Weekly Shot of Art - Plastic

I had to work really hard to see this show. I missed the opening because I was at Bard on the Beach. Then I didn't bring the address with me and wandered around Gastown. The next time I waited for 35 minutes for the guy to come and take the "back in 5 minutes" sign but today! Today was my lucky day because I actually got to go inside and check stuff out*.

So, anyways, the Art! "Plastic" opened Friday at the mooncruise* | gallery. It's a photography show based on work from toy (plastic) cameras, and I have to say the work is stunning. I am continually amazed with the output of these "throwaway" cameras and envious that I am still trying to get the back to stay on my Holga... These artists from Vancouver and abroad have both talent and that unteachable thing that separates the wheat from the chaff - a good eye.

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*I would like to take this opportunity to point out that this should in no way be indicative of your experience.
Sometimes things just don't work out for me is all.**
**Unlike my last post where I warned there would be no footnotes, this one is apparently full of them.

There is a lot of art set up in a relatively small gallery space, but the curators at mooncruise have shown it well. Each artist has their own defined space and the power of the images moves you in an out of mini-realms. I was immediately drawn to the vivid, nostalgic urban scenes and signs (like the one above), of Eleanor le Gresley from Quebec. The prints are so saturated with colour that her images feel surreal, almost as if they are constructed from memory. They remind me of road trip polaroids and guerilla snapshots - images that were perhaps meant to be fleeting, but have been burned into memory when all the other details have faded.

Ina Jang's quixotic portraits of girls snapped with an LC-A camera were also fun and enticing. I wish she had a website.

Local Vancouverite, Rachel Ashe has 3 photographs of shoes in the show. I am completely smitten with the tones and motion of the image directly above, but the greeny/orangy shot in the show's flyer (first image in this post) is also hers and speaks wonders to her range as a photographer. I love how she brings the creative to the everyday by focusing on a simple object in different environments and contexts.

Laura Burlton delves back into the surreal netherworld with her "Fairy Tales and Nightmares" series. The black and white images are eerie and evocative of her theme; the light-leaks and filmy mysteriousness of the Holga lend themselves to it perfectly. I found myself staring hard at each image, trying to decipher it, like trying to remember a dream when you wake up. There is a story in there, but she's only hinting at it. She wants you to discover it for yourself.

The show runs until August 31st. Go back again if you don't make it the first time, it's worth it.
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mooncruise* | gallery
235 Cambie Street
Vancouver, BC, V6B 1E5
Phone: 604.685.9575
Email: mooncruisegallery@gmail.com