THIS
IS
A
RACE
THE PAIN OF THE HOME


Hollis Frampton's 1971 film Nostalgia is a recording of 12 photographs being burned on a stovetop one at a time while a description of each photograph is read. The descriptions, however, are not of the photograph we are watching as it burns, but rather of the next photograph that we will see. By the time we see the photograph that has already been described all we have is the memory of the story of this image. We somewhat desperately try to remember the description while listening to the description of the next image. Nostalgia (from the Latin nost meaning home and algia meaning pain) has us doing the same - desperately remembering in an achy way the lives we have lived while trying to pay attention to what is coming next. It's easy to get confused.

Labels: , ,

POSTED BY GRAYDON AT 8/06/2009 - 2 COMMENTS - ADD COMMENT
THE RARE FLOWER


TANYTH BERKELEY likes the special ones. She likes the pale ones, the large headed types, the big bodies and the long giraffe necks. She likes the Robert Crumb shapes and the vampire faces, the glowing white skin and the men-in-dresses with womanly laces. She likes the eyes set back in the skull or the shoulders holding up those big heads that are smashed in like a pretty pumpkin in certain places. Her specialty is the awkward, the rare flower, the big cheek boned and special feminine shells and large sizes and different races.

(Doug Rickard of AMERICANSUBURB X)


This is what I mean. Not creating the awkward, and not exploiting the subject. Not glorifying it either. Just showing it for what it is - not hiding their flaws, but making such beautiful photographs that you can't help but be attracted to them. Genuinely attracted, free of irony. Some empathy from the photographer, but no pity.

Via Graham at WLYS

Labels: ,

POSTED BY GRAYDON AT 8/02/2009 - 0 COMMENTS - ADD COMMENT
SNORITZ




I don't know why I haven't posted a link to her before, but I'm going to be living with STEPHANIE NORITZ in the fall. Click HERE for her website and HERE for her blog.

Labels:

POSTED BY GRAYDON AT 8/01/2009 - 1 COMMENTS - ADD COMMENT
HELNWEIN




I had seen, but nearly forgotten about, GOTTFRIED HELNWEIN'S self-portraits from the 1980s (above). So perfect. I had not, however, seen his paintings (below). I've been drawing lately. I really suck. But I'm making improvements. Every drawing I do comes out looking like a picture made by the fat quiet girl in the back seat of math class obsessing about the quarterback sitting in front of her. Not far off, really...



Labels: , ,

POSTED BY GRAYDON AT 7/31/2009 - 0 COMMENTS - ADD COMMENT
KYLE TRYHARD






My old frenemy KYLE TRYHORN has got some really nice images up on his NEW WEBSITE. Kyle and his partner in crime have made lots of images for BLEND MAGAZINE in The Netherlands.

Labels: ,

POSTED BY GRAYDON AT 7/20/2009 - 0 COMMENTS - ADD COMMENT
YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME?


As promised, I am now selling DVDs from the NEW RITUALS series:

New Rituals - 2009 - 9:00

DVD of 9 animated images on a loop. Plays in any standard DVD player. Each DVD is hand-stamped with the New Rituals insignia and comes packaged in a sacrificial refuse bag. A lock of the artist's hair is sparkled to the front of each package.

To order a DVD please send $30 via Paypal to graydon@graydonsheppard.com. An address request will follow. If you are ordering from the United States, the cost is $30USD including shipping. If you are ordering from Canada the cost is $30CAD including shipping. Please inquire for international rates.


Supply is limited!

Labels: , , ,

POSTED BY GRAYDON AT 7/20/2009 - 0 COMMENTS - ADD COMMENT
GABRIEL SABANDO


I'm always so flattered when I find people who do great work have linked to me. GABRIEL SABANDO is a Spanish photographer doing some lovely innovative work out of Madrid. Gabriel did his Master's at EFTI. He also has a nice BLOG with some great stills from Three Women and pictures of black holes and so on.

Labels:

POSTED BY GRAYDON AT 7/20/2009 - 0 COMMENTS - ADD COMMENT
GROWING PAINS


Every once in a while I break up with myself. It's painful, but it has to happen. For the dumper side of me it's a relief and I look forward to moving on to bigger and better stuff. For the dumped side of me, I go down the rabbit-hole and am forced to painstakingly analyze everything I've done wrong. I'm like a Mini Wheat. A soggy Mini Wheat.

I was once told by someone who I thought mattered that the most interesting thing about my photographs was seeing my discomfort as a photographer reflected in the expressions of my subjects. I clung to this deduction like it was the only thing that made me unique, and I've just realized that it's something I've been hiding behind.

Ever since I began making images seriously I've bounced back and forth from using just my camera and the sun to making HIGHLY CONTRIVED and constructed work. My struggle for the past few years has been trying to define myself as an artist. How do I reconcile my aesthetic and thematic disparities?

I've often blamed my eclecticism for my difficulties in getting shows with my own work or for failing to get grant money for short films I've written and photo series I've proposed. I thought having done ad work made people think of me less as an artist. I got a big head and thought I was too big for Toronto. But recently I came to the realization that maybe it's not them, it's me (see, it really is like breaking up with myself). And, although I have to keep doing what interests and excites me, maybe I need to grow up a bit, too.

I admit that I like the look of distrust in my photographs, but it's gotten me into trouble. I've always found it more interesting and engaging when my subject doesn't look pretty. I've never been interested in making the people who sit for me look good; I've been interested in making a compelling image. Avedon's images of a despondent Marilyn Monroe are more interesting to me than any other image of her. I've never requested "fierce" from someone I was photographing. It just doesn't thrill me. I find it so disposable. But I've often been unfair to my subjects. I've objectified them because I believed it was more interesting. While I stand by my photographs, while I think they say as much about my insecurities as they do about the subject's, I now understand how cruel I can be.

After spending a couple weeks in San Francisco with photographers at different stages of their careers I was thrown for a loop. Of course I have been around photographers I think are amazing for years, but I mostly went to school with them. I saw them do crap and I saw them do great things and I saw their insecurities and their strengths grow and change as they did. And they saw mine. Being around Parker, Ryan, and Luke changed my mind about what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. I'm sure they all have their insecurities, but unlike my colleagues in Toronto, I didn't see them grow, I just see them now, and I'm humbled in different ways.

PARKER is a brash young thing heading into his first year at California College of the Arts. He's one of those photographers who loves having a camera in his hand and takes it everywhere. He's going to kick my ass big time and he's going to do so well in school. I'm so excited for him and can't wait to see what he'll do. It makes me remember how people who had taken time between high school and university did so much better in the photo program because they really knew they wanted to be there. Parker's really unselfconscious with his camera, he trusts that people want to be photographed and want to be photographed by him, as well they should. I've never had that confidence. I always felt like my subjects were doing me a favour rather than getting anything out of the experience themselves. Watching Parker shoot with such excitement for the medium was both inspiring and disconcerting. I felt like I didn't get nearly as much out of my education as he will. The lucky thing is that I'll get to go back to school this fall. I can't wait to approach my film education with a fervor and understanding that I lacked in my undergraduate experience.

LUKE, who I didn't get to spend a lot of time with but hope to get to know better in New York, is fresh out of UCLA and blowing up the photo world. His work is really fantastic and beautiful and original and varied but coherent - something I aspire to but take too far in some ways.

RYAN is a well-known young photographer who did his MFA at SVA and watching him photograph was so fascinating for me. We use the same camera, but not in the same way. I am sure that in some ways the style of my university education gave me this complex that I have to have a set or a gimmick going on in my photographs in order for people to be interested in them. I've felt like just having my camera wasn't enough, and I felt that from the people who asked me to take photographs of them. I didn't think anyone would trust that my photograph was going to be interesting unless I had a stylist and an elephant on hand and we were going to a treetop village in the Amazon. Watching Ryan trust himself and trust that a camera was all he needed was fascinating. And when I sat for Ryan I suddenly understood how unfair I could be with my subjects. I totally trusted Ryan because I knew his photographs and I knew he would not be unkind to me. It was when I was sitting for him that I understand why people might have been reticent to let me photograph them knowing that my photographs were all about what I wanted them to be, not about who or what they really are.

I have not been a subject for anyone for about six years. I didn't really understand what it was like to be in front of the lens, which I now realize is something a photographer must experience seriously. I thought I knew what it was like to be a subject, and I had disdain for subjects who (I assumed) wanted to "look hot". Both Parker and Ryan photographed me, and while I'll never ask them to retouch an image of me or have the delusion that I'm a model, I see how vulnerable it can make someone feel to be photographed.

So, moving forward, my overarching modus operandi is becoming clearer. When editing my photographs from San Francisco I went down the rabbit-hole because I was afraid others would think them boring landscape photos. But, for once, I'm going ahead with what I believe in rather than what I want people to think is exciting and fresh. I resisted the urge to hide behind digital gimmicks or design tricks and just edited the straight images from an intuitive place.

I see these images as a continuation and purification of what I began in London. London was an accidental beginning to a theme that carried through the photographs in Are We Having Fun Yet? When I went to Mexico I expected this theme to continue, but I mostly just found good people genuinely wanting to enjoy themselves with their families and getting along and having a good time, so the focus shifted. My own solitude began to leak through as I felt on the outside of this group of people I didn't want to judge anymore. This came out as well as a methodical and almost meditative way of photographing. A centre-heavy, Bernd & Hilla Becher informed framing of the subject emerged. I was compelled and excited by this somewhat boring regimented style of photographing. This style reappears in the San Francisco photographs and is even more methodical and unapologetic in its wistful prettiness. I think this way I'm photographing is a foil to the gimmicky pictures I do. It is the most consistently recurrent style of photograph I have taken over any period of time. And it's not to say that I won't have fun with photography and image-making ever again, but I'm really trying to pay attention to what these are and why I'm doing them.

Parker told me that when we went to photograph together that he felt he totally was not a part of my process, that I was working alone. It's true. It needs to be a solitary act for me. I need to get lost in it, I need to feel uninhibited and not judged or scrutinized.

In the end I still haven't been able to pin down what I'm going for, but this way of photographing is leading me by the hand to somewhere I want to be. It's taking me back to the photograph and the medium itself. Kind of purifying it. And it's still me. There are themes that I've always imbued in my work - loneliness, smallness, boredom, apathy, bleached or faded vibrancy, existentialism, and a kind of hush and stillness or stasis beyond the obvious stillness of the photographic medium. I think these themes are not hiding behind anything else anymore. I hope they're not so earnest, that maybe they're a little more natural.

Though all this was a tricky mind-trap to navigate I feel better, lighter, and ready to move forward. I'm still proud of the things I've done. Some things more so than others, but it's all brought me here. And though my work may sometimes be schticky and sloppy, I'm glad to say that I've never approached it from the side of irony.

So for now this Mini Wheat is floating alone, but sugar-side-up in a warm bowl of milk.

Labels: , , , , , , , ,

POSTED BY GRAYDON AT 7/16/2009 - 3 COMMENTS - ADD COMMENT
PURGE


I've redesigned MY WEBSITE and my blog. In this time of transition I felt I needed cleanliness and simplicity somewhere. I'm really happy with the change on my site - it's about the work and it's nice to see everything I'm proud of laid out on one page.

Also, I've added images from San Francisco and from the New Rituals GIFs.

I have been really analyzing my work as I've done this, and come to some humbling realizations. I'll post my thoughts soon. They will be more effective than NyQuil I swear.

Labels: , ,

POSTED BY GRAYDON AT 7/11/2009 - 5 COMMENTS - ADD COMMENT
SCREAM


Mark Romanek has a BLOG of sorts. That's right, the man who directed THE MOST EXPENSIVE MUSIC VIDEO EVER MADE has a blog consisting mostly of pictures from his iPhone.

Labels:

POSTED BY GRAYDON AT 7/09/2009 - 0 COMMENTS - ADD COMMENT
AFIKOMEN




The great Davida Nemeroff has a new WEBSITE and BLOG. I've been waiting in anticipation to see all her new work from her time in Columbia's MFA Visual Arts program.

Above is Jennifer Castle of CASTLEMUSIC and some girl named Mira.

Labels: ,

POSTED BY GRAYDON AT 7/07/2009 - 0 COMMENTS - ADD COMMENT
ZOINKS

Laying With My Father by Ryan Pfluger


Luke Gilford

So I'm in nature now, the crickets are chirping outside my window and I am left in the quiet with my thoughts and still, somehow, a poo-load of work to do. I arrived at my new old home today after seeing both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans in one day and then packing and driving all my earthly possessions up here in an overstuffed GMC with a huge iced coffee from McDonald's.

San Francisco was everything I could have hoped for. Such a great place and such a great experience. I managed to escape Pride Day for the most part and go to the beach and Marin Headlands with Parker and Ryan. Ryan Pfluger is a fantastic photographer that I've been following for a long time but for some reason have never linked to him from my own blog before. It was really cool to watch him work and then to be photographed by him on the edge of the ocean and high up on cliffs. I can't wait to see his photos as well as Parker's and mine. Hopefully I'll have my film back by next week. You can see a sneak peek of Ryan's photos HERE and make sure to check out his other work HERE.

I also got to meet another great photographer, LUKE GILFORD, while I was in San Francisco. Luke is a New York based photographer who graduated from UCLA. All around it was a bunch of cute faggots taking pictures in the gayest city on earth. It seemed pretty right.

Labels: , ,

POSTED BY GRAYDON AT 6/30/2009 - 0 COMMENTS - ADD COMMENT
DON'T SLEEP








Photos and interview - Olaf Breuning in his studio on THE SELBY.

Via WE CAN'T PAINT.

Labels: ,

POSTED BY GRAYDON AT 6/08/2009 - 0 COMMENTS - ADD COMMENT
DIMENSIONS FOR SALE




I'll be selling DVDs of my series New Rituals here soon. Stay tuned.

Labels: ,

POSTED BY GRAYDON AT 6/05/2009 - 0 COMMENTS - ADD COMMENT
CAW


I like it when the birdy looks in the camera and cacks.

Video by SEMÂ BEKIROVIC who also does some beautiful photography and has made paper prints for gallery display, which is something I really want to do but have not yet tried. I think I'm learning that I am most excited by artists know the rules and walk around them - not so much by the ones who don't learn the rules in the first place or who feel the need to say "Fuck your rules, man!"


From the series Reflections


From the series (edition?) Paperprints

Via WLYS

Labels: , ,

POSTED BY GRAYDON AT 6/03/2009 - 2 COMMENTS - ADD COMMENT
ÉMILE


One of my favourite photographers, BETTINA HOFFMANN, just had an installation up at the AGO. I think it's down now but you can see the videos on her site - the piece is called ÉMILE.

She is Canadian but I don't think of her as a Canadian artist. I really think her work is so exciting and progressive in how it straddles that line between art directed and believable. It's like Lukas Moodysson's film SHOW ME LOVE or the TV series Big Love - the art direction and casting and styling are so perfect and right and down to the detail but feel effortless and completely untouched - almost to the point of looking tasteless or devoid of aesthetic. I'm not sure how much Hoffmann "art directs" her staged portraits, but from the effort she appears to put into perfectly staging her subjects I would assume that she takes control of the mise-en-scène as well (if I may be a douche-bag and say "mise-en-scène").

I think I like her so much because her aesthetic is so much in opposition to the Canadian aesthetic of faux-awkward, tritely-contrived, flash-lit, over-styled, under-evaluated, over-appreciated photographs that we've all been over-exposed to. I mean, JIN-ME YOON'S series was great but we have to stop trying to recreate that, am I right?

Labels: , ,

POSTED BY GRAYDON AT 6/01/2009 - 0 COMMENTS - ADD COMMENT
OH YEAH










This series of stills from Jon Rafman's KOOL-AID MAN IN SECOND LIFE are everything I hope to be. The PROMO VIDEO is amazing.

Via I HEART PHOTOGRAPH.

Labels: , ,

POSTED BY GRAYDON AT 5/22/2009 - 3 COMMENTS - ADD COMMENT
BEST BET


The show I'm in with ROBYN, LINDSAY, and KATYA was named a BEST BET for Contact 2009 by Toronto Life! Ya!

It's up till the 30th of May if you haven't been yet:

XEXE Gallery
642 Richmond Street West

Wednesday-Saturday, 12PM-6PM

Labels: , ,

POSTED BY GRAYDON AT 5/14/2009 - 0 COMMENTS - ADD COMMENT
BREAKDOWN

Lindsay Page


Katyuska Doleatto


Robyn Cumming


Mesies

I have new work on display. Here's the info:

BREAKDOWN
Part of the CONTACT Toronto Photography Festival

XEXE Gallery
624 Richmond St. W.

May 7-30
Opening Thursday May 7, 6-9PM
Gallery Hours - Wednesday to Saturday 12-6PM

Breakdown features a group of photo-based artists exploring the construction of deconstructions. In relation to the CONTACT theme of Still Revolution, each artist responds directly to the constantly evolving yet historically reminiscent nature of the still image. Robyn Cumming constructs the climax of moments of chaos and trauma; the resulting photographs depicting an abstracted state of flux, serving as both the event and its aftermath. In looking at the images one simultaneously experiences the performative nature of the presented scenarios as well as the very act of constructing and photographing them. Katyuska Doleatto creates monochromatic still lifes with the use of decomposing elements. Rather than mimic the opulence and seduction of traditional still life, she instead creates minimalist compositions that beg scrutiny; each specimen seems to undulate though it is laden with the ineludible colour and shape of death.

Lindsay Page presents a building/un-building machine that exemplifies tedium and redundancy. Through the use of slide projectors, a now archaic technology, her photo-based installation loops viewers into the futility of an act that can never extend or develop beyond it self. Shooting with a stereoscopic lens, Graydon Sheppard creates animated, photo-based GIFS, which exhibit a simultaneous spatial construction and deconstruction. Each piece oscillates between a still image and one that moves forward and back with an unnatural and stunted sense of time. Both the images and their content give the impression of a quality, that when sought out, seems to disappear.


Statement for the series New Rituals:

The animations in this series were made by taking photographs with a stereoscopic lens and then alternating the left and right channels from the photograph in rapid succession. This technique creates perspective and gives the illusion of three dimensionality. The content of these images came from the desire to make magical scenes that fit that illusion. Taking cues from mystic, religious, and occult iconography I fabricated these tableaus in urban settings.

It's so easy to forget that we live and experience in three dimensions. 3D technology is making a huge comeback. Filmmakers are going to great lengths to create the illusion of depth that we can experience simply by looking around. In that frame of reference, these images become a strange contradiction. They are simultaneously flat and deep, frozen and frenetic. The kinetic energy is tangible and gives the illusion that the subjects could break free and burst into motion at any second.

In looking at these GIFs we can switch back and forth from remembering that they are two dimensional images projected onto a flat wall while believing the experience of depth. It's like looking at a drawing of a cube which switches in or out depending on what we let our mind's eye perceive. In the same way, we can perceive the rituals to be deep when really there is nothing behind them. The man in the cloak in a Christ-like position appears to be floating in the air, but it is easily understood that in reality he is just jumping. These photographs constantly construct and deconstruct themselves in form and in content; they continually collapse upon themselves.

Stereoscopy is hardly a new practice, but the advent and popularity of these GIFs in digital culture today recontextualizes the technique and revolutionizes the medium by doing away with the necessity of a viewing contraption (such as 3D glasses). As an artist who works in both time-based and plastic mediums, this is my missing link between photography and film. It's my zoetrope, even if it's not real.


I'm really excited about this show and flattered to be showing with Lindsay, Robyn, and Katya. I've looked up to them since we were in school and they've all done amazing things, so I hope you'll be able to come to the show!

There will be DVDs of the series that you can buy for $30. They play in any DVD player and are nice, affordable pieces of digital art you can have on when you're not watching Showgirls.

Labels: , ,

POSTED BY GRAYDON AT 5/05/2009 - 0 COMMENTS - ADD COMMENT
OPENING THURSDAY


New Work: It's Almost Like You're Here
Where: 107 Shaw Gallery - 107 Shaw Street Toronto
When: Thursday April 30, 2009 - 8PM-11PM
What: Projected GIFs for Love'r Magazine

See you there.

I also have another opening for Contact next Thursday at Xexe Gallery for which I'll post the details soon.

Labels: ,

POSTED BY GRAYDON AT 4/28/2009 - 0 COMMENTS - ADD COMMENT