August 2014
A Collection of Natural Fascinations
New Photographic Works by Whitney Lewis-Smith
August 1- 31, 2014
Vernissage Friday August 1 / 7 – 10pm
With Guest Artist Felipe Bracelis (Santiago, Chile)
Live Tunes by DJ Chris Jabbour
STATEMENT:
Throughout history human beings have been amassing collections that transfix them. Be it birds, things that sparkle, or slithering creatures, these obsessions are not rational but serve more to satisfy ones fascinations, bringing their owner joy simply by gazing upon them. For this body of work I’ve delved into the Cabinet of Curiosities and explored the assortments that have such a deep-rooted hold on some of us. Though gaining some inspiration from historical drawings, I have not captured the selected collections in their drawers and boxes. Instead, I’ve built sets to breath new life into the inanimate objects, helping to captivate the viewer and help them understand how one could become so taken with the specimens. With this contemporary approach on a historic theme, I hope that my images help paint as much a picture of the collectors as of the collections.
The research and sourcing of available specimens for this body of work began about six months ago and is ongoing. Many of the insects and other items seen in the works were brought in from places around the world, including Indonesia, Sumatra, Tanzania, and Peru. Some of the planned sets required outdoor settings in green woodland environments or local seasonal flora and fauna. For this reason the majority of shooting took place in areas surrounding Ottawa over the spring and summer months. This series is an evolution from my most recent works with taxidermy and marine specimens. It touches on some of the themes I have explored in the past and stays true to the visual language I used in my previous nature morte pieces.
For this series I used a large format 8×10 studio camera and glass plate negatives which are coated in the darkroom over a three-day period. Once developed, the images are then contact printed. Finally, scans are prepared of the darkroom prints so they can be evolved digitally. Though laborious, this mix of historic and new photographic processes is wonderfully tactile and allows me to affect my images in ways impossible with digital imagery alone.
BIO:
Whitney Lewis-Smith was raised in Chelsea, Quebec where she spent much of her childhood exploring the surrounding wilderness. Though biology had always been a passion, Lewis-Smith decided to pursue a career in the arts, studying at Concordia University and eventually at The School of Photographic Arts Ottawa.
Humanity’s delicate relationship with the natural world has been a continued source of inspiration for Lewis-Smith and has taken her around the globe to the depths of the Indian Ocean, the Bolivian Altiplano, and to the rivers of the Peruvian Amazon. A lifetime of interacting with nature is apparent in her work, where she breathes new life into taxidermy and other inanimate specimens used in her compositions.
Preferring a more tactile art form, Lewis-Smith works with alternative photographic processes. She uses an 8×10 studio camera and glass plate negatives that are hand poured by her in the darkroom, making each one as unique as a fingerprint.