Formulation of Time – Photography by Phyllis Schwartz, Edward Peck, Desirée Patterson and Sand Wan
Saturday April 6, 2019 2-4pm: Public Opening & Book Launch
Exhibition hours: April 6 – 30, 2019 Free admission
– Monday – Friday 10am-5pm, weekends by appointment.
– Also open during Art! Vancouver on the weekend of April 27 – 28, 10am-5pm.
– Closed on Good Friday April 19th.
Lumen Print Workshop by Phyllis Schwartz
Saturday April 13th, 11am – 3pm (12-1pm beak for lunch)
Admission $15/person
Registration is required: https://lumenprints.eventbrite.ca
The workshop is participating in the 2019 Capture Photography Festival supported by London Drugs Printing Grant.
At a certain point during evolution, the sudden appearance of photosynthesis-based flowering plants sped up the process of energy and provided food source for new creatures. The perpetuating energy and beauty locked inside them are transmitted to new lives. In British Columbia, where vegetation is so abundant, the symbolic meaning of plants’ life cycles is ceaselessly reflected in artworks. Formulation of Time is a photography exhibition that showcases four artists’ interpretation of this theme.
Phyllis Schwartz and Edward Peck are artists whose practice contemplates the full cycle of natural growth and transitions that are in an ever-changing state. They use plant-based materials to create photo-based works of art that speak to issues of permanence and impermanence. Their work has the capacity to engage viewers to contemplate ephemerality, change and transition in the ever-changing natural world. Phyllis Schwartz will exhibit plant-based lumen prints, and Edward Peck will exhibit two-dimensional high-resolution plant-based abstract compositions.
Desirée Patterson’s Point De Fusion series depicts natural landscapes and plants that appear to be melting into abstraction. With a high aesthetic value, the series aims to connect viewers by evoking a sense of awe and wonder, with a prophetic underlying current. The title, Point de Fusion, references the melting point of an object at atmospheric pressure; the moment when its physical state changes and it becomes a liquid. As the landscape begins to thaw, the idea of motion is implied in an image that once was still.
Sand Wan’s large-scale, black-and-white Immortality series emphasizes the seemingly tranquil but every changing forests along the Pacific Northwest coast and Fraser River. With black-and-white photography, which lends timelessness and classic quality to his images, he captures the forests in their prime time and the trees’ last resting place along the coastline where they lie as driftwood.
Opening reception catering sponsored by The Butler Did It Catering Co.
Photography without Cameras
Lumen Printing Workshop by Phyllis Schwartz
(604) 285-9975
Saturday April 13th, 2019 11am – 3pm (break for lunch 12-1pm)
Admission: $15/person/two prints
Registration is required: https://lumenprints.eventbrite.ca
The exhibition and workshop are participating in the 2019 Capture Photography Festival and supported by London Drugs Printing Grant.
In this workshop, the lumenprint (photograms made without a camera) image making process will be explained and demonstrated. Phyllis Schwartz explains, “In this hands-on workshop, participants will make photograms of plant materials, and discover how they leave marks and traces on photosensitive paper; the work will look like colourful x-rays.” There will be an opportunity to participate in the entire process beginning with gathering materials, composing two images and developing two prints (8 x 10 inches).
The workshop extends the concept of analogue photography as the pencil of nature. Schwartz rediscovered this process while studying the Victorian botanists who sought a method of documenting their fieldwork. Lumen Prints are both photographic and x-ray like, producing both documentation of nature and artistic renderings of botanical specimens.
Phyllis Schwartz is a multi-disciplinary artist who works in photography, ceramics and publishing based in Vancouver, Canada. Her work at Emily Carr University consolidated these interests with a concentration in photography. She was the recipient of the Canon Photography Award. As a visual artist, she seeks detail, texture, and poetic elements. She uses photography to investigate and record what eludes the eye. Her photography has been exhibited and published across Canada and internationally; her works are in both public and private collections.
This workshop is presented in conjunction with exhibition Formulation of Time – Photography by Phyllis Schwartz, Edward Peck, Desirée Patterson and Sand Wan, which is on view from April 6 – 30, 2019 Monday – Friday 10am-5pm weekends by appointment. Also open during Art! Vancouver on the weekend of April 27 – 28, 10am-5pm.
