Original Collage by Caleb Speller, 2009, Victoria, BC. Canada
Original collage by Caleb Speller, from a sold-out series exhibited at la Petite Mort Gallery in 2010. Images found & cut from a vintage Yousuf Karsh book of photography. This one is a gift from the artist, entitled ‘Deaf, Dumb and Blind’ 2006. Signed with initials C.S. titled and year in pencil, at bottom of artwork on paper. Original framed, but can only be mailed unframed, due to the risk of glass breaking via shipping. Measures 12.75 x 17 inches.
Asking $500.
NOW $300
See Full Exhibit Here: http://guyberube.ca/february-2012/
More info: https://karsh.org
ARTIST STATEMENT: Narrative Dementia
Picture a brain, or rather, the memory inside the brain as an empty house. Now imagine someone just came in the front door and started to tell a story. Bits and pieces of that story land in every corner of the house, the words have painted its walls with narrated images. The house is now an exhibition gallery and visitors who come are presented with a view of the collector’s mind. No matter how many times the rooms are painted over, remnants of that first story will be found, until the house’s demolition.
Story, or narrative, is life. Everyone is involved in a story of their own experiences, as life unfolds, these experiences become stories. Ideas, which grow from these stories, are accepted and circulated, or rejected and sequestered. A healthy mind is in constant conflict with his or her own library of experience coming through the door. This library can only choose a small portion of its collection.
Inevitably, after a lifetime of opening up doors and having visitors the story becomes unorganized, convoluted, recollection becomes mistrusted and narrative dementia takes a seat in the centre of the house. The curator is expelled, and all recorded stories become hybridized. Soon the shelves are dusty, texts begin to break, bindings split and the house falls into disrepair. A corrosive outcome due to the massive amounts of information once confidently on display.
Now picture your own mind and try to remember who told that first story you believe in. If it is remembered as a true story, it needs to be tested and found to be true. Or else it is a lie and all stories which cover up lies are from the same narrator. A house built from the minds of others creates a living death between the modern and the abstract.
Biography:
Caleb Speller was born in Victoria, British Columbia at the end of 1982. He lives with his wife in a small house with a big deck; the kind built for rocking chairs and beat up guitars. In the mornings woodpeckers screech from the trees, snakes slither in the grass and the sun glows though the wet mist. It is here in this setting where he wakes up to draws and collage before heading out to take some photographs, walk down to the shed to paint, or bike out into the mysterious day. His artwork explores themes such as Canadian nationality, photographic performance, fabricated family history, and the human relationship man has with eternity. Caleb views his artwork as a visual biography made from inspiration in his personal life, legendary stories told by friends and family and fictitious visions of what the future could unfold.
Caleb shows his work at various art galleries and alternative venues around Victoria, Vancouver, and Ottawa.
PRESS:
What it could be, not what it should be…
https://www.saanichnews.com/entertainment/life-inspires-art-for-new-saanich-father/
https://www.vicnews.com/entertainment/dragon-alley-store-hosts-double-exhibit-by-saanich-artist/
https://legacy.camosun.ca/learn/programs/visual-arts/art-community/residencies/air/speller/