Born in Persia and raised in Athens, Greece and Vancouver B.C., Osheen Harruthoonyan is a Toronto based photographer and filmmaker. Drawing upon his rich experiences living in such diverse cities, he employs a multi-faceted approach towards his artistic practice, investigating memory, history and the deconstructive process of time. Osheen’s work has been featured on Bravo! Arts Channel and his exhibitions in Toronto have consistently been noted as a top show not to miss. Harruthoonyan has also worked as a cinematographer on numerous short films, music videos, and experimental films.

Osheen Harruthoonyan’s sumptuous photographic prints evoke the uncertain, fledgling flashes encountered at the threshold of a dream.  Combining traditional large-format photography with a variety of analog photo-manipulation techniques, Harruthoonyan skillfully renders his subjects within ethereally illusive environments. The fastidious striations and cracks of his altered film negatives become esoteric anomalies that hearken to a unique and singular “subterranean realm”. Harruthoonyan’s willingness to take risks within the confines of the traditional photographic process makes this representational capacity possible. Altering each negative by hand, his works crystallize midway between the calculable and the spontaneous, addressing both the systematic and the chaotic.  His careful yet playful inventiveness unravels the mysteries of our collective irreconcilable reverie.  Harruthoonyan’s creations conjure the lifetimes that exist within moments, and the glimmers of strangeness that give pause to our ever-evolving subconscious states.

Within his work, we witness not only the captured image, but the very process of image-making laid bare.

THE COLLECTOR: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Collecting Art

Artwork available from the Private Collection of La Petite Mort Gallery

April 27 – May 3, 2012

There is no vernissage for this event. Simply drop by and check it out during business hrs.

Here is a brief opportunity to have at the art we have been squirreling. La Petite Mort Gallery is having a sale of the Gallery Inventory and Private Collection. Come, see, fall in love & buy works by our talented local artists for 25%-50% off.

Buy art!

I am interested in how my paintings might operate independently from their literal figurative foundation and engage with an exploration of color, reduction of forms, and triumph of substance as imbued with meaning and metaphor, overt, and suggestive. My practice is a process encumbered by the reduction of literalness in preference of a sensual and topographical painted surface. Through this process of discovery, I hope to create work that engages with a continuously forming language of painting and representation. By drawing attention to the tangibility of the work, I introduce extra-diegetic readings, pulling the viewer from the sutures of the represented subject and inviting readings beyond the confines of the painted picture.

With each successive work, I hope to draw attention to the painterly versus the formal, predominating the medium as integral to the understanding and formation of my work, and referencing painting as both ‘act’ and ‘medium’. Through my treatment of form and content, I ask the viewer to consider the technical aspects of my paintings, but also the metaphorical role that media assumes in my work, and finally the relationship of my paintings to a greater narrative and mythology, in which each subject is related to ideas of psyche and convalescence. As a result, my work often uses personal history to approach universal themes, and a politics that I view as deeply personal, yet resoundingly human.

Andrew Salgado Curriculum Vitae

EDUCATION
2009 Master of Fine Art (Hons). Chelsea College of Art. London, England. (Dissertation Distinction).
2005 Bachelor of Art, History & Theory (Hons). University of British Columbia. Vancouver, Canada.

AWARDS, GRANTS, FELLOWSHIPS
2011 Award. The Courvoisier Future 500. London, England.
Residency. Full Funding. Compeung Creative Village. Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Feature Artist: Art For Life. Vancouver, Canada.
2010 Residency. Compeung Creative Village. Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Residency. 6-Month Studio Placement. Berlin, Germany.
Selection. The Courtauld Institute of the Arts: East Wing IX Academy Hang. London, England.
Award. Emerging Artist. UNTAPPED Art Fair Toronto. Toronto, Canada.
Shortlist. The Art of Giving. The Saatchi Gallery, London UK.
Shortlist. Fringe MK Painting Prize. Milton Keynes, UK.
Shortlist. Lieutenant Governor’s Arts Award. Canada.
2008 Award. Saskatchewan Youth Award. Canada.
2007 Shortlist. Lieutenant Governor’s Arts Award. Canada.

PUBLICATIONS / LECTURES
2012 “Theorizing Masculinity and Sexuality: Marginalization, Narcissism, and the Sexual Body.” A Visual Reader. Chicago Institute of the Arts. Chicago, USA.
2011 Untitled Painting Publication. Forthcoming. Beers.Lambert Contemporary Art.
2010 “Explicit Paint in Art History.” Lecture. International Journal of Arts & Sciences, Central Connecticut State University, USA. Presented: Bad Hofgastein, Austria.
A Painted Man. Critical Essay. Daniel Weinberg. Vermont University Press.
Validation of Art…Contemporary Artists. Interview. Sara Forsythe. Sotheby’s Institute of Art.
2009 Paint Your Black Heart Red. Published portfolio and theory. Beers.Lambert Contemporary Art.
2008 “Prose and Contemporary Art.” Lecture. University of Regina. Department of English.
2005 “Plender’s Masterpiece.” Critical Essay. The Saatchi Gallery Online.
2004 “Postmodern Condition” / “Death of the Museum Space”. Peer-reviewed presentation. Multidisciplinary Research Conference. University of British Columbia, Canada.

PRESS
2012 Channel 4 (UK): The Science of Art. Documentary. (Airing 2012, Channel 4, UK). 
2011 Saatchi Online ‘ARTIST OF THE WEEK’. (June 26 – July 2, 2011). www.saatchionline.com
Artist A Day. May 20. www.artistaday.com
Rooms Magazine. Issue #5. Publication. London, UK.
METRO. Tuesday March 8. Free Newspaper. London, England..
Future Perfect. Beautiful/Decay Publication.
Park Magazine. Issue #2. Cover and Feature Article. Publication. Porto, Portugal.
Adrian Glynn: Bruise. Album cover and liner notes.
Booooooom. Online Review.
2010 “Andrew Salgado Captures Gritty City in Portraits.” Review. Kevin Griffin. The Vancouver Sun.
Paint Your Black Heart Red. Radio Interview. Sheila Coles. Canada Broadcast Corp.
Nottingham Post. Exhibition Review. Mark Patterson.
Beautiful Decay. Online Review.
2009 “Andrew Salgado.” Cover/Feature. David Semeniuk. Skewed Magazine. Canada.
2008 “Portrait of the Artist as a Bloody Man.” Feature. Tony Correia. Xtra! West. Canada.
“SWARM 08 Ft. Andrew Salgado.” Beyond Robson. Review. Jennifer Perutka. Canada.
“Getting a Buzz at Swarm.” Georgia Straight. Featured Review. Vancouver, Canada.
“Rumors of SWARM’s Death…” Westender. Review. Vancouver, Canada.

COLLECTIONS
Beverley Adam and Graham Starling. London, UK
Melek El Nimer. Beirut, Lebanon.
Niko and Geli Starbatty. Munich, Germany.
Louis Lazzarra. Los Angeles, California.
Mrs. Jacquie Schumiatcher. Regina, Canada.

I am primarily interested in exploring our murky relationship with the past. Due to the shifting, variable nature of human memory, our histories, personal and emotional, general and material, are constructed, and reconstructed in almost fictive terms. Photographs serve as a kind of interpretive documentation of people, places and events that come and go, appear and fade over the course of time. Much like the images themselves, and the content of those images, the mixed-media collages I build are temporary (and disposed of shortly after I document them in a scanner). The final prints are meant as an incomplete reminder of how the objects felt and looked at the time, and what they may or may not have meant.

Note: these images are scanned documents of mixed-media objects created without the interference of image editing software.

“In which estimate lies the greater reality – the uncharitable one permitted us before the funeral, forged, without any claptrap, in the skirmish of daily life, or the one that suffuses us with sadness at the family gathering afterward – even an outsider can’t judge.” (Philip Roth – from American Pastoral)

“Nostalgia is not what it used to be.” (Simone Signoret)

JAKE COURTOIS
Born 1977 in Montreal, QC
Lives and works in New York, NY

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2011 Take-Out, Andrew Edlin/Youth Group Gallery, New York, NY
2010 K48:8 ABRAK48DABRA, Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York, NY

PUBLICATIONS

2010 K48:8 ABRAK48DABRA

Lowlife is brutal stuff. A vicious slice of the American pie. A camera Lucida of la bas, as the French say. It doesn’t get much further down and straight to the being than this. A cautionary series of tales that’s seguro.’ – Barry Gifford, Screen writer

“Scot Sothern Makes this years most  controversial photobook” – The BritishJournal of Photography

“This work is graphic and immediately raw. It is cynical and dangerous and says so much in such condensed landscape. Sothern immersed headfirst into this sliver of the population unlike most people could never imagine, as a patron, and made photographs with a level of exclusive access that is bold and a little hard to comprehend. The stories behind each image presented weaves in a tremendous amount of texture and background. The tales oozed so much power to the imagery.” -Kathy M.Y. Pyon, LA Times

‘Scot Sothern has taken his camera into a world that only a microscopic fraction of the human population knows exists. Sothern is not a mere voyeur, he wades deeply into zones most never will and renders his subjects with dignity and compassion. Lowlife is a moving  and compelling piece of work.’ – Henry Rollins

There’s nothing soft about this book, apart from the cover and Sothern’s pre-coital member - Mirada Gavin, Hotshoe Magazine

A vital book that, with its multiple perspectives, escapes the clichés of prostitution photography…. There are many photographs of prostitutes, but Scot Sothern’s are the least simplistic, the least idealised, and for that reason they are the most human. Or are they? – Colin Pantall, Photoeye

APRIL 7 / ONE NIGHT STAND / 7 – 10pm

When Shannon Lee Mannion parachuted herself into art four years ago using discarded computer keyboards as her canvas, she knew exactly what she was doing. As a onetime journalist, she takes the common QWERTY keyboard, instrument of her former trade, and creates Quirky B’s, Pop Art for this Millennium.

Pop Art can be whimsical, upbeat, sexy, even glamorous, and there is an implicit wit behind many of Shannon Lee’s creations. Often word-play is significant when the name of a board results in an Aha! moment. The “oh I get it, isn’t she clever” forehead-slapping insight.

Shannon Lee continually out-Warhols Warhol. She does this by marrying form and function with significance and implication, the result of which is unconventional, individual, and, quite often, extraordinary.

Shannon Lee comments on her intentional misreading of the word odd, “I prefer the spelling, awed. Some of my boards are ironic while others are peculiar. You might see beauty in another while the board right next to it will scream, WTF.”

Her art is not functional and certainly not representational. These are not decorated keyboards for office use. Although the QB’s embody function, these boards will never type a word again.

However, Ottawa is a government town and we rise and fall from the output of thousands of keyboards every day. Taking a familiar object and modifying it in our view has the power to astonish, sometimes to perturb or mystify, always to delight.

Boys have always been a mystery to me – having a brother and male friends did nothing to assuage feelings of alienation from that other species. To befriend them was a challenge, to engage them romantically was an impossibility. As a woman, I will never understand men the way I fundamentally understand women; this creates a kind of curiosity that lends itself to photography. I approach teenage boys now with a touch of hindsight and a healthy dose of curiosity. What was invisible or different about the boys around me when my vision was coloured by my own teenage inhibitions?

As children, our lives are controlled by others – activities, interests, schedule. When we begin to become individuals and make our own decisions, the bedroom is often where these decisions begin – this is the one space where a child or teenager is permitted to take ownership. For many, the bedroom becomes a kind of temple – a sacred space that is untouchable by parents and others, a space to represent interests, thoughts, and dreams.

From birth, gender roles are deeply ingrained in both boys and girls. Women are permitted, even encouraged, to be emotional, to discuss reactions to interpersonal relationships, to feel scared, lonely, weak. Men are trained to do the opposite growing up – a boy who shows signs of any of these is bullied, teased, labeled feminine. “Man up”, “grow a pair”, “stop being a pussy” are phrases often repeated by peers and mentors alike. When and where are boys permitted to be vulnerable?

When I began this series, there were questions about taking the boys out of their environments – why separate the two? I was very certain that I did not want to photograph the boys inside their bedrooms, but I was not entirely sure why. Hindsight has helped to explain my initial reasoning: these bedrooms are truly much more of a portrait of the boy than the image of the boy himself. Much like the boys they represent, each bedroom is distinct, a collection representing the individuality of each boy. The studio portraits, conversely, are ambiguous and nearly devoid of identity – I have stolen from the boy all that represents his character, lit, posed, and post-produced him. Skin, eyes, and hair are ultimately not much more than that, but to the viewer, they represent infinite interpretation.

I understand the uncomfortable nature of this series for my models – I am essentially forcing them into incredibly vulnerable situations. By placing each boy in a totally unfamiliar environment and asking him to remove his shirt I create a well-defined set of discomforts. Asking him if I can enter his bedroom and document it with my camera elicits added tension. These photographs are representations of vulnerability in every sense, and this vulnerability is tangible here. These images represent a space where boys are permitted to be vulnerable, to feel emotional, lonely, weak, afraid. However, they also allow for the viewer, and the image-maker, to feel all of those things.

That anyone would agree to model for me always astonishes me, despite the fact that I – of all people – know I have the best of intentions. It feels as though they are letting me steal a piece of themselves, and allowing me to do with it what I will. Camera in hand, I can create and examine extremely intimate situations that would otherwise be close to impossible to explore. A portrait sitting often feels like a silent therapy session: I am trying to engage with my model using body language and eye contact, without the words that would usually accompany those signs. These images ultimately represent a trade of vulnerability: in our best moments together, my intense struggle to be genuine evokes something singular from my subjects. All I can be is honest, and the most I can hope for in return is honesty.

He has also worked in parallel in video installations and international publications, using porn images as a common resource for he’s digital origami and other known pieces. He’s digital collages have been featured in several publications such as Woof Magazine (Brazil), Ticket to Hell (Spain), Monocromo (Mexico) and Gente Rara (Venezuela). Felipe’s imagery reflects heavily on the relationship between landscape–technology and the human body, and his curatorial work has included artists from many latitudes of America, making him a very promising figure in the future of the Latin-American art world. During 2011 he had his first solo Exhibit Valle Central on Sala +18, Santiago; where he showed to the public his skills as a photographer, in several pieces that reflected country-side nostalgia to a metropolitan audience.

Born In Japan
Live in Brooklyn, NY

Education:
- 2004 BFA, Tama Art University, Oil Painting,Tokyo Japan
- 2007 The Art Students League of New York

Selected Group Shows:
2006
- THE 10TH ANNUAL D.U.M.B.O.ARTUNDER THE BRIDGE FESTIVAL
- Love & Peace / MIwa-Alex Salon
- Tribeca Open Artist Studio Tour
- SALON de EXPACE #4 / AG Gallery
- Tenri Cultural Institute of New York
- Jaa NY Annual Exhibition

2007
- Tenri Cultural Institute of New York
- The Art Students League of New York

2008
- Tamabi NY Club The 4th HAFH Exhibition 2008
- Works on Paper Exhibition / Cuchifritos Gallery Project Space

Solo Show:
2005
- Naruki Kukita solo exhibition / Toki Collection 4-3-11 Chyo-ku, Ginza,Tokyo

ESTHER SIMMONDS-MACADAM

New Paintings / March 23 – 29, 2012

Vernissage Friday March 23 / 7 – 10pm

Statement:

Vulnerability, uncertainty and contemplation are common themes in my practice. I respond to Old Master history painting in which the male body is enshrouded in power, prestige and emotional impenetrability. Interested in exploring a place for critical figure painting, I take up the male figure as a metaphor through which to examine social values and secure space for multiple ways of being.

Bio:

Esther Simmonds-MacAdam is an interdisciplinary artist based in Toronto.  Straddling cultural studies and visual art, Esther received an MA in Sociology and Equity Studies at the University of Toronto and studied Painting and Women’s Studies at Concordia University in Montreal. Formerly a member of the Propeller Centre for the Visual Arts (Toronto), she exhibits widely. In the fall of 2010 her practice was profiled on the BRAVO television program Star Portraits and in the summer of 2011 she was the recipient of the Telford Fenton Memorial Award in Painting at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition. Esther has been artist in residence at The Banff Centre (Banff, Alberta) for the month of March 2012. Her practice has been generously supported by grants from the Ontario Arts Council and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

I have tried, in my work, to create a mythological vocabulary outside of traditional religious or historical systems. Characters are set outside of identifiable context (they cannot be placed in time or located in a particular culture) but their faces are real, familiar, human faces that may remind the viewer of a neighbour or a friend (though, admittedly, gone terribly wrong). The primary aim is to evoke an emotional response and, then, to allow the viewer to speculate on the narrative. Why are these people here? How did they get this way? What are they doing to each other?

I work in traditional media: “wet into wet” oil painting on canvas; single-use plaster molds, cast from clay figures; ornamental cabinetry. This is important for two reasons. For me, these traditional processes are endlessly challenging: there is an opportunity to continually improve and there is no threat of coming to the end of possibilities. For the viewer, regardless of the content they are faced with, the forms create an immediate association with museum-style “Art”.

This latest work explores, among other things, the duality of traditional figure painting, which often uses figures as both real characters, living real moments, and as bloodless icons of human vices, virtues and concerns. It is my sincere hope that viewers will recognize in these images a reflection of both the creepiness and silliness of contemporary human life: scary monsters, sweet babies; slaps and tickles.

Making things has always been an important aspect of my daily life. Painting and drawing simply became the most effective way for me to create and explore. Using a variety of conventional and unconventional mark making tools such as, acrylic paint, ink, charcoal, oil pastel, rags, water, sand paper, offers the perfect forum to mix these mediums on surfaces such as canvas, wood, metal, and paper. Different combinations of these elements allow me to work quickly and freely, and makes it possible to capture the essence of the subject matter, as well as continue to experiment with the elements to achieve the desired aesthetic affect. The distressed look to the majority of my work is just as important art he subject matter because it allows the process of the work to be visible in the final stage of the work. It encourages the viewer to look for the various stages in the process of completing a single piece. This transparency is essential to how I work. It forces me to take risks, add a human element to the work as well as a sense of humour. Working heavily with lines and large blocks of colour, seems to be the only way to successfully achieve this level of organized chaos in the art. It is simultaneously dense and empty to allow for the rustic, earthy toned treatment of the overall image.

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They say all good things come to an end. But for some, the end is just the beginning. Multimedia artist and musician Hayden Menzies has got everything it takes to conquer the art world – killer talent, a relentless muse and rock star good looks. But why does he have to leave Ottawa to make it worth his while?

“The time to leave is when things are at their best,” says Menzies. “I don’t want to get too comfortable.”

In the last year, Menzies’ career as a visual artist has been nothing short of explosive. Straight out of Concordia’s fine arts program, he had his first solo show, Home and Heroes, at Shanghai Restaurant. That was followed by back-to-back shows at the Buzz, the Mercury Lounge, La Petite Mort, Black Tomato and in art galleries in Montreal and Toronto. The works from those shows were hungrily snatched up.

Before he takes flight to Toronto, Menzies will be at Artguise showing his newest works, a collection of evocative paintings that combine graphic sensibility with a harmony of colours. Brandon McVittie, the gallery’s co-owner, chose to showcase Menzies’ solo exhibition for obvious reasons: “His painting is at a sophisticated and professional level that fits in with what our clientele are looking for – something fresh and compelling.”

In the book Chasing Cool: Standing Out in Today’s Cluttered Marketplace, authors Noah Kerner and Gene Pressman discovered that after interviewing more than 70 trendspotters and trendsetters, “cool” or becoming “the next big thing” had one simple ingredient – being true to your own vision.

One could argue that this freedom to just be and to express oneself beyond social norms and mainstream currency originates from the art world; it includes eclectic artist-types like Jackson Pollock and Jean-Michel Basquiat – not surprisingly, artists that inspire Menzies.

“They did stuff that looked like children’s scrawl on paper,” explains Menzies, “and people ate it up – and rightfully so, because their different point of view was unapologetic.”

Menzies’ mixed-media paintings borrow a lot from Basquiat’s aesthetic for all their semi-abstraction. Distorted figurative shapes, deliberately non-representational of human anatomy, are framed by earthy rich colours on canvas or board. But contrasted with Menzies’ self-assuredness is the glimpse of vulnerability that takes shape in his multilayered paintings titled Panic or Brotherhood. Themes of safety, security and belonging are reflected in signature-style images of houses, outstretched hands or animals; traces of the Alberto Giacometti and Egon Schiele sketch style pervade his works.

More than a modern painter, Menzies applies his art to silk-screening T-shirts, and in designs for show posters and album covers (Sleeping Pilot’s Panic Sex) that bear resemblance to Scott Sinclair’s artwork on A Flight and a Crash for Epitaph Records’ Hot Water Music. He also draws from Jordin Isip, as well as Jesse Reno’s popular art on skateboard, books and toys. Just as Basquiat didn’t discriminate in terms of the found objects he used to paint upon, and Isip and Reno liberate their art from fabric, so far Menzies confines his artwork to the traditional types of canvas or board.

It raises the question: Is there a risk that the interplay of graphic elements in the more traditional medium of painting distracts audiences from understanding his works?

“I’m not sure I care whether it adds or takes away what an audience wants to get out of my stuff,” he answers flatly.

The great consistency among Menzies’ works and a defined style that’s readable will ensure his lasting power. He’s not out to copy anyone. “My own personal aesthetic would overcome whatever I was trying to emulate,” he says, admitting that he hasn’t got his own niche completely figured out yet. “I’m still learning all the time,” he adds, “and I’m not afraid to show where my influences are.”

Fugazi for instance. Ottawa was once home base for his Fugazi-like post-punk band The Grey. (His new band, Metz, will take shape in Toronto.) His experience with that travelling band and his overall hangover from having lived in different countries with his family drive the point home that “there’s more stuff going on than in your own backyard.”

While Ottawa has been home to many musical talents, from hardcore gurus Buried Inside and Fuck The Facts to alt-country rockers Kathleen Edwards and Jim Bryson, the problem, according to Menzies, is that there are few extremes that might constitute “cutting edge” – that’s something he says he values as a creative person.

In part, that missing element has prompted his decision to move away. “I want to do more work,” he says, “and the reality is there are more opportunities in Toronto and they’re not going to come to me, I have to go to them.”

More opportunities might also mean not having to support your art by, for example, rolling bagels.

“The bagel shop insisted they couldn’t pay me until the bagels I had been rolling were up to snuff and sellable,” he explains about a job he once took to pay the rent. “After a couple of days, it looked like my bagels were as good as everyone’s, but they refused to pay me until my training period was done – a period that could last up to two weeks,” he says emphasizing the injustice. “So I quit.”

About his art, someone once said that “the measured and hazy nature of Menzies’ work points to a greater statement: that life is a progression of change and deterioration, vagaries and uncertainty.” If that is true, then Menzies’ kneecaps point to how he’ll navigate this ominous territory with a bit of humour: Under the right one is tattooed “free,” under the left, “bird.”

Like a walking canvas, his Lynyrd Skynyrd markings say it all. This baby was born to soar, and he’s not about to apologize for that.

This ongoing project is called: USER, Portraits of Crack Addicts.

Each year I return to the corner I study a different aspect of it, and its inhabitants. The photographs that comprise USER Men are the latest part of this project. These images, shot in heavy backlight, render the subjects almost as ghosts. The men, posed in expressive postures, show, through their bodies, their skin, their gestures and expressions, another aspect of life on the corner of Cumberland and Murray Streets. Of life as a crack addict. Of what being human can feel like”. – Tony Fouhse, 2010

The view through Tony Fouhse’s lens

By Erin Letson

OTTAWA — When Tony Fouhse makes his annual trip
to the United States to take photos, there’s rarely a dull moment.

There was the time he was at a gas station in Mississippi when a man drove up, got out of his car, lit a cigarette and pumped his gas with the engine running. He had a house-arrest bracelet on. Then there was Fouhse’s first trip to Los Angeles when a cop pointed a gun at him for approaching a crime scene. Or the time a man collapsed and died outside a restaurant window-front while Fouhse was eating breakfast and chatting with a stranger.

“I’ve got a million stories,” says Fouhse, whose preferred mode of travel is a rented convertible. “I like going to small towns and meeting people and then saying, ‘Hey—stand over there and look at the sky,’ or ‘Hold this stick like this.’”
Fouhse is the talent and the brains behind Tony Fouhse Photography, an Ottawa-based business that serves a wide variety of commercial and editorial clients (the magazines Canadian Geographic and Report on Business and the University of Ottawa, to name a few).

But it is also Fouhse’s personal projects—like the ones he goes to the U.S. to work on—that convey his genuine interest in people and their stories. And he’s quick to point out that whether he’s photographing Prime Minister Stephen Harper (for the Globe & Mail) or the cleaning staff at a motel, he’s always honest and treats all his subjects the same—for example, usually uttering the surprise word “motherfucker” at least once a shoot.

Guy Bérubé, director of La Petite Mort Gallery in Ottawa, says it’s Fouhse’s strong personality that has made him so successful.
“He’s got the sense of humour that some people don’t get,” says Bérubé, who has shown Fouhse’s work several times. “But the fact that it catches people off guard makes him capture the looks he wants when he does portraits.”

One peek at Fouhse’s portrait photographs in his recent promotional booklet titled In Dreamland, and it’s clear what Bérubé is talking about. All the photos appear to be happenstance (“coming in in the middle of something” is how Fouhse describes it), and they capture emotion and vulnerability without looking contrived.
There is Peter Herrndorf, director of the National Arts Centre, looking up with a wash of sunlight around him. A couple of pages later, there’s a drifter from Ohio staring into the camera with eyes that look as if they’ve seen their share of bad times.

Fouhse says he uses conversation as a “point of entry” to get people to work with him. However, he makes clear that his portraits are not random occurrences, despite how natural they may look.

“All the pictures are directed: ‘Stand here. Do this.’ It’s just a matter of isolating the instant,” he says. “It’s a very weird balancing act between control and being totally open.”

His portraits capture emotion and vulnerability without looking contrived.

Fouhse, 52, says it’s his curiosity about people that makes him so passionate about portrait photography. When subjects ask him who’s the most interesting person he’s shot, he always gives a simple answer.
“Whoever I’m shooting is the most interesting because I’m in the moment with them,” he says.

Fouhse has been taking pictures for 30 years, but his enthusiasm and excitement show no signs of waning. He’s a self-proclaimed workaholic who says he hates “dead days” when he isn’t productive.
“All he thinks about is photos,” says Christina Riley, who worked as Fouhse’s assistant for almost two years. “He doesn’t have many other hobbies, so it’s like his number one hobby and it’s his job. I think the fact that he still has passion for taking pictures after all this time stands out against other people who are just doing it for a living.”

Fouhse, who was born and raised in Ottawa, says he didn’t know right away that photography was what he wanted to do with his life. But he recalls being 15 years old and looking through a camera that belonged to his friend’s brother.
“I remember focusing it and moving it around and going, ‘This is cool,’” he says. “Ever since then, I’ve loved photography.” 2006

However, Fouhse didn’t love the photography program he was enrolled in at Algonquin College, and dropped out in 1976. He moved to Toronto, where he worked as a pastry chef until he got “sick of waking up early and smelling like sugar all the time.”
He got a few arts grants, which he used to take photos on the side, and returned to Ottawa in 1986. But it wasn’t until Ottawa Magazine gave him the artistic freedom to go out and shoot religious figures in the community that he fully realized his love for portrait photography.
“Everything sort of snapped and after five years of climbing over a lot of big piles of shit, I finally came out on the other side and sort of saw the plane that I wanted to be in,” he says.

Fouhse worked hard on getting a portfolio together, which led to more opportunities to practise. He says he’s always been a fan of subjective work (“there’s no such thing as objectivity”) and likes his photos to have a certain formality to them.
“I love architecture; I love lines to be straight and I like organized backgrounds,” he says. “But I also like fluid movements in the foreground.”
Bérubé says Fouhse’s photos have a distinct look, one that’s hard to miss, partly due to the looks he captures from people and to his unusual backgrounds. (In Fouhse’s studio photos, the backdrops consist of objects like paint-splattered wood or solid squares of coloured board.)
“He’s the type of photographer where you see his portraits and you know they’re his, as opposed to more studio-style photographers who have the standard backdrop and the perfect lighting,” Bérubé says. “He’s definitely got his thing going on—it’s hard to describe.”

Bérubé recalls asking Fouhse to take portrait shots of his mother, who has Alzheimer’s, soon after the two had met. Bérubé requested two pictures, one where his mother was mentally “present” and one where she was mentally “lost”, to show people how the disease was affecting her.
“He did both photos and it totally told me that his guy knows exactly what’s to be done in these kinds of situations,” says Bérubé.
What struck Riley, the former assistant, about Fouhse was how fast he worked and how excited he was at photo shoots, even for assigned projects.
“I remember him telling me that every job he goes to, he tries to find something that will make the job interesting, even if it’s taking a picture of a cup,” she says. “He’s always trying to make it fun for himself.”
It’s clear that Fouhse’s talent and energy have paid off: he has a big basket of clients and has shown his personal work in galleries around North America, such as the Hamm-Brickman Gallery in Rochester, New York, and the London (Ontario) Regional Art Gallery. His work is also held in the City of Ottawa’s art collection and the National Archives of Canada.

In 2004, Fouhse won a National Magazine Award for photos he took to accompany a story called “Nothing Out of the Ordinary” in Report on Business. He says he “giggled” when he received the trophy but has since hidden it away in his closet. (If he acknowledges people who think he’s good, he explains, he’d also have to acknowledge people who think he’s bad, and he’s not prepared to do that.)
With the amount of success he’s had, Fouhse is the type of photographer who you might expect to work in a bigger, more arts-savvy city.
But while he admits Ottawa is a bit of a “cultural backwater” with “an odour of bureaucracy”, he says he’s happy living here because of the great clients he shoots for and because of his professional freedom, which could be quashed if he were working in a more competitive city.

Lens is the photojournalism blog of The New York Times, presenting the finest and most interesting visual and multimedia reporting — photographs, videos and slide shows. A showcase for Times photographers, it also seeks to highlight the best work of other newspapers, magazines and news and picture agencies; in print, in books, in galleries, in museums and on the Web.

“When Tony Fouhse first exhibited his stylized photographs of crack addicts made on a street corner in Ottawa, Canada, he was unsure what the reaction of the opening-night audience would be. But he knew that some of those in attendance would approve: the subjects themselves.

Mr. Fouhse’s photographs put a twist in the ongoing argument about making art out of suffering and making commodities from pictures of misfortune. When his photographs are on view at La Petite Mort, you can see the art inside and the reality outside”.

– New York Times, July 2009

ONE NIGHT STAND / Vernissage / Friday March 9, 2012/ 7 – 10pm

Tunes by Big Mac Daddy / Proudly sponsored by CKCU 93.1FM & OVERKILL Bar

“I never have a plan. My experiences from the previous day guide me as to what will appear on my canvas.Initially, I’ll spend time with compositional concerns; dividing the canvas up into shapes and creating interesting spaces. Figures begin to emerge and from there, a narrative or atmosphere starts to develop. My paintings are introspective.They are often comical, tragic,brooding and awkward reflecting an artist’s life. I tend to work large or very small.The larger paintings are usually more blunt and aggressive,while the smaller works are intimate and hold a contained intensity. My goal is to complete a theatrical, enigmatic and interesting painting, one that can draw a viewer in.

- Andrew Fay

There was only one problem. I had never painted anything before. In fact, I had never even studied fine arts in school. So where did that leave me? At first I thought there was never even going to be a beginning. I slowly acquired some paint, some canvas and some courage. Quietly, the strokes began to work themselves out. The women began to take form and their nakedness would suddenly erupt from the surface.

My paintings show the naked female body in the splendor of its natural distortion. Flesh moves from one extreme to the other. Bones twist and gesticulate slowly. Blood ebbs and flows as can never be helped. They are, I think, women as seen through the eyes of another.

TONY FOUHSE: “LIVE THROUGH THIS”
&
LYLE RICHARDSON: “Drawings of Everyday Life”
February 24-25, 2012
Vernissage Friday Feb 24 / 7 – 10pm

La Petite Mort Gallery loves the unusual, the unpredictable, and at times, the illogical, and in this case, we have invited two artists who are old friends. Both artists, in very separate fields, they both document everyday life, but with different visons.

Join us & meet both the artists !!

Lyle Richardson Statement:

“A lot of the paintings take on a dream significance. The strip joints, etc., shouldn’t be taken too seriously. If I retain a spirit of fun when I paint perhaps it’s all worthwhile. Perhaps I just paint the weather”.

Tony Fouhse Statement:

“It’s true that Lyle and I have known each other for years (we met in
Mr. Valcour’s history class, Hillcrest H.S., 1970) and we both feel
compelled to create stuff (in my case, photos of people I meet, in
Lyle’s bright, dark watercolors of alienation). But other than that
I’m not too sure what we might have in common.

But I have a feeling that my photos just might be the ground to
Lyle’s sky, the Heaven to his Hell, the calm to his storm.

I’ve known Lyle since high school. We’d skip class, hang in the basement listening to Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf. Lyle would play the blues on the piano and paint pictures. He still plays the blues, and paints them, too. His little water colors are stunning jewels, sometimes clear like diamonds, other times dark and deep as a blood red ruby. He says he paints the weather, and I take that to mean the weather in his head. Pure poetry…..the sunny days and the storms that sulk and rage inside each and every one”.

LIVE THROUGH THIS – statement

In the summer of 2010 photographer Tony Fouhse met Stephanie, a heroin addict. He asked her if there was something he could do to help her. She asked for help getting into a rehab program. He said he would and they agreed to document the process.

So began a journey that lasted 9 months, that began in despair and travelled through horror towards hope, that took twists and turns unimaginable to either of them when they began.

The result is LIVE THROUGH THIS, a harrowing series of images,
notes and text that documents that trip.

In the process of finding a publisher, the components that comprise LIVE THROUGH THIS have only ever been seen in chaotic bits and pieces on the web. As well, parts of the project have been featured in the British Journal of Photography and American Photography 27.

Gallery La Petite Mort takes great pleasure in exhibiting, for 2 days
only, a small selection of images from LIVE THROUGH THIS.

Thank you,

Guy Berube, director
La Petite Mort Gallery

ONE NIGHT STAND / Vernissage / Friday February 17, 2012 / 7 – 10pm

Tunes by Big Mac Daddy / Proudly sponsored by CKCU 93.1FM & OVERKILL Bar

“Foxes are said to display traits of cunning, slyness, stealth, observation, and wisdom Recently I have been interested in North American Indian beliefs surrounding the idea of the life animal guide.  Having lacked spiritual influence in my life during my upbringing, I have been pulled toward the notion of an animal guide. It has been said to connect with your animal guide, helps to make you a better person in that you become physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually healthier while being free to view the world with more clarity and better understanding.

After returning home for some time to process certain events which were out of my control, and to come to terms with them through understanding, I often saw foxes.  The fox would, on several occasions, stop in mid step (no matter what it was involved in at the time), and stare at me.  I would be left feeling completely invaded, excited; happy.  Through some reading, I determined the fox was sent to guide me through the tough time in my life.

In each of the drawings in Fox, people are interacting with their life animal guides as foxes; mainly as their companions through life.  I like the idea of having a fox as my companion”.

- Amanda B.