- Phantasmagoria at Presentation House Gallery, May 25-July 8.
IN THE RUBBLE OF THE FREE SECTION ON CRAIGSLIST, JAY BUNDY JOHNSON FOUND ART.
Amid two-wheeled tricycles and once-valuable electronics degraded to obsolete technology by the winds of time, Johnson unearthed a voyeuristic delight and a living history, one snapshot at a time.
"This is actually the first time I've ever shown anything photographic," Johnson says.
"It's interesting from my perspective as an artist, and I'm hoping other people will find them interesting too."
Johnson is one of 15 artists showcasing photographic work at Phantasmagoria, an exhibition running from May 25 to July 8 at the Presentation House Gallery on Chesterfield Avenue in North Vancouver.
The collection of abstract and illusory images represents a further examination of the snapshots exhibited in C. 1983, the gallery's exploration of 1980s Vancouver camera art, according to PHG director Reid Shier.
"We wanted to take the same lens as the Circa 1983 show and shine it on a younger generation of artists in the city," he says.
Their work was aggressive and imaginative, with many artists striving to capture photography at its sparest and most fundamental, according to Shier.
"They weren't just taking pictures of things," Shier says of the artists. "They were thinking about the essence of what a photographic image could be."
Craigslist is one of the Internet's largest marketplaces, featuring job postings, used cars, and free items.
"A lot of my materials come as found objects or castaways," Johnson says of his tendency to scour the website. "I would use Craigslist as a way of generating sculptural ideas."
Despite his background in more tangible and tactile art, Johnson started storing the photos on his hard drive in 2008.
"After a while of being on Craigslist I started to get quite infatuated with the photographs that I was seeing. . . there was something kind of odd and unique about taking a picture of something that you don't want anymore."
His infatuation evolved into a web gallery of nearly 3,000 pictures, with 160 shots in a grid on display at Presentation House Gallery.
While Johnson mined the vast expanses of cyberspace for his images, Julia Feyrer reached back to a photographic form pioneered 170 years ago for her work.
Feyrer's medium of choice is cyanotype, which utilizes iron compound solutions and absorbent paper.
"I wanted to use these older technologies and update them or combine them with things that are also more contemporary," Feyrer says. "The cyanotype is one of the classic ways of teaching children how to use photography because it is so direct and it's so immediate. You can use this photo-sensitive piece of paper, put it in the sun, and immediately see the results of it."
The process, invented by astronomer and chemist Sir John Herschel in 1842, was initially engineered to make copies of blueprints.
"Starting from the beginnings of the invention of photography is a way to. . . really try to understand it from its most essential, basic elements," Feyrer says. "It's really about the process of how to make that image and the materials that are used and how that actually influences the content."
Feyrer's offering showcases her hands. "It's definitely more of an experiment," Feyrer says. "It's also about touching as a sense."
For Feyrer, the process of creating the art is part of the art.
"I like the experience of making the work, so if the experience of making the work is looking at a computer, then that I feel is limiting," she says.
"I think maybe digital technology can be a bit alienating or a bit less of an intimate experience."
Without the Internet in general and the Craigslist free stuff section in particular, Johnson's unique exhibit would likely not exist.
"It seemed different to me than people trying to sell stuff," Johnson says. "And also just the kinds of things that were coming up that people were offering for free were really interesting objects to me that I would have never guessed people would be wanting to get rid of, or even that they would've purchased in the first place," Johnson says. "There was something odd about the freeness of it all."
Johnson can trace the lineage of his huntand-gather technique to artists who have turned objects into art with a dab of paint, or even less. New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat lent his brush to discarded alley trash that was then destined for a gallery. Early 20th-century artist Marcel Duchamp proclaimed a urinal was art with nothing to back up his claim but the claim itself.
"I would see things like old console stereos. . . or a big box full of plastic containers. Something just obviously worthless, but people thought that maybe someone else out there in the world would want it," he says. "Later on I became less interested in what the pictures were depicting and more interested in the photographs as photographs themselves."
After stocking the pictures on his hard drive for four years, Johnson's residency at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts in Burnaby drew the attention of the Presentation House Gallery, an institution he says he regards with great esteem.
"There's a lot of heavy hitters that have come out of Vancouver that have been photo-based, conceptual art, and I really wonder if that would've happened, were it not for Presentation House."
Asked what viewer will glean from his exhibit, Johnson says he is optimistic the combination of the photos will produce their own effect.
"I'm hoping that the grid image in the gallery will have some kind of effect of perhaps playfulness with the juxtaposition of the images, but also a little bit of a voyeuristic thrill of seeing these objects," Johnson says. "I also think that there's some deep esthetic quality to them. To me they're quite beautiful."
