Nicole Kelly Westman, "Rose, Dear," Walter Phillips Gallery, Eric Harvie, West Lobby, February 10 to July 3, 2016

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Nicole Kelly Westman’s exhibition at the Banff Centre is an exploration in many senses: it takes in new territory, develops real and imagined narratives, and unravels understandings of the photographic medium.

Rose, Dear encompasses four elements: a film, a framed photograph of an old hotel, distorted space through the alteration of light, and a cucoloris, a device used to cast shadows in film and photography. The photograph at the entrance depicts the Rosedeer Hotel, a century-old building in the Alberta hamlet of Wayne, near Drumheller, amidst an arid area known as the Badlands. The exhibition’s narrative is revealed through the hotel’s story. It’s rumoured to be haunted; the third floor is sealed off, locked from the outside, the windows painted black.

The cucoloris is often used to cast shadows on faces, most famously in film noir. While this cucoloris does not cast shadows of its own, the shapes cut into it recall those that could be found in the Badlands, shapes that suggest the curvature of the rocks and foliage there. “It smells of sage out here, like an old friend” is written on it. This too, is reminiscent of the region, where sage grows in abundance.

Westman is known for challenging photographic norms. In Rose, Dear she has manipulated light by applying an orange film to the windows of the gallery space, completely altering the experience of the exhibition and almost the viewer’s own physiognomy. The film, which depicts the landscape around Wayne, beckons with eerie synthesizer music. It uses both digital and traditional approaches, harking back to Westman’s interest in photographic techniques. The landscape appears stretched, pulled and manipulated as the music’s intensity ebbs and flows. Female spectres wander the area: flitting faceless and aimless across the screen. They pick sage and cacti, vanishing and reappearing at random as they journey together in the moonlike terrain.

The film, the exhibition’s use of space, and the way light is filtered through the windows are reminiscent of an experience a dear friend and I had when we happened upon that same otherworldly place. The orange light recalls that time: the hues of the setting sun kissed our skin as we perched, bouquets of sage in hand, high on the cliffs above the Red Deer River. It’s as if Westman has created a new realm for the female ghosts of her story, a space for experiencing Wayne and its various hauntings. In this territory, both spectres and viewers can roam freely, their figures captured in the shadows within an unearthly orange luminescence.

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Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity

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