Recognize and recollect

Corradetti and Kent use photos and monoprints to spark select memories

By combining dim lighting and art
Image by: Tiffany Lam
By combining dim lighting and art

Can we trust our own memory?

It’s a question that Kelsey-Lynn Corradetti and Emma Kent’s new exhibit In the Wake of poses, bringing together themes of human recollection and its constantly changing nature. The entrance to the Union Gallery practically frames the largest piece in the Main Space, titled Part 1 & 2.

Set up like a giant storybook turned to a specific page, it immediately captured my imagination.

The exhibit’s dim lighting established a dreamlike state, functioning as an extension of the artists’ objective of recollection and remembrance.

As I worked my way toward Part 1 & 2, I first observed the intriguing photograph-monoprints — a series of seven photographs covered with plexiglass that correlate to another seven monoprints below.

One photo-monoprint pair — Kennedy — stood out to me, depicting an old man seemingly on his deathbed with what I assume to be a relative beside him.

The abstract monoprint beneath vaguely captures the old man’s form and colour. Streaks of red draws from the colour of blanket draped over the sickly man’s body in the photo above.

I really enjoyed Corradetti’s exploration of how memory is reconstructed every time it’s revisited, but I found the series to be somewhat obstructive.

There didn’t appear to be any thread of continuity between the apparently random photographs. Had they formed some kind of progression, they could have told a story which would have added depth to both the series and the theme of the exhibit.

I found my way to the centerpiece of the exhibit, Part 1 & 2, the piece that initially drew my attention. It gives the impression of a montage, with various perspectives, figures and settings incorporated into one.

Each component read like a memory — fluid, meaningful and a little hazy.

In her artist statement, Kent hopes to evoke a sense of déjà vu which, in my opinion,she accomplishes.

Although Kent and Corradetti’s subject matter of story-telling and memory lacks originality, the presentation doesn’t.

Overall, the exhibit tends to be dominated by the storybook, mostly by the sheer size of it. But, if the attention is paid, the surrounding artwork holds its own.

In the Wake of runs in the Main Space of Union Gallery until Feb. 8. The reception is tomorrow night at 6 p.m.

Tags

Art, Review

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