Semira Selman, Untitled, from the series una one, alone, 2018

Proof 26

Fehn Foss
Claude Labrèche-Lemay
Cameron Lamothe
Ryan Mathieson
Semira Selman

Exhibition Dates: June 7 – July 6, 2019
Opening Reception: Friday, June 7, 6 – 8PM
Artist Walkthrough: Saturday, June 8, 1 – 3PM

Proof is Gallery 44’s annual exhibition of photo-based work by Canadian emerging artists reflecting a range of current concerns and practices in contemporary photography from across the country. Proof is often one of the first exhibitions in a professional context for an emerging artist and has featured work by Anique Jordan, Meryl McMaster, Janieta Eyre, Isabelle Hayeur, Germaine Koh, Laurie Kang, Nicholas Pye, Althea Thauberger, and Kotama Bouabane.

This year, Proof 26 celebrates with the work of five artists, Fehn Foss (Hamilton), Claude Labrèche-Lemay (Montreal), Cameron Lamothe (North Bay), Ryan Mathieson (Powell River), and Semira Selman (Ottawa).

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES:

Fehn Foss is an artist working in Hamilton, ON. In her work Foss looks at process and gesture. Oscillating between consideration and statement, she takes an idea and works it over with kinetic investigation. She has exhibited works in Hamilton, Toronto, and Montreal.

Rooting herself in the field of photography, Claude Labrèche-Lemay explores the possibilities of the medium within different fields, embracing a material approach. Her work interrogates our perception of time, the liminal space occupied by a fixed image and studies translation and systems of communication. She is currently completing her BFA in Photography at Concordia University. She exhibited her work in both Montreal and Sweden.

Cameron Lamothe is an emerging interdisciplinary artist hailing from the woods and lakes of Northern Ontario. A mild-mannered rural-ite with a penchant for disasters, his work is as much informed by the lasting effects of Cold War Era politics on Canadian communities as it is by out-of-control barn fires and the endless network of logging roads carved through the Northern landscape. A recent OCAD University undergraduate, he has had works published within Canada and Internationally, and most recently was an artist-in-residence at Prefix ICA.

Ryan Mathieson is an interdisciplinary artist who folds modes of collecting, foraging, and documentation into his practice. His images are intended to show a balance of tension and visibility for a viewer, suggesting that elements existing just below the surface are as vital to elements closest to plain sight. Mathieson engages with a variety of media, often blending the object and subject to bring about slower phases of looking and closer reading.

He holds a Bachelor of Design from the Alberta College of Art + Design and an MFA of Interdisciplinary Studies, Simon Fraser University. He is currently living and working in Powell River BC.

Semira Selman is a photo-based artist living in Ottawa. Her work addresses themes of identity, belonging, and post-war memory. For Semira, photography is a means of self-discovery and self-expression; it is an opportunity to reflect on how she experiences herself and the factors and conditions that have impacted her identity. Semira’s work, directly and indirectly, reflects on her experience of coming of age during wartime in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, being a refugee, and adapting to Canada. Through her work, Semira is examining these experiences and relating them to a broader sociopolitical context.

Hilary Riem, A Snake That Bites in Anger, Without Warning, 2018

Verant Richards Award Recipient 2018
Hilary Riem

Exhibition Dates: June 7 – July 6, 2019
Opening Reception: Friday, June 7, 6 to 8 PM

(Vitrines)

Hilary Riem’s A Snake That Bites in Anger, Without Warning collapses body language and politics by distilling the hand gestures of politicians while giving a public address. This is done through an examination and appropriation of 20th and 21st-century archival images and YouTube footage. The work explores the role gesture plays in the development of identity, perceptions of leadership and nationalism, and archival subjectivity and accessibility.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY:

Hilary Riem (b. 1995, Toronto, Canada) holds a BFA in photography from OCAD University. Her work concerns the political function of gesture within contemporary society, how the meaning of these gestures is altered through means of mechanical reproduction, and what happens once they enter the structures of the institutional archive. Hilary is the 2018 recipient of the Verant Richards award for experimental photography, and has exhibited in Toronto, Canada, and Anseong, South Korea. Riem currently lives and works in Toronto, Canada.

Luther Konadu, Untitled Ceramic Portraits #2, Edition of 10, 2019

Proof Edition: Luther Konadu

For the inaugural Proof Edition, we are delighted to present work by Luther Konadu. Launching at the opening reception, sales of each edition support our education and exhibition programs.

Untitled Ceramic Portraits #1, Edition of 10
Untitled Ceramic Portraits #2, Edition of 10

These two limited edition prints are part of Konadu’s ongoing series Untitled Ceramic Portraits. The series parses the possibility of portraiture through photography in abstract terms. It ultimately pursues the questions: How to refer to the body without showing it’s likeness? How to open up depiction towards successive directions?

Luther Konadu is a writer and artist of Ghanaian descent based in Winnipeg Manitoba. Konadu is G44’s 2018-19 writer-in-residence, and was a featured artist in Proof 25 (2018). He is a content creator for the online publication Public Parking. A project for highlighting the working practices of emerging creators and thinkers. He is also a writing contributor for Akimbo. His studio labour is project-based and realized through photographic print media and painting processes. He is interested in how the legacies of those mediums continue to shape prevailing perceptions of group identities. He uses his work to reinterpret those image-making mediums. Konadu lives and works on Treaty One Territory, the stolen lands of the Anishinaabe, Métis, Cree, Dakota and Oji-Cree Nations.

Gallery 44 is open Tuesday to Saturday 11AM to 5PM | Free admission
Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography is a charitable, non-profit, artist-run centre committed to supporting multi-faceted approaches to photography and lens-based media. Founded in 1979 to establish a supportive environment for the development of artistic practice, Gallery 44’s mandate is to provide a context for meaningful reflection and dialogue on contemporary photography.

Gallery 44 is committed to programs that reflect the continuously changing definition of photography by presenting a wide range of practices that engage timely and critical explorations of the medium. Through exhibitions, public engagement, education programs and production facilities our objective is to explore the artistic, cultural, historic, social and political implications of the image in our ever-expanding visual world.

Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography
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Toronto, Ontario M5V 3A8
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Maegan Broadhurst
Head of Communications and Development
maegan@gallery44.org
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