October 2022
of place or position or posture is a group show composed of eight lens-based artists from the Gallery 44 membership’s exhibiting collective, Spectra.
Blurred landscapes as seen from the window of a train invite a decoding of the in-motion images captured by Marzieh Miri. The solid-looking monolithic buildings of Toronto’s financial district sit against a seemingly transient sky in images by Attila Ataner—their contrasting presences ask us to reconsider our ideas regarding what we perceive as permanent. Noam Hacker’s series evidences the artist’s instinctual meanderings and his pull towards the travels of light as it gently touches city surfaces.
Each artists’ work in this exhibition looks at movement from a different vantage point: as a change of one’s position, the way an image expresses energy through formal acts of composition, or how transformations on a monumental scale happen around us—even if seemingly static to our eyes. Slow, fast, long, or short, there are different types of movement gently guiding us through our lives. of place or position or posture has an energetic pull, the artworks undulating across the surface of Peter MacKendrick Community Gallery’s walls, reminding us to think about the ways in which we move throughout the world.
Attila Ataner, Chris Lashbrook, Claudia Pawlak, David Scriven, Laura Honsberger, Marzieh Miri, Maureen O’Connor, Noam Hacker
Curated by Fehn Foss
October 3rd - October 10, 2022
Peter MacKendrick Community Gallery
Artscape Wychwood Barns
76 Wychwood Ave, Toronto
Monday - Wednesday 12pm - 5pm
Thursday - Friday 12pm - 8pm
Saturday - Sunday 10am - 5pm
Artist Talk
Thursday, October 6th - 6pm - 8pm
Im/Permanence (1), 2021
Attila Ataner lives in Toronto with his wife and two young children. He formerly practiced law, however for the past few years he has been pursuing his PhD degree in philosophy at the University of Western Ontario. Both his MA and PhD theses focus on environmental philosophy (in connection with 18th Century German thinker, Immanuel Kant), and his architectural photography is, in part, an attempt to express some of his scholarly ideas in visual-artistic form. More recently he is in the process of opening his own portrait photography studio. He has degrees in philosophy from McGill (BA), McMaster (MA) and in law from the University of Toronto (JD). His background is Turkish; he was born in a small town on the Danube in Bulgaria and his life-long love of photography was initially sparked by one of the incredible teachers he had whilst attending an international school for the children of expat families living in Tripoli, Libya.
Up and Away, Out of the Dark, 2021
Taught to value black and white film, Chris Lashbrook has a passion for contrast and intense tones of gray. A self taught artist, he has embraced the power of this combination in the digital world and has also developed a love for the subtleness and richness of contrast in colour.
Through his art, Chris calls forth El Duende – the Spirit of Evocation, often associated with the power of flamenco - to elicit a strong emotional response – laughter, tears, reflection, deep thought, curiosity, passion, tension and release. Blending a mixture of photographic genres, his work is frequently referred to as “Neo-Abstract Poetry with Light and Shadow”.
Born and raised in Vancouver, Chris brings his love of the outdoors, be it in the broad textures of the back woods or the geometric rigidity of the structural city, to his art. His goal is to walk where people walk and see the things they miss.
She Breathes, 2022
Claudia Pawlak is a photographer currently residing in Toronto, Ontario. She uses photography as a means of documenting spaces of transition in a way that evokes emotional response. Claudia's work aims to create a personal narrative connecting her relationship with people, place, and change. She has exhibited work in both group shows and solo shows on a local and international scale. Claudia holds an M.A. in Arts Management and Leadership as well as a B.F.A. in Photography Studies.
Untitled (connecting communities 1), 2022
David Scriven is a lens-based artist living in Toronto’s Little Portugal neighbourhood. His images, grounded in documentary photography, explore decay and renewal in the urban ecosystem. Earlier this year, he participated in a Spectra 2022 a group show and a Contact Photography Festival exhibition at Artscape Youngplace, Toronto showing work from a work in progress called City Block, a series of five photo books. In November 2021, he self-published a photo book entitled Alexandra Park that captured a year in the complete demolition and rebuild of the Toronto west end community housing project. In addition, images from the photo book were shown at Spectra 2021 at Artscape Youngplace, Toronto. Past group shows include Spectra 2020, at ArtScape Youngplace; Work in Progress, at the Production Space, Gallery 44 in Toronto; and Dualities at ViewPoint Gallery in Halifax.
Apo-Naproxen, 2022
Laura Honsberger’s work considers how a body adapts to, and is formed by space, texture, and pain. Her past work focused on a celebration of adornment, while her current work focuses on the rituals of dressing. Dedicated to craft arts, she uses textiles, ceramics, collage, paint, and photography.
Limited Encounter 1, 2017 Marzieh M. Miri
Marzieh M. Miri is a Toronto-based documentarian. She has an MFA in Documentary Media from Toronto Metropolitan University (former Ryerson). Her research and creative practice explore the notions of place, land and environment through photographic mediums. She is especially interested in practice-based and sensorial approaches that explore humans and their environment as a united existence. Winner of Ontario Art Council grants has exhibited her art projects in Iran, France, Austria and Canada. She has also worked as an architect, professor, writer and critic and has published in international journals and presented in conferences and courses in Canada, England and Iran.
The Meadow Version 2, 2021
Maureen O'Connor is a fine art photographer living in Toronto and is a graduate of OCAD.
Maureen is a life-long animal lover and these photographs are produced with the cooperation of local sanctuaries, many of these animals are rescues from fur farms and others are non-releasable wildlife.
The animals in these images were brought and photographed onsite to the location in the photograph, several of the locations are homes in Toronto pre-redevelopment.
By photographing Canadian animals in abandoned and crumbling domestic architecture, Maureen O’Connor raises questions about how nature and the built environment intersect.
She sees these spaces as transformative, evoking memory and showing the beauty and fragility of the animals and the architecture. We are invited to cross the threshold and imagine new narratives where the natural world and the domestic world meet, and consider how this informs our identity in a country defined by both its wild landscape and its orderly cities.
Phototropism I, 2021
Noam Hacker is a lens-based artist from Toronto. He frequently wanders through the city, alone or with friends, and is most drawn to unusual light and interestingly arranged trash. He has a personal rule to only shoot in black and white in his home city, in an effort to get to know his environment more deeply. Noam enjoys printing his work as self-published zines, and exploring alternative printing technologies such as Risograph. Lately he has been working exclusively in analog, and spending time in the darkroom refining his printing style. of place or position or posture is his first time exhibiting his black and white photography.