MARK BELL | THE TRUTH ABOUT FALLING
SATURDAY 09 SEPTEMBER 2006 – SATURDAY 21 OCTOBER 2006
OPENING RECEPTION | FRIDAY 08 SEPTEMBER 2006, 8:00PM – 11:00PM
Photo credit: Peter MacCallum
Every day I read the paper and every day I see the world presented in tiny black and white or colour images on paper so cheap it will have visibly yellowed by the end of the day.
My work uses painting to explore the relationship between photography and history and recently my attention has been focused on these small, fading images that fill the daily papers. By transposing photo-journalism to painting I’m able to see these images in a different light. Although news photos do not usually possess the same aesthetic considerations often associated with painting, there is an intent to their composition that manages to survive this translation process.
Removed from their original narrative context these images lack the authority they once held and instead take on a meaning all their own, albeit one of ambiguity and uncertainty, but perhaps that’s not such a bad way to view history.
MARK BELL graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 1989 and in the 1990s helped found the artist collective Painting Disorders. He has shown in various artist-run centres and public galleries across Canada including The Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. He has participated in artist residencies in Newfoundland, Austria, Macedonia and most recently County Mayo in Ireland.