Monte Clark

September 6 to October 6, 2018

Stephen Waddell’s new exhibition includes a collection of photographs that portray different forms of light, both aesthetic and psychological. The individual works demonstrate the extremes of how visible light can build our view, and that which is captured by the camera.

On one level, the works demonstrate the physical conditions of light, and the aesthetic recognition of this light through the camera. Waddell’s large-scale colour photograph Sunflowers depicts the distinct light just before sunset, the time when sunlight turns from neutral to recognizably yellow/orange. The quality of this specific light sculpts the scene, accentuating high relief and emphasizing depth as a woman waters her garden. In contrast, David is a silver gelatin photograph printed to create a light that is almost anti-sculptural; the low contrast of the image creates a flattening effect, collapsing foreground and background and causing the materiality of the subject (a sculpture) to compete with the materiality of the photographic print (literally, two dimensional).

Exploring the psychological aspects of light, Kammerspiele shows the illuminated interior of a cave, emanating light from an unknown source within. The dark exterior of the cavern delineates aesthetic parameters around the light, creating an enclosed circle like a mouth, skull, or subterranean netherworld. The motif of an oval or circle echoes Copernican-era depictions of earth and the Garden of Eden, where an enclosed area is shown with an entrance and an exit. Paintings by Lucas Cranach and Hieronymus Bosch depict this contracted space, a reflection of the time and limited knowledge of the world.

The large colour photograph Hive Burner directly references Cranach’s The Golden Age, where a circular concrete ruin sits among grass and greenery, and figures sit, stand, and walk as though composed in the scene. In this photo, the dilapidated structure (leftover from a now non-existent wood mill) sits near the shore where a large tanker, ubiquitous with Vancouver’s waterways, can be seen in the background. Waddell’s version of a “Golden Age” sits in contrast to Cranach’s depictions of utopia and paradise, and offers a misanthropic albeit similarly pastoral view of our present-day.

Stephen Waddell (born 1968, Vancouver, Canada) received his MFA from the University of British Columbia in 1994, and has exhibited in galleries and institutions including the Vancouver Art Gallery, Espai d’art contemporani de Castelló in Castello, Spain, Kunstforum Baloise in Basel, Switzerland and C/O in Berlin. Waddell’s works are included in the permanent collections of the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the National Gallery of Canada, and numerous others. Waddell’s most recent publications are Dark Matter Atlas (2017) and Hunt and Gather (2010). Waddell was a finalist in the Scotiabank photography prize 2018. The artist lives and works in Vancouver, Canada.