TORONTO: Paul Petro: Marlene Creates

“This series is about movement—the movement of wildlife at ground level and of celestial bodies overhead. Heaven and Earth, if you like. The events juxtaposed in each pair are just two of the countless natural phenomena—perceptible and imperceptible—that occurred at the same time.

“The series is also about the ways we do and do not take photographs and the possibilities for artistic agency when I deliberately relinquish being the photographer and leave it to a trail camera. I installed it at the edge of Blast Hole Pond River where it was triggered by the movement of wildlife. I value the unpredictable, serendipitous, unintentional, and off-centeredness of these photographs, while recognizing that wildlife move with intention and the celestial events in our galaxy happen with precise predictability.

“I’m interested in how we regard such photographs, which ask questions about the ways that photographs are composed and about our expectations of the pictured world.”

– Marlene Creates, 2016

Image Credit: September 15, 2015 from the series What Came to Light at Blast Hole Pond River, Newfoundland 2015 (and ongoing), 2015
diptych of colour photograph and text printed with Epsom UltraChrome pigment inks on Epsom paper
23 13/16 x 66 inches, 59 x 168 cm