Follow
A grandparent’s house is a treasured haven. It is a domain removed from the drama of the childhood home, but still intimately familial. For the lucky ones, the grandfamily can be a constant second port of call, one step removed from the web of responsibilities and expectations owed amongst immediate kin. We enter Grandfather’s House near the […]
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The Story of You by Deanna Pizzitelli
It is a dark lecture hall at the back of the bottom floor of the National Gallery of Canada, next to the gift shop and an atrium lit by the koi pond, which serves as its skylight. The hall is full of murmurs and silhouettes. They move with a light anticipation, and the conversations I […]
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The Defaced and Obscured Portraits of Stepan Chubaev
Stepan Chubaev’s work is anything but classic portraiture. Rather than capturing his subjects in a soft and flattering light, he presents their features boldly and bizarrely, often with highly saturated colours and overexposed light. Chubaev hails from the cultural capital of Russia, Saint Petersburg. Born in 1999, Chubaev has made some impressive feats as an […]
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Uncanny Homecoming: Exploring Identity and Alienation in Casey Meyers’s “I’m Feeling a Little Strange”
Casey Meyers’s series “I’m Feeling a Little Strange” is about homecoming, but there is little at-homeness to the spirit of the series. Instead, the art discusses life and identity as they lapse into mute simulacra, reflections that appear as lived experience but are not quite ‘real’ in the sense of actual presence. The crisis of […]
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To Withdraw From Orientalist Photography: Leonardo Magrelli’s Pairidaeza and the Iranian Terrain
In the wake of a terminated nuclear deal and a nation left demonized once more—we find an appropriate home for Leonardo Magrelli’s endeavor to photograph Iran “under a different, detached and less propagandistic light.” Traditional photographic projects undertaken by the West are often concerned with the extravagant architecture of mosques and palaces—sites ripe for the […]
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Moral Photography by James Lewicki
In the 21st century, two major interrelated technological factors have greatly changed how we take photos and how we engage with photography. The first major change was the advent of increasingly affordable digital technology allowing more photos to be taken more often by more people, and cheaper than ever before. I should also mention digital editing technology, which changed the level of control a photographer could exercise over a photo once it is taken. However, this improvement is overstated by those unfamiliar with analog editing technology. It is more an improvement in access than in capacity.
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Aesthetics and Experience by William Lalonde
Aesthetics, like language, have outgrown their original primary role as a mediator of subjectivity and instead have become subjectivity itself. Rather than lived experience dictating aesthetics, aesthetics now dictate lived experiences. Our current state of contemporary photography can sometimes feel like every potentiality has been tried, and sometimes the best inspiration comes from digging through […]
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Kim McCarthy Excavates the Familial and National Past of the North
Irreverence for what is lost is rarely so succinctly expressed as in the art of Kim McCarthy. Of the North is a documentary starring the people, forests, lakes, and rocks that characterize Northern Ontario. The following piece surmises the essence of McCarthy’s series: embodied here is a introduction to the media, styles, and themes ensconced […]
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From Suburban Ennui to Western Gothic – Through the Sardonic Lens of Sam Rupsa
Sam Rupsa lets the ordinary be ordinary, and there’s something so strange about it. In all of Rupsa’s photographs, there shines anticlimax, redundancy, thwarted fantasy, mock sublime, and desaturated nostalgia. From southern California and currently based in Denver, CO, Rupsa’s mixture of tropical nights, suburban ennui, and western gothic seems eclectic, but his wry, sardonic […]
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Katabasis: Marianna Tedeschini’s Descent
In Marianna Tedeschini’s “Katabasis,” we descend into an underworld of frozen emergences, disrupted reflections, and landscapes caught between life and death. “Katabsasis” takes us on a quest through landscapes teeming with uncanny essence—is it life? is it death? Familiar, yet haunting presences animate these seemingly lifeless scenarios we encounter. Whatever lurks within the trees and whispers in the tall grass, this subterranean energy repeatedly thwarts our expectations, disturbs perceptions, and even makes us laugh at times.
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