pOLAROIDs (00-07)
In October of 2000, I received a package in the mail on the day on my 22nd birthday, just before my mom and I drove to Deer Lake to celebrate my birth and our collective day off of work. After art school I had returned to my hometown to clear my head and took a job working in the shrimp processing plant in Jackson’s Arm. By the time October rolled around I had worked there for over six months and although the money was nice, I was severely discontent with my job and my surroundings. Amongst other presents the parcel contained a Polaroid one step camera, and several packs of film. I was quite happy with this gift and immediately ran into the yard and snapped off several quick photos of some hose that my dad had lying around. Over the next eight years I would take hundreds of Polaroid photographs.
Most were just of my friends, although there were the occasional attempts at wit and/or aesthetic. Here are nine from the first seven.

THE CLOTHESLINE SKETCHES

Dealing directly with narrative, and more specifically the process of storytelling, I have researched and created within the concept of how narrative can inform and manipulate the image, and vice versa. Using digital video to compose situations of fractured narrative; incorporating personal references and delving into oral traditions, I enact subtle narratives. Using said video as a filter, I extract portions and recreate these fabrications in manipulated digital print and furthermore, drawing. I am transfusing and repositioning the imagery to illustrate portions of my meandering attempts to re-construct the familiar, through narrative.
While exhibiting a selection of drawings, digital prints and several corresponding small-scale handmade objects, I used pieces of pre-cut adhesive vinyl as a drawing tool to re-compose elements of the imagery directly onto the gallery wall. When installed the work acts as one piece with many components; each component has the potential to exist on its own, or as a significant contributing part of the larger overall piece.
Throughout the duration of the exhibition I periodically revisited the work, making slight alterations and minute additions to the piece, while at the same time facilitating possibilities of interaction with gallery patrons. These interactions mimic the method of layering that I utilize within my drawing. The story is not only significant to the conception of the work, but has come to be an integral part of the final presentation and implementation of the piece(s).

The images shown here are of an installation of the work, as it was exhibited as a part of IGNITION 4: at the Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Montreal, Quebec in late 2007-early 2008.