May 2022
Spectra brings together new work by innovative members of Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography in an exhibition that represents a variety of different photographic concepts. As the name suggests the work demonstrates the many possibilities that are open to contemporary photographers and celebrates the diversity of artistic practice revealing the ways seemingly disparate work can intersect. Spectra, a changing collective of members, has been an active participant in CONTACT since its inception.
Adrian Amariucai, Ana Šašić, Bessy Lustiva-Espina, Brian Hart, Danielle Goshay, Daphne Boxill, David Scriven, David Shuken, DNA Dodds, Ed McDonough, Fred Lum, Huw Morgan, Ismayil Atmaca, Ivan Rupeš, Kye Marshall, Lilianne Schneider, Linda Briskin, Monica Gupta, Nascipio Filho, Richelle Forsey, Ross Stockwell, Shaney Herrmann
Curated by Holly Chang
May 18th - June 5th, 2022
Artscape Youngplace, 180 Shaw St, Toronto
Hallway Galleries, 2nd and 3rd floors
Monday through Friday 9am - 5pm
Saturday and Sunday 9am - 6pm
Artist Talks & Tours
May 21, 2022
11am: 2nd floor
1pm: 3rd floor
Together/Apart #1, 2021
Adrian Amariucai (pronounced am-ah-rue-kai), is a PPOC accredited multidisciplinary lens-based artist, freelance photographer, and graduate from Ryerson University’s Photography Studies program. Amariucai focuses on documenting the human experience contextualized by life within the urban environment. He has particular interests in candid photography, environmental portraiture, and documentary. His work is often subdued; highlighting strong themes of isolation within metropolitan life. Amariucai has exhibited in Ryerson’s Third Year Show where he achieved the Best in Show Award, and Maximum Exposure. His professional work consists of freelance architecture and interior design photography. His work can be seen at www.adrianstiles.ca, @adrianstilesphoto and @adstlz
Canopy, 2019
Ana Šašić is a multi-disciplinary creator with a practice focused on place as a medium, ranging from the humour in our memories of ancestral songs to the analysis of urban systems. She is interested in place-based loss and recovery including those involving migration. She has collaborated with Alumnae Theatre, the Geary Art Crawl Festival, and has exhibited at Gallery 1313, John B. Aird Gallery and others.
Seaton Village, 2020
Bessy Lustiva-Espina’s life is marked by her family’s movements within the Philippines and eventually Canada. Her photography documents a journey through many hometowns and explores the relationship between people and the outdoor spaces they’re most familiar with. Bessy’s work has been featured at The Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto and Blank Space Gallery in Athens, Greece. She is also a nurse who lives and works in Toronto.
Untitled, 2020
Brian Hart Photography offers a unique perspective, using various types and genres to form a different viewpoint and make it his own. By combining Portrait and Fashion, Brian Hart Photography allows the viewer to enter into a dreamscape. Hart Photography has been in various group and solo shows over the years in Toronto, Guelph and Ottawa. His photography has also been seen in several publications.
an assortment of halos, 2021-2022
Danielle Goshay is a Canadian/American artist based in Toronto whose practice includes experimental digital and film photography and alternative process. Goshay studied at Pittsburgh Filmmakers media arts center and has exhibited work in Pittsburgh and Toronto. Her published visual art and creative non-fiction can be found in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Sublet Press, maybe. magazine for analogue photography, AGON Journal, Hecate Magazine, and KNACK Magazine.
Daphne Without Apollo 3, 2021
Daphne Boxill investigates her relationship with solitude and the emotions that arise through her self-portraiture. Being alone has allowed her to cultivate self-awareness, a feeling of safety and also provided a space for her to be her most authentic self: vulnerable, reflective, curious, but also joyful and empowered. Her inspiration comes from many places including nature, poetry and mythology. Boxill works and lives in Toronto, Ontario.
Dovercourt #1, 2021
David Scriven is a lens-based artist living in Toronto’s Little Portugal neighbourhood. His images, grounded in documentary photography, explore decay and renewal in the urban ecosystem. In November 2021, he self-published a photo book entitled Alexandra Park that captured a year in the compete demolition and rebuild of the Toronto west end community housing project. In addition, images from the photo book were shown at Spectra 2021, a group show and a CONTACT Photography Festival exhibition at Artscape Youngplace, Toronto. Past group shows include Spectra 2020, at Artscape Youngplace; Work in Progress, at the Production Space, Gallery 44 in Toronto; and Dualities at ViewPoint Gallery in Halifax.
“Outer-Space/ Inner-Space and Through the Looking Glass”, Whitewash Glass 1st edition 1 of 5, in the summers of 2011/2012
David Shuken has been an observer all his life and was introduced to photography as a child. His childhood was filled with art and museum trips. Upon graduation from Ryerson with a BAA, he continued to pursue his passion for photography. He also shot one cookbook (40 images) ‘Mindful, Better Brain Health’ and was published in “The Cook’s Garden” for Canadian Gardening. Engine Gallery, Scarborough Arts Council and Gallery 44 have displayed his work. In 2021, his portraits appeared in PhotoED and in “Fleeting Moments”, a still life online exhibit for Analog Forever.
Fashion Buddha, 2021
Photo artist DNA Dodds has been exhibiting his work in solo and group shows for twenty years.
Dodds graduated from the University of Western Ontario in 1980, taking a B.F.A. He also holds a B.Ed from Western, earned in 1982.
Professional associations include membership in Toronto's Propeller Gallery for ten years, serving on Propeller's Board of Directors for eight. He has been a member of Gallery 44 since 2016, and Carfac since 2017.
Dodds' work hangs in private collections in Canada and the U.S.
The Red Dress Waits, 2021
E. McDonough is a photographer.
Glacial Erratics – Georgian Bay 1, 2021
Fred Lum is a photojournalist in Toronto. His assignments have sent him to the Olympics, and to breaking news events internationally, as well across Canada. Aside from iPhone use for social media and working out story ideas, almost all of Lum’s personal, non-assignment work is darkroom based gelatin silver fiber prints, photographed with black and white film using cameras ranging from 35mm up to 7x17. This medium offers a needed break from the quick turn around of digital work flow, and challenges him to work and see differently. When he works in colour and in low light, he does use digital cameras.
Running on Empty, 2016
Huw Morgan is a professional art and event photographer based in southern Ontario. He is working on several art photography projects, including The End of the ICE Age, Traces of Settlement and City in Motion. Morgan has had solo shows at Gallery 44, and at the Kawartha Art Gallery. He has also exhibited in group shows at Gallery 1313 (Spectra), Gallery 44, Twist Gallery, Rails-end Gallery, Elaine Fleck Gallery and, most recently, Kawartha Art Gallery where his photo Dahl Forest Wetland won an award of merit.
Luminous vortex, 2022
I.Atmaca is a Toronto-based natural light photographer who works in black and white, monochrome and color photography. He specializes in silhouette photography to convey drama, mystery, emotion, and mood. His work is often abstract and incorporates elements of surrealism, geometry, high contrast, and the realities and diversities of human life. Photography has been his hobby since the age of fourteen when he first received his own analog camera. He holds a degree in Mathematical Engineering. In 2021, I. Atmaca also participated in a CONTACT Photography Festival exhibit at Artscape Youngplace.
Toronto, ON, 2019
Ivan Rupeš is a Toronto-based photographer. In his work Rupeš examines complexities of the human relationship with the environment. He is especially drawn to probing the nuances and ironies of the ways humans affect their habitat and the ways it affects them back. Rupeš was born in what is now the Czech Republic. He started out as a biomedical researcher whose career brought him first to the USA and then to Canada. Currently, he takes on documentary projects both in Canada and around the world. His work among the indigenous peoples the northern Philippines is being presented at the 2021 Earth Photo Exhibition.
Fleeting Female Forms (#ii), 2019
Kye Marshall is an eclectic composer and cellist who brings to her photography her experience, vision and discipline as a professional musician. She is mainly a self taught photographer but has studied with Freeman Patterson and Andre Gallant. Marshall’s interests are eclectic but she does focus on abstract nature. Currently she is exploring iPhone photography, and the many intriguing apps and editing possibilities. Her work is in multiple private collections. She has had solo shows at the Axis Gallery, Canadian Music Centre, Fairview Library, The Window Box, Yorkville Library and has participated in many group shows.
Water and Tocapu, 2021
Lilianne Schneider is a self-taught photographer, born and raised in Peru living in Toronto since the late 1980s. She is influenced by the rich experimental film scene in Toronto and her various travels abroad. They have forged her sensitivity for the environment that surrounds her. She is constantly looking for photographic subjects in the streets where society and the richness of the cultural landscape converge. Photography opens her mind to experiment and recreate the scenes that might go unnoticed to others. She has participated in group exhibitions around Toronto at few Galleries and public spaces to enlighten viewers with contemporary and social photography.
Sea Change (ii), 2021
Linda Briskin is a writer and fine art photographer. She is intrigued by the juxtaposition of objects and reflections, the permeability between the remembered and the imagined, and the ambiguities in what we choose to see. She is fascinated by the fluidity between the natural and the constructed. Her focus, then, is often on inventing images rather than capturing them. In 2021, her photographs were chosen for the Herstory exhibit sponsored by Manhattan Arts International, the International Photography Exhibition at Viewpoint Gallery in Nova Scotia, and the Carmichael Canadian Landscape Exhibition at the Orillia Museum.
Aging in Place, series #5, 2022
Monica Gupta is a contemporary photographer and video artist. Monica started taking photographs in 1994 photographing street life in Toronto and several Pride Parades from 1992-2000, then life happened (two babies and a husband). In 2014 Monica had several exhibitions including; Toronto City Hall, Evergreen Brickworks Myseum and Hart House University of Toronto. She started with digital photography and is moving into short documentary film making. Monica is a Street Outreach Counsellor and lives in Toronto with her husband and two kids.
Anthony, 2022
Nascipio Filho, known by his pseudonym Nas, is a street photographer based in Toronto. His signature style captures images in black and white and highlights the importance of all forms of art seen on the streets—from intentional to casual. His photographs reflect his interest in Toronto’s amazing urban landscape, its people and culture: the graffiti, alleys, mannequins, and buildings. He seeks small traces of unnoticed but deep messages left in the city–in words and other signs of spontaneous human expression. Such messages both create and deconstruct the landscape.
AI Garden - Lemon Scented, 2022
Richelle Forsey is an interdisciplinary process-based creator and writer. Forsey’s practice is rooted in storytelling, the discourse of images, aleatory outputs, and ultimately making works for slow looking - a practice akin to Pauline Oliveros’ Deep Listening. Forsey is a founding member of the photography collective TLR Club and the graphic artist for the indie experimental music label Aural Tethers. She resides in Guelph, Ontario and is the Photography Technician at the University of Guelph.
Hutchison Road, Winding Trail, 2021
Ross Stockwell is an emerging artist based in Toronto, Ontario. He notices beauty, whimsy, and intrigue in unlikely places, capturing still moments borne of a mindful presence. His work is eclectic (landscape/urban, figure, and portraiture), unified by illuminating oddities and the play of patterns and geometric forms. His emerging projects emphasize narrative to connect, consolidate, and express subjective experience. He explores states of being, felt-sense moods, and emotions in an inanimate context. He merges classical references with a contemporary inquiry to immerse with universal questions and concerns about life, decay, and what falls between the two.
Salt Hill, 2018
Shaney Herrmann is a photographer and visual artist living and working between Montréal and Toronto. In 2018, she was one of 12 international artists selected to participate in How to Flatten a Mountain, an artist residency affiliated with the annual PhotoIreland Festival. Herrmann earned a Master of Design from Concordia University in 2021 and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from Concordia University in 2015.