Mothers Bridge, by Tyler Wilson.
East Van based: our home captured
Tyler Wilson
March 2 - April 1, 2022
Artist Statement
I’m inspired by our built and lived in environment. I enjoy finding scenes that show the beauty of the human habitat as it degrades, is repaired, and is repurposed. Each piece looks at the beauty of the every-day parts of living in a city, and the battle between order and chaos that is taking place in the space we are all living in. There is an order and structure to a city, which at times seems to be barely holding together. The structure of a city is carefully built in and planned, neighbourhoods are zoned
for certain uses, and streets are laid in careful grids. However, the inevitability of change and the chaos of life will have a great effect on this perfect plan. A successful space comes when these two forces form an equilibrium; a space planned at a human scale and molded by the people living in it. I hope to capture the merging of these two forces through my photography, while also evoking a feeling of wonder in a scene that you may have walked by dozens of time without giving it a second thought. My photography has made me feel more connected to the cities I’ve lived in, and I hope to share that feeling with others.
My process is completely analog; using a variety of old cameras and analog processing. I find the intangibles of film can create a feeling of nostalgia in a modern scene. Using equipment of varying quality and age also allows me to experiment with different styles as I adjust to work with the limitations of my equipment.
Bio
Tyler Wilson was born in Vancouver, and grew up in Abbotsford. While living in Abbotsford he was heavily involved in the local music scene. He played drums in a few bands, organized shows and events out of his house, and in local venues, and was part of the founding group for CIVL Campus and Community Radio.
In 2008 Tyler moved to Vancouver to attend design school at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. During this time, he focused more on education, but stayed somewhat involved still at CIVL. During his years at Kwantlen, he also helped to organize and participated in The Free Print Show; an experimental art show where every piece was given away for free at the end of the night. Tyler’s love for photography was galvanized in 2010 when he found himself in possession of a box of old point and shoot cameras. He was fascinated by quirks each camera had, either due to limited options or to poor manufacturing. One camera in particular, an old plastic Diana, really sparked his interest in taking pictures. Without taking a formal photography education, Tyler used these old cameras (and collected more along the way) to learn the basics of photography.
After completing University in 2012, Tyler and his new wife, Kristen, moved to Toronto. Kristen, being born & raised in southern Ontario, had at least been to Toronto before. Tyler however, had never even visited the city. While in Toronto, Tyler focused more on his photography. Walking the streets of his new town, he continued his self-learning of photography through extensive trial and error (mostly error). After a year in Toronto, he moved from Toronto to Hamilton, which has a budding DIY art and music scene. During his time in Hamilton, Tyler would become involved in the campus radio station at McMaster University, programming a weekly radio show.
Feeling the West Coast calling him back, he moved back in 2016. Tyler has continued his journey with analog photography, teaching himself various film developing processes and darkroom print making, bettering his photographic skills, and growing that drawer of vintage cameras. Since returning to Vancouver, Tyler has been featured in several solo and group shows, as well as participating in the Eastside Culture Crawl. Tyler has also honed his skills in the darkroom, printing both black and white and colour prints. Tyler is a member of the West End Darkroom Society. In the future Tyler hopes to get into more analog film formats, such as 4x5 and 8x10 film photography, and learn more alternative developing processes, such as wet plate collodion photography, and he hopes to continue to capture the beauty of the urban environment around him.
Contact
Website: www.tylertakespictures.com
Instagram: @tylerbeaulawrence
I’m inspired by our built and lived in environment. I enjoy finding scenes that show the beauty of the human habitat as it degrades, is repaired, and is repurposed. Each piece looks at the beauty of the every-day parts of living in a city, and the battle between order and chaos that is taking place in the space we are all living in. There is an order and structure to a city, which at times seems to be barely holding together. The structure of a city is carefully built in and planned, neighbourhoods are zoned
for certain uses, and streets are laid in careful grids. However, the inevitability of change and the chaos of life will have a great effect on this perfect plan. A successful space comes when these two forces form an equilibrium; a space planned at a human scale and molded by the people living in it. I hope to capture the merging of these two forces through my photography, while also evoking a feeling of wonder in a scene that you may have walked by dozens of time without giving it a second thought. My photography has made me feel more connected to the cities I’ve lived in, and I hope to share that feeling with others.
My process is completely analog; using a variety of old cameras and analog processing. I find the intangibles of film can create a feeling of nostalgia in a modern scene. Using equipment of varying quality and age also allows me to experiment with different styles as I adjust to work with the limitations of my equipment.
Bio
Tyler Wilson was born in Vancouver, and grew up in Abbotsford. While living in Abbotsford he was heavily involved in the local music scene. He played drums in a few bands, organized shows and events out of his house, and in local venues, and was part of the founding group for CIVL Campus and Community Radio.
In 2008 Tyler moved to Vancouver to attend design school at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. During this time, he focused more on education, but stayed somewhat involved still at CIVL. During his years at Kwantlen, he also helped to organize and participated in The Free Print Show; an experimental art show where every piece was given away for free at the end of the night. Tyler’s love for photography was galvanized in 2010 when he found himself in possession of a box of old point and shoot cameras. He was fascinated by quirks each camera had, either due to limited options or to poor manufacturing. One camera in particular, an old plastic Diana, really sparked his interest in taking pictures. Without taking a formal photography education, Tyler used these old cameras (and collected more along the way) to learn the basics of photography.
After completing University in 2012, Tyler and his new wife, Kristen, moved to Toronto. Kristen, being born & raised in southern Ontario, had at least been to Toronto before. Tyler however, had never even visited the city. While in Toronto, Tyler focused more on his photography. Walking the streets of his new town, he continued his self-learning of photography through extensive trial and error (mostly error). After a year in Toronto, he moved from Toronto to Hamilton, which has a budding DIY art and music scene. During his time in Hamilton, Tyler would become involved in the campus radio station at McMaster University, programming a weekly radio show.
Feeling the West Coast calling him back, he moved back in 2016. Tyler has continued his journey with analog photography, teaching himself various film developing processes and darkroom print making, bettering his photographic skills, and growing that drawer of vintage cameras. Since returning to Vancouver, Tyler has been featured in several solo and group shows, as well as participating in the Eastside Culture Crawl. Tyler has also honed his skills in the darkroom, printing both black and white and colour prints. Tyler is a member of the West End Darkroom Society. In the future Tyler hopes to get into more analog film formats, such as 4x5 and 8x10 film photography, and learn more alternative developing processes, such as wet plate collodion photography, and he hopes to continue to capture the beauty of the urban environment around him.
Contact
Website: www.tylertakespictures.com
Instagram: @tylerbeaulawrence
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The long and sudden of it (bodily integrity is integrity of land and water), by Clare Yow. 30 x 40" lightjet print, 2019.
commonwealth
Clare Yow
March 2 - April 1, 2022
Artist Talk:
Monday, March 14, 2022
6:30 - 7:30pm
Zoom
PowerPoint Presentation from Clare Yow's Artist Talk
Audio of Clare Yow's Artist Talk
Monday, March 14, 2022
6:30 - 7:30pm
Zoom
PowerPoint Presentation from Clare Yow's Artist Talk
Audio of Clare Yow's Artist Talk
Artist Statement
The photographic series proposed for exhibition, common wealth, draws on personal and artistic concerns that I have had for many years. As an immigrant and racialized woman who is both a settler on Indigenous homelands and a part of the Chinese diaspora, the work draws profoundly and proudly on my feminist of colour politic, its historical roots, and on ancestral memory. It is a long and deep gaze at what it means to exist in this body and on this particular land, while also growing a baby, at the time of the work’s creation. The work was very much inspired by a history of contemporary women artists who have documented themselves through portraiture and performance, including, Lorna Simpson, Meryl McMaster, and Marina Abramovic.
From a constant need to document the very ordinary and seemingly unremarkable as a young photographer nearly twenty years ago, my art has evolved to a focus on interrogating and honouring lived experience as a woman of colour through the conceptual art and documentary genres, all the while situating myself on the lands I have called home. For me, the body is a place of deep-rooted inquiry, power, and resistance. I am continually concerned with looking at the intimate ties between my self, objects, and place as a way to explore ideas such as embodiment, consumption, labour, and loss. My work and broader art practice is deeply indebted to and influenced by being a part of the Chinese diaspora and Chinatown community in Vancouver where my studio has been based since 2018. While I work primarily in photography, my art practice diverges beyond traditional notions of what contemporary art-making can entail. It is deeply inspired and shaped by community and collaboration, and driven by social change and justice. It is what led to my cofounding of United Aunties Arts Association in 2020. Based on the values of care and solidarity, United Aunties exists as an extension of my community-rooted art practice that cultivates and strengthens community connections in Vancouver’s Chinatown and beyond through collaborative art-making initiatives.
Bio
Clare Yow (b. 1985, Singapore) is a Chinese-Canadian visual artist residing, working, and parenting on the unceded, ancestral, and occupied homelands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ /Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations, Vancouver, BC. Her lens-based works revolve around the politics of identity and being—in particular, how race, transnationality, and feminist culture intersect with the materials of everyday life.
Clare holds an MFA in Visual Art from the University of British Columbia and an Honours BFA in Photographic Studies from Ryerson University. Since 2003, Clare has participated in exhibitions and events across Canada such as at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery and University of British Columbia (Vancouver), Two Rivers Gallery (Prince George), The Works Art and Design Festival (Edmonton), Koffler Gallery (Toronto), and The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery (St. John’s).
Parallel to her studio art practice, Clare is also co-founder and runs United Aunties Arts Association (established in 2020), which supports artists and artisans with racialized and equity seeking backgrounds through collaborative art-making initiatives. United Aunties is rooted in Vancouver’s Chinatown in Clare’s studio at BCA Sun Wah.
Contact
Website: clareyow.com
Instagram: @studioclareyow
The photographic series proposed for exhibition, common wealth, draws on personal and artistic concerns that I have had for many years. As an immigrant and racialized woman who is both a settler on Indigenous homelands and a part of the Chinese diaspora, the work draws profoundly and proudly on my feminist of colour politic, its historical roots, and on ancestral memory. It is a long and deep gaze at what it means to exist in this body and on this particular land, while also growing a baby, at the time of the work’s creation. The work was very much inspired by a history of contemporary women artists who have documented themselves through portraiture and performance, including, Lorna Simpson, Meryl McMaster, and Marina Abramovic.
From a constant need to document the very ordinary and seemingly unremarkable as a young photographer nearly twenty years ago, my art has evolved to a focus on interrogating and honouring lived experience as a woman of colour through the conceptual art and documentary genres, all the while situating myself on the lands I have called home. For me, the body is a place of deep-rooted inquiry, power, and resistance. I am continually concerned with looking at the intimate ties between my self, objects, and place as a way to explore ideas such as embodiment, consumption, labour, and loss. My work and broader art practice is deeply indebted to and influenced by being a part of the Chinese diaspora and Chinatown community in Vancouver where my studio has been based since 2018. While I work primarily in photography, my art practice diverges beyond traditional notions of what contemporary art-making can entail. It is deeply inspired and shaped by community and collaboration, and driven by social change and justice. It is what led to my cofounding of United Aunties Arts Association in 2020. Based on the values of care and solidarity, United Aunties exists as an extension of my community-rooted art practice that cultivates and strengthens community connections in Vancouver’s Chinatown and beyond through collaborative art-making initiatives.
Bio
Clare Yow (b. 1985, Singapore) is a Chinese-Canadian visual artist residing, working, and parenting on the unceded, ancestral, and occupied homelands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ /Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations, Vancouver, BC. Her lens-based works revolve around the politics of identity and being—in particular, how race, transnationality, and feminist culture intersect with the materials of everyday life.
Clare holds an MFA in Visual Art from the University of British Columbia and an Honours BFA in Photographic Studies from Ryerson University. Since 2003, Clare has participated in exhibitions and events across Canada such as at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery and University of British Columbia (Vancouver), Two Rivers Gallery (Prince George), The Works Art and Design Festival (Edmonton), Koffler Gallery (Toronto), and The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery (St. John’s).
Parallel to her studio art practice, Clare is also co-founder and runs United Aunties Arts Association (established in 2020), which supports artists and artisans with racialized and equity seeking backgrounds through collaborative art-making initiatives. United Aunties is rooted in Vancouver’s Chinatown in Clare’s studio at BCA Sun Wah.
Contact
Website: clareyow.com
Instagram: @studioclareyow
See Clare's price list here.
Click the thumbnails below to view video documentation of Clare's performances:
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A murmur in the flesh, Clare Yow, 2019.
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A continuous passage, Clare Yow, 2019.
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A luxury we cannot afford (are they worth their salt), Clare Yow, 2019.
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