Toronto artist Sarah Parker’s photographic self-portraits are made using Polaroids that are scanned and then printed on canvas with an Iris inkjet printer, creating what are called giclee (GEE-clay) prints. Giclee prints can be made on a variety of media, and Parker’s choice of canvas instead of the more common watercolour papers gives an old-world, painterly feel. But don’t expect to see the Mona Lisa or Mother with Child. Parker’s portraits are deconstructionist pieces in primary colours. The contradictions continue — finely detailed fabric and the model’s delicate features are lost in dimness, posed with stylized awkwardness and oppressed by negative space. This tension, but mostly the emotional distance Parker creates between herself as photographer and as subject, leaves questions not just unanswered but unarticulated. These are fleeting, dreamlike images, seen from the corner of your mental eye.
Until the end of August at the Gypsy Co-op (815 Queen St. W.)
