The Laurie Swim Gallery is thrilled to welcome photographer Christopher Porter and his captivating photographs to the gallery. Christopher, a cinematographer, filmmaker, and fine art photographer has created work and exhibited internationally for more than 30 years and currently calls Lunenburg, Nova Scotia home. On display in the gallery are an evocative series of seven photographs taken by Christopher in Advocate Harbour, NS between 1992-1996 using Tomiyama 6 X 17 film creating a visually stunning, all-encompassing landscape format. The subject matter and grey tones evoke a wistfulness, reminiscent of days spent on the shores of Nova Scotia in the 90's.
From Christopher Porter's Website:
Artist
Christopher Porter is a visual artist who has spent his life immersed in seeing, both in photography and film. He credits master cinematographer Robbie Mueller as his mentor who showed him light. He has worked on olive groves in Greece, ran an exotic fibre mill in Nova Scotia, built barns and moved houses, lived in France, China, and US. His appetite is life. His curiosity is the world. His camera is the questioning of his heart.
Currently living in Canada. His work is held in private collections in the UK, US, France, Canada, and Germany.
The Work
Christopher's photographs evoke narratives that hold the complexity and intimacy of our relationships to each other and our world. What we see and what we don't. He reflects our inner worlds back at ourselves. Often holding the present simultaneously in the strata of the past, evoking a a continuum of life that is fragile, resilient, destructive, contradictory, absurd, and always fiercely tender.
Solo and group exhibitions, publications:
CONTACT Photography Festival-Toronto •3rd Avenue Gallery-Vancouver• Studio 21 Fine Art Gallery-Halifax• LA Nikola Gallery, Los Angeles• Art Basel-Miami• Bruchhaus, Munich, Germany• The Art Centre, Florida City, Florida, US• Lens Culture-Editor Picks• t(here) NY• Projections-Cahiers Cinema.
Artist comment
"I always shoot in existing light with a short lens. This requires a physical engagement with my subjects. A tacit agreement. They see me. I compose in the moment and was trained to print images with the neg showing. Proof that I had technically and aesthetically held the moment without alteration. I still shoot with this guiding principle."
-Christopher Porter