May 8 – June 22, 2024
(Main Gallery)
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 11, 2 to 5 pm
Lonsdale Gallery is thrilled to announce Alternate Horizons, an exhibition celebrating the creativity and magic of alternative process and experimental photography. Presenting a selection of work of four skilled contemporary female lens based artists exploring how the intangible concepts of time and memory can be captured in a still image. The work presented defies expectations of what a photograph can be.
From Sally Ayre’s buoyant hand-woven cyanotypes; Nicole Cudzilo’s ethereal 24 karat gold leaf Polaroid portraits; Natalie Hunter’s large format colour transparent photo-based sculptures; to Peggy Taylor Reid’s riveting installation of circular cyanotypes. The artists assembled approach image making in fresh and innovative ways, thinking beyond the boundaries of the pictorial frame, revealing the endless creativity and expressive possibilities of contemporary experimental photography practices. The only limit is the artist’s imagination.
Nicole Cudzilo’s intimate portraits, layered with 23-karat gold leaf, present an uncanny vision that immediately grabs hold of the imagination. Using modern Polaroid film, she carefully peels away the backing, to produce a type of transparency. Then 23k gold is carefully hand painted onto the reverse side to create a one-of-a-kind photograph. She takes advantage of the contained format of Polaroid film, highlighting its intimacy and ephemerality. Her images capture the magic of watching a Polaroid image appear faintly before your eyes.
With this series, the artist seeks to return to the foundational elements of portraiture by simplify her compositions in order to look more inwards. Nude forms are presented as dream-like apparitions, set against an ambiguous settings, inspired by American photographer Anne Brigman’s (1869 -1950), nudes set against primordial, naturalistic landscapes, and Austrian symbolist painter Gustav Klimt’s (1862 -1918) gold leaf paintings.
“Self portraiture is something that I’ve consistently focused on as long as my journey with photography itself. It began with dressing up as a Victorian Gothic maiden and taking pictures in the woods as a teen, and progressed into the colorful character based work that has become my signature. Normally outfitted in bright midcentury dresses and campy wigs, this collection of images is a bit of a departure from my usual work. I’ve always loved creating these somewhat imposing large-scale images, but recently I’ve felt the desire to simplify and draw inwards; inspired by ancient mythology and artists of the past such as Gustav Klimt and Anne Brigman.”
– Nicole Cudzilo
Cudzilo mines imagery from the past to produce images that are both timeless and speak to the contemporary experience. Working primarily in self- portraiture, she casts herself as subject and creator, artist and muse. Based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Cudzilo studied under the guidance of photographer Laurie Klein, a pupil of Ansel Adams. She is known for her colorful character based self-portraits donning bright midcentury dresses and campy wigs, evoking Cindy Sherman’s early ‘untitled film stills’.
Peggy Taylor Reid
Tapestry of Shadows
2024
cyanotype on vintage photo filter paper
unique prints
installtion: dimensions variable
Peggy Taylor Reid’s captivating installation Tapestry of Shadows draws attention to how plastics and post-consumer waste infiltrates every aspect of the environment. Taylor Reid creates handmade circular cyanotype prints on vintage photographic filter paper arranged into a large wall installation evoking constellations, based on images from the James Webb telescope.
The cyanotypes prints are layered with plants, both cultivated and foraged, and clear plastic waste items. The traces of plastics intrude throughout the cyanotype prints, like an invasive species, but in this case it is one of our own creation.
“As we participate in our natural world, we continually encounter the influence of consumer waste. When we are disposing waste materials into their respective receptacles, we are conscious of the natural world. In both instances the essential and the inessential are cyclically linked to the bigger picture of the world we inhabit, and our participation within it. I chose to use the circular form for the prints because of its reference to scientific instruments such as telescopes, microscopes, and the spherical shape of celestial bodies.”
– Peggy Taylor Reid
Sally Ayre
Indigo, Natural Patterns Woven Series
2020
cyanotype and screenprint, cut and woven
edition of 1
16. 5 x 16.5 inches
$1,000
Sally Ayre’s ongoing project, Natural Patterns, Woven Series, explores our continually changing environment, where changes construct layers of memories that weave together past and present. Sumptuous Prussian blue and warm tea coloured, screen prints on handmade Japanese washi paper, are hand-woven to create delicate multi-layered images. Ayre examines plant specimens, and their seeds (lupines, milkweed, morning glory, bittersweet, indigo and burrs), as they scatter and germinate, constantly regenerating themselves. She chooses seed from the end of a plant’s life cycle as a metaphor for the aging process. Like the plants and their seeds, the knowledge and experience acquired as we grow older is passed on to others.
Sally Ayre
Lupines, Natural Patterns Woven Series
2020
cyanotype and screenprint, cut and woven
edition of 1
16. 5 x 16.5 inches
$1,000
Sally Ayre
Milkweed, Natural Patterns Woven Series
2020
cyanotype and screenprint, cut and woven
edition of 1
16. 5 x 16.5 inches
$1,000
Walking is one of Sally’s passions, an activity she enjoys and where her thoughts can flow at liberty in many directions. The exploration of parks, ravines and waterways in and around Toronto has given her a rich context where many of her art projects have been sparked and fostered. During her walks she has collected hundreds of natural specimens to be scanned and catalogued into her image bank where she draws from to create work.
Sally Ayre
Burrs, Natural Patterns Woven Series
2020
cyanotype and screenprint, cut and woven
edition of 1
16. 5 x 16.5 inches
$1,000
Nathalie Hunter’s multilayered immersive photo-based installations on transparent film are a striking meditation on the slow passage of time. Hunter is an award winning interdisciplinary artist, working between photography, sculpture, installation, and the moving image.
Sun Slips, cascading shadows, a unique photo-based installation of colour transparent photographs suspended and floating in space, witnessing the slow passage of light over time. Using various made from salvaged materials and colour films, Hunter photographed miniature sculptural forms with multiple exposures as the sun shifts across the space; changing the composition of each structure in remarkable, yet subtle ways.
Natalie Hunter
Sun Slips, cascading shadows 1
2021
archival pigment print on transparent film, turned aluminum, birch, light.
unique
84 x 34 x 7 inches
$4,200
Natalie Hunter
Sun Slips, cascading shadows 2
2021
archival pigment print on transparent film, turned aluminum, birch, light.
unique
84 x 34 x 7 inches
$4,200
Natalie Hunter
Slow Sun 19
2020
archival pigment print on baryta paper.
edition of 3
16 x 24 inches (unframed)
$775
Presented along side select photographs from the artist’s Slow Sun series, where she seeks to captures the slow passage of light and the sun across the sky. Shot using continuous rolls of colour film exposed over a period of many months. Exposures are made days, and sometimes weeks apart, to produce are saturated extended montages, where the camera aperture creates layered moments in time.
How do you catch a breath?
How do you hold light? How do you hang on to a memory?
Pointing to the sky and staring into the sun while passing colour filters in front of the camera aperture creates layered moments in time. Exposures are made days and sometimes weeks apart, allowing a viewer to experience many skies in one image.
Natalie Hunter
Slow Sun 2
2020
archival pigment print on baryta paper.
edition of 3
16 x 24 inches (unframed)
$775
Natalie Hunter
Slow Sun 11
2020
archival pigment print on baryta paper.
edition of 3
16 x 24 inches (unframed)
$775
Natalie Hunter
Slow Sun 4
2020
archival pigment print on baryta paper.
edition of 3
16 x 24 inches (unframed)
$775
Natalie Hunter
Slow Sun 3
2020
archival pigment print on baryta paper.
edition of 3
16 x 24 inches (unframed)
$775