10 July 2009 through 9 August 2009
Opening reception Friday 10 July 2009, 6 - 9 pm
Guest curated by Jack Foster
Frank Ramirez's new photo-based works involve a unique way of seeing nature that incorporates aspects of pareidolia and the perspectives of birds and other animals.
Frank started out in neo-dada, performance, photo-art, fiction, and sonic experimentation. He moved over to music in the late 1970s, fronting the legendary rock band UJ3RK5, which included local luminaries such as Jeff Wall, Bill Gibson, Rodney Graham, Ian Wallace, and others. Frank moved to Europe in 1980, and worked at teaching, electronic music, and hosting an underground radio show featuring new and live music heard in Germany, France and Switzerland.
While on holiday at Tofino in 1991, a friend loaned him a camera to photograph natural phenomena there. The images seemed enigmatic and a little "strange" in the central European context and were compounded into tight triptychs. Further landscape works involved locations such as Cadaqués and the Balearics in Spain.
Frank returned to Vancouver a few years ago and eventually applied his vision to the Gulf Islands and the parks of Strathcona: a new kind of landscape photography influenced by the "isms" of art history and the desire to see man as a part of nature.
