WATER'S EDGE

An exhibition of new photographic work by Andrew Wright for CONTACT at PEAK GALLERY.

May 3rd to May 27th, 2007
Opening Reception, Thursday May 3rd 4-8pm. Artist will be in attendance.

Andrew Wright is a multi-disciplinary artist who has been photographing subjects at night for the past 7 years.

He has worked towards a particular kind of imagery that both identifies and challenges conventional uses and understandings of photographic practice. He creates images that sit on the edge of possibility—ones that are rife with the plenitudes of realistic detail and, at the same time, full of the potential energy of their own collapse—“a kind of wished-for uncertainty”

Partly as a result of a stint as a war artist aboard the HMCS Toronto in the North Atlantic in 2005, Wright turns his attention to water with this new and investigative body of work. These raw images of North America’s largest standing waves probe both fiction and reality. They are images of near impossible complexity that engulf, astound, and confound.

Shot precipitously close to the rapids of the Niagara gorge (Wright required a specially trained police escort to accompany him) and against dark grounds, these waters are perceptually removed from their real world context. The contradictions abound: standing waves are both static and dynamic; scale is confused as what can appear as miniaturized is in fact many meters tall; chaos and randomness appear to be at once organized in front of Wright’s lens.

His practice is one wherein images laud, reveal and question the conditions of their making. He continues to choose subject matter that is either minimal or barely existing or subjects that contain a staggeringly overwhelming fullness. His photographs of natural settings are objects and places that at first appear pure and unadulterated by human intervention. The imposition of artificial light not only serves to reveal and illuminate but renders the subject’s overt naturalism suspect. The descriptive visual plenty provided by the light serves, at the same time, to throw the image’s veracity into question.

The artist wishes to thank the Niagara Parks commission, Matthew Carver, and Michael J. Ambedian.

Peak Gallery
23 Morrow Ave
Toronto. ON
M6R 2H9
Canada
www.peakgallery.com
416.537.8108


Andrew Wright’s work can also be seen in the following concurrent exhibitions:

•Wright’s opus Blind Man’s Bluff is at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa until May 6th, 2007 (77 Queen St.)

•Image & Apparatus an exhibition of contemporary photography that includes work by Dianne Bos, Arnold Korosgegyi, Donald Lawrence at Museum London until June 10, 2007 (421 Ridout St. N.)

•Passages Videos shot from rocket-propelled cameras by Wright are paired with new landscape works by Lisa Klapstock at Cambridge Galleries from May 12 to June 30th, 2007. Opening reception Saturday, May 12, 2:30pm

Andrew Wright is an artist who lives and works in Waterloo. His work is described as multi-tiered inquiries into the nature of perception, photographic structures and technologies, and the ways we relate to an essentially mediated and primarily visual world. The this end, he has produced sculpture, film, installation, outdoor works and prints that probe phenomena, narrative, antique and contemporary technologies.

He has exhibited widely, both nationally and internationally, with exhibitions at the University of California, Berkeley, Oakville Galleries, Photo Miami, Roam Contemporary (New York), ARCO '05 (Madrid), Presentation House, Vancouver and the Art Gallery of Calgary, to name a few. He has also participated in residencies including the Banff Centre and Braziers Workshop (U.K.), and recently as a 'war artist' with the Canadian Forces Artist Program aboard Canadian warship H.M.C.S. Toronto. He is the founding Artistic Director for Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area (CAFKA).

Wright is the recipient of numerous awards. In 2001 he was the winner of the Ernst & Young Great Canadian Printmaking Competition, and has received grants from the Waterloo Regional Arts Fund, the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. He has received critical acclaim for his work in publications such as Canadian Art, Border Crossings, and The Globe & Mail .

He has been nominated for the Sobey Art Award 3 times: 2003, 2005, and recently in 2007.

Andrew Wright is represented in Canada by Peak Gallery in Toronto. www.andrewwright.ca