Jennifer Crane: Reverie in Darkness

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Jennifer Crane, "Untitled from the series "Outlaw" 1/3," 2015

archival pigment print from wet plate collodion original, 30" x 24"

Opening: Saturday, May 12th, 2PM

The same century invented History and Photography

- Roland Barthes

Art Placement is pleased to present Reverie in Darkness, Jennifer Crane's first solo exhibition with the gallery. Crane is an artist based in Saskatoon whose work investigates the relationship between the body and the lens in both historical and contemporary photography. For two decades she has been exhibiting her work in solo and group exhibitions in galleries throughout Canada and in the United States, China, Colombia, Germany, and Eastern Europe. 

In conventional analogue photography it is light that creates the dark tones of an image -- I often marvel at the many paradoxes of the photographic medium, in particular at how it communicates. The title of the exhibition refers to the experience of making photographs in darkrooms under red safe lights and the dark places that creative exploration can take you - following intuitive impulses while recognizing your failures. The word “photography” means drawing with light and the medium itself was invented in the 19th century through a series of chemical mishaps and trial and error. The title of the exhibition Reverie in Darkness also refers to Plato’s allegory of the cave -- referenced by Susan Sontag in her essay In Plato’s Cave -- that humans are like prisoners trapped in a cave understanding the world only through shadowy figures projected on the cave wall.

As a photographic artist I’m not interested in using my camera to document things in the world but rather to experiment and explore the gaps both physical and metaphorical that reside between perception and reality, fiction and actuality.

The exhibition presents selections from three bodies of my recent work: Outlaw (and other failed portraits) [2016-18], Dear Edward [2009-10], and Specter [2017-18]. Each body of work is distinct both in conceptual approach and process of making the images.

- Jennifer Crane