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Bau-Xi Gallery is excited to present Dreams and Journeys, a new series by acclaimed photographer, Joshua Jensen-Nagle. We sat down with the artist to ask him about his latest series and learn about his ever-evolving process.

Bau-Xi Gallery: Ten years later, you are returning to photograph sites from your first architectural series. Tell us about your interest in revisiting these locations.

Joshua Jensen-Nagle: My work has evolved over the years. I wanted to bring a new life to the subject and add a fresh look and feel to the work. Originally, I photographed most of these locations in SX-70 Polaroid. The imagery was soft, blurry--all veiled by a dream-like haze. In revisiting the sites, I used the latest in digital cameras and have created crisp imagery, so that the viewer is able to walk right into the photographs as if they were there themselves. 

BX: Past European images were “smokey” in their finish, as though we viewed the scenes through a fog—what has changed about your interpretation of these places that demands this new, “sharper” image?

JJN: In revisiting my early polaroid series, which evoked a distinctly nostalgic feeling, I wanted to approach this new body of work with a more modern perspective, to parallel working with a digital format camera. Everything is brighter, crisper and fresher. I intentionally over exposed most of the images to give a euphoric feel.

BX: What are the conditions of your ideal shots? 

JJN: The ideal condition for these shoots are midday, when the shadows are minimal. 

BX: This series features iconic sites of worship such as the Pantheon, the Western Wall and the Notre-Dame Cathedral. What do you find inspiring about these sites?

JJN: Each and every site has its own history and attracts people for different reasons. Whether it be to pray, to marvel at its architecture, or even its existence. The human interaction is what interests and inspires me to photograph these sites. 

BX: Which aspects of your practice do you feel have evolved the most noticeably over the last 10 years?

JJN: I would say almost every aspect has evolved in the work that I make today. For me, the most noticeable shift is that I used to be able to travel with a backpack, carrying a few Polaroid cameras and film. I could walk around easily, taking photographs in any location at my own will. Now I have a 14ft tripod, and heavy digital camera gear. I need to secure permits for each location, months in advance. The whole production has become much more intricate. 

Dreams and Journeys will be on view at Bau-Xi Photo (350 Dundas St West, Toronto) from April 14-28. Join us to celebrate the opening of the exhibition on Saturday, April 14 form 2-4pm. 

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Read Peggy Roalf's Q&A session with photographer Katrin Korfmann, where she discusses the process behind her most recent series, Back Stages. 

Peggy Roalf, for AI-AP's 'DART' 

March 7, 2018

NIJHOF BEELDENSTORM, BRABANT

Peggy Roalf: What is there about the aerial perspective that works for you in creating these super-dense images of people at ordinary activities? 

Katrin Korfmann: Using a bird’s-eye view, I can exclude the surroundings and all architecture so you have no reference to the location but can focus on the people and the event. In addition it creates a suggestion of distance and closeness at the same time. By simultaneously zooming in and out, I want to depict mysterious realities, which neither the eye, nor my camera could have grasped.

PR: The unusually grid-like backgrounds are one of the things that make these images so mesmerizing. How do you do your location scouting?

KK: I do a lot of research online, and often I am in contact with an assistant at the spot who is investigating the location and conditions. But it also happens that I just see a spot that is fascinating that I want to capture.

GLASS, ANXI

PR: Do you have the ability to perceive a place you’re seeing for the first time, at ground level, as it would be when seen from above? Do you carry a small camera drone around for quick previews?

KK: I have been shooting from this perspective for years, so yes, I am constantly scanning the ground of locations or look for high vantage points in order to see the place from another perspective. However I am not using a drone—that would make to much noise, and disturb the people from their activities, and then everyone would look up! I prefer to be a silent observer, so I use a high tripod, a crane, or a remote-controlled helicam.

PR: Are most of your photographs based on found activity—or do you sometimes orchestrate the action, with costuming and props, for example?

KK: Yes, sometimes, and it varies from asking pedestrians to walk through the image in a certain way to fully staging images with a dance company or a school class.

PR: Do you choose locations and activities to align with some specific ideas about human activity—or are you looking for something universal about human behavior?

KK: I usually work in series. Count for Nothing was focusing on street life in different cities. For Ensembles assembled, I photographed collective rituals in various places around the world: events sustained by individual euphoria in which colour—or colourful garments—dissolves individuality. For the new project Back Stages (in collaboration with Jens Pfeifer) we are presenting a visual manifest of the artistic and cultural creation process by emphasizing values placed on the production and handling of artistic goods. 

STAINLESS STEEL, XIAMEN

PR: In post-production, do you edit from the gut or do you sometimes find a theme that requires a different approach?

KK: Good question. The editing is the creative part that is most intuitive. I start with a lot of sketches, and different approaches, until I feel that the image is ready. This is subjective of course and often a certain theme naturally finds it's own visual language.

PR: What place would you most like to photograph that so far has been out of reach, and why?

KK: Pictures of people in space! I imagine the perspective out there would be unexpectedly challenging—and what it might look like as a photograph?

MARBLE, CARRARA

Click here to read the full article 

CLICK HERE TO VIEW KORFMANN'S COLLECTION ONLINE 

1) Your practice is primarily focused on floral painting, what about this subject matter, if anything, draws you to it and continues to inspire abstraction and formal experimentation?

Their variety of shape and colour, fragility and emphemerality.

2) What prompted the introduction of negative space and white ground in your paintings? How does it inform your work and what is its significance?

My brushwork tends to be impulsive and full of energy and which can lead to overcrowded paintings with nowhere for the eye to rest so space can be a place for the viewer to rest and to exercise one's own imagination. I love to look at Chinese landscape paintings where brush marks often hang suspended in white. A slightly under painted piece can be better than one which has been “finished off".

3) Could you enlighten us about how your compositions start, how many iterations they go through before they’re considered ‘finished’ (i.e. flipping the canvas, erasing, painting over, overpainting etc.)?

My compositions start in all kinds of ways, I don’t have a set method. Some paintings, the lucky ones, come right away and are finished in a couple of sessions. But this is rare. Often I paint right over a previous painting which is kind of like some sort of seeking revenge. A painting I’m not satisfied with will sit in my studio until I feel sufficiently removed from it to attack it again, often upside down which is especially freeing. Destruction, which is both satisfying and frightening, can play as big a part in a painting as creation. Many paintings never see the light of day.

4) Over the course of your career, you’ve transitioned from painting from still life arrangements to painting from photographs, how do you find these two approaches differ?

When I work from photos I don’t have to hurry up and get the thing done before the petals fall off and I have all the time I want I can take more liberties with the composition. The one step remove that a photo gives means I can better see the shapes and colours as an abstraction. I can also meld subject matter from several photos into one canvas.

5) Along the lines of the previous question: you often paint multiple paintings from the same photograph, could you describe how each piece and the experience of painting each piece is related or distinct from one another?

Each time I paint another piece from the same photo I need to find something new in it and to explore the possibilities for abstraction more and more. Since I am seldom if ever perfectly satisfied with a painting I often want to have another go. Riffing off the same subject again and again and getting to know its possibilities better is satisfying.

6) What kind of material properties have you observed through the act of painting? How does your handling of paint or your perception of form change as you paint? 

Material properties…..hmmm. Gravity and drips, gloopiness, butteriness?  A comforting smell.  The more I paint the more I am possessed by the qualities of the paint.  

7) This new work demonstrates some new palettes for you—are there particular pigments   or contrasts that are exciting you these days?

The Unforeseeable Fuschia which I always thought was a cheap trick.  I love the aubergine colour that the shrieky pthalo green can create with Alizarin Crimson. 

8) How would you say your work has developed in the past ten years and how do you see it evolving in the future?

The gesture is getting more and more important in the work and I seem to be getting up closer and closer to the flowers. Also I like to paint bigger and bigger. Like most artists I have no clue as to where I am going. Painting is a leap into the unknown.

VIEW NEW WORKS BY JAMIE EVRARD

Next time you're walking along Granville Street in Vancouver, remember to look up! Sylvia Tait's SunSong features prominently in the banners as part of South Granville's latest street installation - a colourful respite from grey Vancouver winters.

"Since the 60s, South Granville has been synonymous with art and is home to the city’s original Gallery Row. As one of Vancouver’s top art gallery enclaves, the South Granville neighbourhood continues to support a strong connection to art and local artists through our ongoing banner initiatives, which began in 2000 with Sylvia Tait as the first featured artist." - SouthGranville.org

Photos courtesy of SouthGranville.org

Katrin Korfmann, Marble, Carrara, 2017 (in collaboration with Jens Pfeifer), Archival inkjet print on archival substrate.
 
We are pleased to announce that works by Katrin Korfmann are featured in The Making Of, a group exhibition at the Dutch modern art museum, 38CC. Her latest series, Back Stages (in collaboration with Jens Pfeifer), is featured alongside 
works by artists Adrian Paci and Peter Jordaan.

Click here to read more about Korfmann's series, Back Stages 

CLICK HERE TO VIEW KATRIN KORFMANN'S COLLECTION ONLINE 

Alex Cameron pictured in The Globe and Mail, October 23, 1973

In anticipation of Alex Cameron's upcoming exhibition, we take a look back at a few notable moments from the early days of his long-standing career. 

1977: Cameron is honoured as one of the artists included in the "14 Canadians: Critics Choice", at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. 

1978: Cameron discusses his inspiration and process in Uptempo, Ottawa

Photo credit: Ottawa Citizen, February 10, 1992

Oxern, Pearl. “'Challenging crudity' not as spontaneous as it seems, says the artist.” Uptempo, 1978, p. 38.

1986: Cameron is featured in The Art Post 

Moldofsky, Mitch . “Spring Showings from Alex Cameron to Humanist Paintings to Colour Photograms .” The Art Post, 1986, pp. 5–6.

Alex Cameron, Supermoon, Hale Bopp & Stars, 72 x 72 in. 

In the latest series of paintings by Alex Cameron, the artist turns his gaze skyward. Celestial objects—super moons, constellations, and comets—blend with terrestrial phenomena like fire embers, snow, and cloud formations to create energetic landscapes in a style unique to Cameron and his over 40 year long career.  David’s Bonfire refers warmly to an evening at the Rideau Lakes, when the artist spent time with long time friend and fellow painter David Bolduc on holiday with their families. The occasion--fondly remembered--included lively painting sessions, and what Cameron refers to as a "kitchen show:" watercolours adorned the cottage walls, and were later exchanged between artists, and taken home to be cherished for years. Memory, then, becomes for Cameron a proverbial bridge, connecting and uniting land, sky, and stars.

Alex Cameron’s paintings have been collected extensively in Canada and abroad. Notable collections include the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Royal Bank of Canada, and The Queen’s Silver Jubilee Art Collection. He lives and works in Toronto. 

David's Bonfire
February 3-17, 2018
340 Dundas St West, Toronto
Opening Reception: Saturday February 3, 2:00 - 4:00pm

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1) What intangible or immaterial moments are you most interested in representing through your work?

I am interested in painting a visual and materially formed record of time. This record of time is created by way of a visual methodology of paint application and reactive decision making. 

Meditation and contemplation are part of my toolkit. I seek to evoke an internal state where a passage of time is experienced, and physically recorded by a calendar of sorts - the grid created by painted layered impasto lines. 

I like the analogy of duplicity and what it reveals: what we first see and know, and what light and shade reveal to us from different vantage points and at different times.  I find that transitory passage inspiring and poetic, like watching the day`s light fade into evening.  Those are the moments that I want to integrate into my work.

2) What kind of material properties have you observed through the act of painting? How does colour or your perception of colour change as you apply paint layer upon layer? 

The invisible painting layer is the shadow cast by light reflecting off the depth and accumulation of paint.  This is often more apparent in the white grid paintings but the coloured grids also have a directional quality and optical play between the colored impasto lines which have a similar intent.

Within the White Shade grids, the relationship between the form and shadow is depicted in a subtle way.  There is often two works in simultaneous production, one at times invisible. 

3) Your work uncovers the fundamental properties of paint and is often read as drawing, painting and sculpture all in one. Do you see it this way? Do you consider it more like one than the other(s)?

This current body of work has become bas-relief sculptures made by accumulated lines drawn with paint.  Paint, and its properties as a medium, historical references and traditions from different cultures inspire me as do handiwork and textiles. I consider myself a painter who is exploring the visual vocabulary of painting within in a personal experiential framework.

4) Your work appears to be very process-driven. Could you lend a little insight into your process? How does chance play a role in your work, if at all?

The grid for me is a point of departure.  I like its simplicity and perfection when I begin, but it`s the curious imperfection of my mark-making that moves me forward.  Each painting is, although often only subtly different, solved by a visual and emotive reaction unique to each piece.

5) You have spoken of the many skilled artisans in your life, most of whom are women who have worked in textile (knitting, weaving, sewing, embroidering) who have inspired you and your work through the years. What role does craft, and/or these women play in your work?

Generations of women in my family have been skilled in these traditions.  Often out of necessity, they sewed and wove their cloths and linens.

There's always been a skilled beauty to their designs which I've long admired. At first I did not even notice how it was influencing me and my work.  I was always consciously making and seeing patterns in nature and in architecture.  I think the dedication and pride of their skilled production was imprinted on me at a young age.

I have never acknowledged the elitist distinction between so-called “women’s work” and high art. Content and intention of the craft form is what makes it art. I like how both traditions have a voice in my work and together create an equilibrium – I appreciate them both.

6) Looking at your work, one is reminded of the minimalist artist Agnes Martin whose work also had a lot to do with line and repetition. Your work, like Martin’s, demands intimate viewing and quiet contemplation. Martin has remarked about her work: “My paintings are about merging, about formlessness ... A world without objects, without interruption.”  Does this statement resonate with you? If so, how?

Agnes Martin’s work resonates with me in the same way Mondrian does.  When you see how both artists have abstracted reality down to an elemental purity such as line, it’s really quite incredible.  Finding the inner bones, the essence of an object was both their intent and their spiritual experience.  I have a lot to learn from these artists as they continue to inspire me.

VIEW NEW WORK BY VICKY CHRISTOU

1) Could you lend some insight into the tongue-in-cheek title of your exhibition 'Girls Gone Wild'?

With this body of work, I found I had the chance to really show my own experience. I'm out in nature doing all the same wilderness activities that are still thought of as a male pursuit. All the female figures in my work are participating in their surroundings, they don't stand outside of them. They’re not merely passive still-life objects like in other landscape paintings, they're building fires, climbing fences, hiking, paddling, etc. 

2) How long have you been developing this body of work?

I think this body of work has been coming together for a while. I've always been interested in landscape and the history of Canadian painting. To gather my research and find inspiration, I trek into the woods during the summer on backcountry adventures, lugging canoes through swamps crawling with leeches, collecting and chopping wood for campfires and fighting off blackflies, horseflies and every other type of biting critter out there; because of this I've always felt a little at odds with the traditions of landscape painting. It's dominated by male painters and often women are still used as part of the scenery.

3) From which artistic sources do you find inspiration?

Social media platforms, especially Instagram have influenced my work through their set colour schemes and filters. I also find myself often drawing colour inspiration from current fashion trends. I think that love of colour is the biggest factor in every painting that I do. I tend to get obsessive about colour. My canoe is this really lovely shade of soft robins-egg blue and I've used that shade for the under-paintings in at least half of this body of work. Emerald green also really got under my skin over the past couple months and came out in a lot of these paintings.

I think Kim Dorland’s work has brought new life to landscape and brought it into the contemporary art realm. He's a major source of inspiration along with Peter Doig (perhaps my favourite artist of all), Wanda Koop. I find Christopher Pratt’s use of physical space as its own subject really interesting. I also think that Thrush Holmes neon lines may be subconsciously influencing elements of my work. 

4) How long does it take to complete a painting from conception to final execution?

My process tends to be a fairly long one. I work from photos most often, but what most people don't know is that I rarely use photos that aren't at least a year or two old. Any photos I take from research trips or vacations, I will put away. I will usually forget about them, and wait until those photos aren't photos to me anymore, but instead they've become reminders of specific memories. I need to have an emotional response to an image to make it interesting enough for me to paint. It normally takes a year or two for that to happen. I remember a moment or a feeling that held significance for me and then I go back through my files to try and find the photo that matches that moment. 

After I've decided on an idea, I do a couple sketches in watercolour/pastel/ink/pencil before reverse-engineering that composition with oil paint. In watercolour I work from lightest to darkest, and in oil paint I work from darkest to lightest. This process gives me enough space from the representational image to enjoy the more meditative and intuitive aspects of painting. 

5) Your paintings appear to be highly pre-planned. What kind of techniques are you experimenting with?

In terms of technique, I've been really enjoying the physicality of pushing paint around on canvas and working with oil paint in all sorts of different forms. From working with it almost like watercolour and diluting it to let it drip and mix and flow to sculpting the paint up in different areas to drawing with it on the canvas; mark-making has become a huge part of my process.  

6) Tell us something we wouldn’t guess from your work.

I often add in little objects, almost like Easter eggs. I think that people miss these, so it's always worth taking a second look just in case. There’s a little portage sign in the distance in Forest Through the Trees, and a couple of crushed empty beer cans in Rainy Daze and Delays. The cans are actually a representation of my favourite beer, Wellington SPA from my hometown of Guelph.

VIEW NEW WORK BY MEL GAUSDEN