Horizon 1 to 11

Kendra Wallace

November 16 to December 15, 2012

“In my work I have an impulse to turn the photograph against itself, or to resist its ability to capture documentary style evidence, instead to capture more closely what the fluttering of our eyes see. This work, Horizon 1 to 11, is about a longing to be able to see what is beyond—so much that the visually familiar becomes almost invisible. When I made it I used colour slides that were oversaturated in blue because of using a tungsten film in daylight (mistake; the wrong condition). So the images are of the ocean horizon, but the blue changes the focus, or spreads it. I wanted to leave this work open to interpretation, without adding sort of narrative that could take over, instead wanting to create a contemplative space. I find this especially important in photography because an image always has to be something, it always has subjects you can’t hide. Here the images fall somewhere between realism and abstraction. We recognise that there is something there, but we can’t really see it, the medium has become opaque. When I was making this work I started to notice what I really see, in a moment-to-moment way, and noticed how much we generalize seeing. I thought a lot about photography as a way to re-see or to reflect seeing.”

Born in 1966 in Edmonton, Alberta, Kendra Wallace lives and works in Montréal, Québec and in Le Fresse, France. She studied at NSCAD (BFA) and UQAM (MFA). For Wallace, photography reflects on the phenomena of repetition that it introduces within the gesture of seeing. Her works could be said to work against photography, at least when photography is understood as means to secure a document of the passing visual world. Wallace focuses on the fluctuating and transitory nature of the visual, pursuing subtle plays belonging to the contradictory relationship of permanence and impermanence. Her works have been presented most recently at group exhibitions in Montréal at Galerie Simon Blais, and at HBKSaar in Germany.