Chrysanthou/Wiggett

Cameras do not report one objective reality but the world as the photographer sees it. Commonly, an image is believed to be ‘real’ or at least an accurate portrayal of reality. A large component of the perception of reality in images has to do with the way photographs imitate our three dimensional world. Pressed Landscapes subverts this traditional use of photography to sound a warning about the loss of our precious natural landscapes. Through careful selection of subject matter, finely tuned compositions and deliberate work with focal length, the photographs in Pressed Landscapes portray a world flattened and static in time – as if pressed in the pages of a scrapbook and preserved for some future generation to stumble upon and wonder at what once was.

This somewhat darkly whimsical take on traditional landscape photography at once reveals the hand of the photographer while simultaneously inviting us to ponder the existence of a world beyond the fixed photo on the page.

Artography is the creation of in-camera photographic images that depict graphic patterns in nature that on first glace look purely abstract but on closer inspection reveal recogizable nature subjects. With artography Darwin hopes to foster a greater appreciation for the artful (and functional) patterns in nature that are available for all to discover by simply removing our subjective bias.

In Small Town Sundays, we travel to dying prairie towns in Alberta to photograph main street and the heart of each town on Sundays.

We are both from Alberta small towns, and we have mixed feelings about our experiences living in them. Sunday traditionally was a day of religion and socializing, of meeting at church and perhaps having a coffee with a neighbour afterwards. The main street would be alive with people going about their day. But with the move to industrialized food systems, many small farms have sold out and left the area with corresponding decreases in school enrolment, hospital visitations, and commerce in small towns.

The towns we visit on Sunday are generally quiet and still. What does this demographic shift reveal about our values as a culture? Are small towns the stuff of nostalgia for the ‘good ‘ole days’ when everything was simple and ‘common sense’ reined? Or is the loss of small communities a reflection of diversifying social structures and technological advancement and viewed as inevitable?

In Small Town Sundays, we use the differences in our personal styles as artists to portray the two narratives of nostalgia and neglect, pairing images together on the wall to suggest these two viewpoints, and encouraging the viewer to think about what kind of story they are attracted to and why. This project encourages us to grapple with our own histories with small towns as well as push to the limit and question tendencies and assumptions underlying our artistic styles.

Small Town Sundays will be on exhibit at The Gentry Espresso Bar in Cochrane, Alberta from January 29 to March 31, 2020. We’ll have an artist talk on Small Town Sundays at The Gentry on Feb 15, 2020 from 7-9pm.

The images in this gallery are out-takes from our upcoming show. Come and see the final paired images contrasting nostalgia and neglect.

Encroachment features images taken from our town of Cochrane, Alberta.

Cochrane is a friendly town with a suburban feel. We have many sports fields and parks and some natural areas, especially along the Bow River. Encroachment examines how Cochrane’s green public spaces are used through the metaphor of “the public commons”. In historical terms, common lands were public and open to anyone (usually the less fortunate) to access and glean resources where they could. In our current era of food insecurity, where cities are only days away from running out of supplies, is our current policy of promoting recreational fields and parks the best use of the modern-day commons? Has our desire for entertainment and activity encroached on healthy, food-producing habitat? Or is the balance adequate, with wild areas proliferating at the edges of creeks and streams, pathways and infrastructure, forever having to be chopped back from infiltrating our parks and soccer fields?

In Encroachment, we intend to suggest these contradictions through use of ‘double exposure’. Images of Cochrane’s green sports fields and manicured parks will be overlaid with images of human food and medicine-producing natural areas in Cochrane. We invite the viewer to contemplate their reaction to this deliberate juxtaposition of two very different visions of the public commons. The overlay will is done digitally to maximize clarity of the concept but requires a great deal of visualization in the field in obtaining the correct images for the project. This project challenged our ability to envision the final product when faced in the field with only the raw materials of subject and light. It is far beyond the beautiful landscape images we created in our commercial work, and we are excited to explore deeper meaning in our work.

Encroachment will be on exhibit from Feb 24 to March 9, 2010 at cSPACE King Edward in Calgary. Join us for an artist talk on Encroachment at cSPACE King Edward, Calgary, Alberta on February 29, 2020 from 7-9pm.

Watch for new images in this gallery updated regularly.

Grounded is a gallery of images by Darwin Wiggett that explores where the firmament of the ground meets the ephemeral of the sky. The ground anchors us in reality…the sky is the place of dreams. The intersection of the two elements is a barrier between us and the void. The visual juxtaposition of the space between ground and sky is the exploration examined in Grounded.