In Performing Home, Gallery 44 presents two series of works, Pictures from (Inside), photographs by Richard Hines, and Defenders of Faith, video works by Nicole Raufeisen and Ryan Witt. Both series of works result from a pensive energy that the artists have channeled into their pieces.
Superficially, the work of these artists appears to have disparate connections. However, if one decelerates and looks at the quest for identity in our relentlessly quickening urban life, then Pictures from (Inside) and Defenders of the Faith possess harmonic resonance.
Roland Barthes suggests that “myth is constituted by the loss of the historical quality of things” and Nicole and Ryan’s mutations into unicorns from a deserted house in British Columbia, which looks like a sanitized crime-scene that cries for our loss of hope, dreams and inner consciousness.
Richard Hines says that his family photographs speak to “…our longing to see the remnants of our lives.” Family baggage carries complex remnants that constructs the intriguing unit of individuals called family, and Pictures from (Inside) opens that baggage to reveal its contents. In The Diviners Margaret Laurence declares, “I keep the snapshots not for what they show but what is hidden in them.” Pictures from (Inside) is hardly a collection of snapshots, but there is a good deal hidden within the images.
Pictures from (Inside) and Defenders of the Faith are both motivated by their creators’ quest for place and harmony on the planet where technology has removed people from the natural world. Aren’t many of us looking for balance as we consume ourselves?
Essay by Andrew Danson Danushevsky in PDF below.
Richard Hines was born and raised in Windsor, Ontario. He has earned a MFA from NSCAD University in Halifax, a BFA from the University of Manitoba, and a BA from the University of Winnipeg. He teaches at NSCAD University and Mount Allison University in Sackville, NB. His work has been published and exhibited in Canada and the U.S. and can be seen at upcoming exhibitions at the Beaverbrook Gallery in Fredericton and Platform in Winnipeg. His work is represented by Patrick Mikhail Gallery in Ottawa and Michael Gibson Gallery in London, ON.
Nicole Raufeisen and Ryan Witt have worked collaboratively since 2002 and are graduates of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. Their interdisciplinary practice has been exhibited locally, nationally and internationally. Recent activities include a solo exhibition at the Or gallery in Vancouver and residencies at both the Bermis Centre for Contemporary Art in Omaha, Nebraska and the Drake Hotel in Toronto. Currently, they are represented by the Republic Gallery.
