Stephen Waddell
Effulgent Doom
STEPHEN WADDELL
EFFULGENT DOOM
SEPTEMBER 12–OCTOBER 10
MONTE CLARK GALLERY
1706 W 1st AVE, VANCOUVER
OPENING RECEPTION: SEPTEMBER 12, 3PM–6PM
At first glance, Stephen Waddell’s photographs are documents of
quotidian moments. A girl in a pink bathing suit appears to make
her way to the beach; a man pauses before getting out of a car. This
depiction of subjects in mid-narrative emphasizes a broader context
from which the images have been distilled. It imparts a tension that
pivots around viewers, either suspending or upholding disbelief in
an ongoing, but unknown, narrative. Waddell presents his figures as
replete with a purposeful purposelessness. Moreover, for the artist,
and for the knowledgeable viewer, these images are saturated with
references to art history and photography. By capturing the essence
of Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas and Gustave Caillebotte in subject
matter discovered through his rambles, Waddell melds and mutually
enriches the histories of painting and photography.
Given these aspects of his work, it is not surprising to discover that
Waddell began his artistic career as a painter. In 1990, however, a
shift occurred to other media, when he began to explore the urban
environment with a Polaroid camera in order to learn more about
composition for his painting studies. He also used a Super-8 camera,
to film people, seeking to understand the human figure in the modern
environment, a preoccupation of many artists since the mid-19th century. Photographs such as Man With a Red Sash recall the paintings
of 19th-century Realist artists who favoured street types, labourers
and the picturesque proletariat.
To find perfectly composed scenes en pleine air entails a great deal
of looking, and Waddell considers this physical labour of exhaustive
searching to be a major component of his photographic practice.
– Andrea Kunard, Associate Curator of Photographs, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario