October 21 – November 25, 2023
(Main Gallery)
Ella Morton, Procession of Ghosts
Main Gallery, Lonsdale Gallery
Lonsdale Gallery is pleased to present the Canadian premier of lens-based artist Ella Morton’s latest series of unique wet-plate collodion ambrotypes on black glass.
Cabin at Base Brown
2022
wet-plate collodion ambrotype on custom black glass with gold pigment
unique photograph, ed. 1/1
9 x 11 inches | 14 x 15.5 inches (framed)
$1,850
Morton’s latest series of haunting and auspicious photographs are perhaps the artist’s most exciting and provocative series to date. Presenting images captured in Antarctica and Greenland, Morton highlights the sublime nature of these regions, while exposing the effects of climate change of the natural environment and lamenting its inevitable annihilation. Morton’s latest series photographs offer a fresh and contemporary approach that reimagining’s the creative possibilities of wet-plate collodion ambrotypes processes.
Figures at Portal Point
2023
wet-plate collodion ambrotype on custom black glass with gold pigment
unique photograph, ed. 1/1
9 x 20 inches | 13 x 21.5 inches
$2,500
The artist breaks and reconstructs her images using the traditional Japanese technique of Kintsugi. The gold pigment holds the cracks together, speaking to our broken relationship with the environment and perhaps offering hope and optimism that we may repair it.
What is the Japanese art of Kintsugi?
Kintsugi (which roughly translates to “join with gold”) is the Japanese technique for repairing ceramic or glass with gold pigment. This centuries old process, rooted in Japanese philosophy. Gold lacquer is used to piece shards together again, ultimately creating a more beautiful object. The process expresses an acceptance of impermanence and imperfection. Likewise, the act of repairing with gold with kintsugi allows what was once broken to take on a new life, celebrating joy and learning instead of regret and loss.
Mountains at Orne Harbour
2022
wet-plate collodion ambrotype on custom black glass with gold pigment
unique photograph, ed. 1/1
9 x 11 inches | 14 x 15.5 inches (framed)
$1,850
Ella Morton, Procession of Ghosts
Main Gallery, Lonsdale Gallery
Ilulissat Icefjord
2023
wet-plate collodion ambrotype on custom black glass with gold pigment
unique photograph, ed. 1/1
36 x 42 inches
Ambrotype is an early photographic technique dating back to 1850 where images are developed on plates of glass. Similar to their predecessor tintype photography, images are produced using wet plate collodion, where the photographer covering the plate with a light-sensitive emulsion that reacts when exposed to light to produce a positive image. In the darkroom, each plate, while still wet, has to be carefully developed one at a time. Unlike photographs developed on paper, ambrotypes yield a singular original image that cannot be replicated.
Three Peaks, Orne Harbour
2022
wet-plate collodion ambrotype on custom black glass with gold pigment
unique photograph, ed. 1/1
9 x 11 inches | 14 x 15.5 inches (framed)
$1,850
Chinstrap Penguin at Orne Harbour
2022
wet-plate collodion ambrotype on custom black glass with gold pigment
unique photograph, ed. 1/1
9 x 11 inches | 14 x 15.5 inches (framed)
$1,850
Qeqertaruaq Mountains
2023
wet-plate collodion ambrotype on custom black glass with gold pigment
unique photograph, ed. 1/1
18 x 24 inches
$3,850
Penguin at Orne Harbour #2
2022
wet-plate collodion ambrotype on custom black glass with gold pigment
unique photograph, ed. 1/1
12 x 15 inches | 16.5 x 19.75 inches
$2,350
What distinguishes Morton’s practice is the way she approaches her subject matter by employing experimental historic analogue photographic processes. The artist’s labour intensive approach to creating her images involves multiple levels of material and conceptual intervention. She avoids facile passive engagement with the landscape. Morton opts instead produce rapturous and dramatic images – a judicious aesthetic exercise in contrasting visual elements – that express the spiritual power of the natural environment, while lament its possible destruction, rather than presenting a beatific direct rendering of these isolated faraway regions.
Ice, Perito Moreno
2022
wet-plate collodion ambrotype on custom black glass with gold pigment
unique photograph, ed. 1/1
9 x 11 inches | 14 x 15.5 inches (framed)
$1,850
Penguins on Danco Island #1
2022
wet-plate collodion ambrotype on custom black glass with gold pigment
unique photograph, ed. 1/1
9 x 11 inches | 14 x 15.5 inches (framed)
$1,850
Iceberg, Qeqertarsuaq
2023
wet-plate collodion ambrotype on custom black glass with gold pigment
unique photograph, ed. 1/1
16 x 33 inches
$4,900
Iceberg, Qeqertarsuaq (2023)
The process of breaking and repairing expresses to the fragile state of polar landscapes today. For the artist, the cracks give voice to a pivotal moment where we are collectively left to decide their future. The exhibition title, Procession of Ghosts, does not insinuate a premature commemoration or memorial for tenuous state of polar environments. Viewers are challenged to confront their own complicity in our current climate crisis, while being presented with a promising outlook. The act of repairing the collodion plates represents an underling message of optimism; a gesture of hope that refutes nihilistic modes of thinking.
Perito Moreno Glacier
2022
wet-plate collodion ambrotype on custom black glass with gold pigment
unique photograph, ed. 1/1
12 x 15 inches | 16.5 x 19.75 inches
$2,350
Ella Morton, Procession of Ghosts
Main Gallery, Lonsdale Gallery
Ella Morton (she/her) is a Canadian visual artist and filmmaker living in Tkarón:to/Toronto, on the land of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenoshaunee and the Wendat peoples. Her expedition-based practice has brought her to residencies and projects across Canada, Scandinavia and Antarctica. Working primarily with lens-based media, she uses experimental analogue processes to capture the sublime and fragile qualities of remote landscapes. Reflecting on how the medium of photography is changing in the digital age, she aims to uncover how photographs can show more than a straightforward depiction of reality, and how the alchemy of analogue techniques can be reinvented in the present day to tell deeper stories within images.
Ella Morton, Procession of Ghosts
Main Gallery, Lonsdale Gallery