Chris Shepherd "After Poetry" Solo Show

About

EXHIBITION STATEMENT

“In an After Poem, the author declares a relationship between their writing and another artist’s work.

After Poetry acknowledges that reading poetry influences how I make things. It’s not a direct relationship. I don’t read a poem, get a vision, then make photographs. It’s more like the spirit or ethos of poetry has pervaded my way of thinking and seeing.

A poem, its subject, or the lines, are not directly tied to a specific image. They were decided after the photographs were selected for the exhibition. I selected passages that felt engaging and worked well to enhance the opaque nature of the photographs themselves.

I hope to have created a curiosity in the viewer - that the new relationships between poetic line and photograph might help viewers find a personal relationship with the word and image. Ideally, these pairings serve as springboards for the viewer to create new personal narratives or meaning.

The unpredictable possibility in this process fascinates me. I’ve spent my life reading, watching, listening, viewing, and engaging with art. Through this, I’ve discovered the most relatable and engaging works for me are always those that remain a bit impenetrable. I’m happiest when never fully grasping something in its entirety. I like the unexplained and mysterious questions of life.

Hopefully, this love of the opaque and imagination is echoed in After Poetry.”

- Chris Shepherd, 2024

ABOUT CHRIS SHEPHERD

Toronto-based artist Chris Shepherd (b. 1968, Hamilton, ON) uses the medium of photography to document the ever-changing urban landscape. Best known for his Subway series, his approach is directed by composition, colour, and form and largely influenced by contemporary architecture, painting, and sculpture. For the past decade, Shepherd has focused on capturing urban and pedestrian life in isolated moments of tranquillity. Empty subway platforms, vacant storefronts, construction sites, forgotten industrial spaces, or simply the abandoned nooks and crannies of ordinary spaces all become subjects of interest.

Shepherd's distinctive street photography has more recently been complemented by studio work that continues to explore composition, colour, and form while simultaneously experimenting with the art of photography and the physical photograph as an object. Shepherd’s work has been exhibited across North America and is included in major corporate collections in Canada. Most recently a number of his works were acquired by the HBC Global Art Collection in New York.