TRACINGS
18 MAY to 15 JULY, 2011
David Pollock & Jamie Drouin
This selection of new photographic works by David Pollock and Jamie Drouin are collected under the banner Tracings. The word signifies not only what is left behind from a process, but also representation through mapping, which shares with photography the precise rendition of a topography.
Pollock’s large-scale colour landscape photographs, documenting the farmlands of Vancouver Island's Saanich Peninsula are contrasted by Douin's minature black and white prints of unknown locations and fragments of urban topography.
In both of these works the artists share a vision of the shifting ground of their environment when presenting traces of activity that continually transform landscapes. Pollock's richly detailed landscapes, from his series Fertile Geometry, presents this elemental topography as a palimpsest upon which we discern the signs of farm work. Pollock places us within a deep open space where the vantage point directs our vision to the soil, which is the skin of the Earth upon which we stand.
Drouin's intimate pictorial spaces depict the macroscopic intersections of landscape within urban environments. The tiny, fragile prints turn the flotsam and jetsam of urban living into constructions as mysterious and visceral as a crime scene photograph. Extending upon the idea of Tracings, Drouin interrupts the transparency of the photographic window by altering the surface of the print. The scratches, folds and cracks mimic the markings upon the landscape but also refer to the utilitarian uses of photography as evidence or as reference, like a map.
Although stylistically divergent these photographs speak to us of the remnants of human actions and situate us within a continuum of constant interaction with the natural world.
TRACINGS COLLECTION
Jamie DROIUN, Untitled
David POLLOCK, Fertile Geometry
ARTIST TALK Thursday 2-June, 2011 / 7:00pm
J. Drouin Untitled
Jamie Drouin
The photographic works of Canadian sound and visual artist Jamie Drouin (b.1970) examine how specificity of place is determined by interpretation of individual perception, as much as by factual elements. Drouin's prints function as brief visual phrases which, when combined in series, illustrate the photographs fluid nature in depicting and defining a landscape.
Drouin's installations and site-specific performances have been presented worldwide, including the Biennial of the Americas (Denver), Montréal Museum of Contemporary Art (Montreal), TodaysArt (The Hague), Henry Art Gallery (Seattle), Leica Gallery (Tokyo), La Société de Curiosités (Paris), General Public (Berlin), and Mutek (Montreal). He is also the co-founder and curator of Infrequency Editions publishing editions of minimalist experimental sound works. View more work from Drouin, http://www.jamiedrouin.com
D. Pollock Irrigation Ditch
David Pollock
David Pollock is a fine art photographer and printmaker from Victoria, BC, Canada who does most of his photographic work on Vancouver Island. He studied art with an emphasis on photography at Concordia University in Montreal, then at Ryerson University and the Ontario College of Art in Toronto. He is currently a partner in Prism Imaging in Victoria. Pollock's work has been featured on Landscape Stories (June 2011), NewLandscape Photography (December 2010), Blackflash Magazine (Spring/Summer issue 2010), Camera Obscura (June 2010), Urbanautica (May 2010), and Conscientious (Feb. 2010). He is also a regular contributor to Urbanautica, an online photography magazine. His first monograph ‘Fertile Geometry’ was published in Italy in early 2011.
North American book launch, Fertile Geometry by David Pollock
A limited number of copies have just arrived from Italy.
From the introduction... "Farming is often viewed through the lens of nostalgia and romanticized as a lost way of life that was more connected to nature. The farm fields were a fruitful way for me to situate the human in nature because it is within this interface that questions arise regarding our place in the natural world. Farmland is an exotic territory for most of us, despite the fundamental nature of farming as a precondition of our culture. As much as the idea of wilderness implies no human presence, these anthropogenic landscapes are reminders of our inescapable and constant interaction with the natural world." David Pollock, Fertile Geometry, 2011
SPECIAL LIMITED EDITION | We will have 40 copies of Fertile Geometry available to purchase with a 8"x10" print of Field 9 (the cover), each print will be signed and numbered by David Pollock. The price for the book, plus an 8"x10" is $50 cdn.
Please contact the Gallery directly to inquire on availability and to purchase this special edition of book & print.
Or view our BOOKS page to purchase a copy of the book. We have copies available to purchase for $30 cdn
View the full collection, FERTILE GEOMETRY
Print sales & inquiries can be directed to Diana Millar diana@luzgallery.com