“I personally have a really hard time identifying what is beautiful and what is not,” admits Skye Callow.
The Winnipeg artist is working to create her own sense of beauty alongside fellow photographer Tobin Rowland in a joint exhibition entitled Constructed Image at aceartinc. on Princess Street in the Exchange District. The pair work with their photos in a variety of ways to find new beauty from digital manipulations to photocopier treatments.
“I guess I recognize beauty when I really feel something,” muses Callow as she describes her processes, “like a strong emotional response to something that I’m working on or something that I see.”
“It’s like when you’re walking around and you see a construction and you’re like, ‘Wow, the light is hitting this so nicely!’ And it might not be a field of flowers, but there’s something about it that is really powerful.”
Rowland feels similarly about the combination of a moment’s inspiration and the artist’s act of manipulation. “It gives this whole new meaning to what the image is because your hands have touched it,” they say. “I think there is thoughtlessness about it that is so important, that you just don’t actually analyze the quality of the image. It’s more just a feeling then, and then you work into it.”
New meaning is given to both Rowland’s and Callow’s works by the nature of being displayed alongside each other at aceartinc. Each of them has noticed an impression that the other is leaving on them. “A lot of this idea of unfinishedness comes in a lot,” says Rowland, adding that they and Callow have been discussing this idea since the exhibition first opened back in January. “You can still understand that you paused a moment in the process and you were like, ‘This is the one I will present, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t go further.’ I think that’s really nice and I think that’s something that our work shares is that it is this… feeling of unfinishedness.”
Callow rephrases the idea of unfinishedness with her work as re-exhibition. “Once you exhibit, it doesn’t mean that that work of art is complete,” she explains. “It is stagnant for that moment of exhibition, but it is able to be pushed further if you do so choose.”
Audiences can experience the push of Constructed Image at aceartinc. until February 27. Hours and more information are available at the gallery’s website.