Quick Draw Artist Interview #27: Chris Shepherd

Quick Draw Artist Interviews are a series of interviews conducted by Otino Corsano using Facebook's IM Chat feature. Spontaneous conversations with international artists are recorded and documented specifically for publication on this blog.

Quick: Bud. Gilded framed Picasso print. A collector, old friend, bronze focus. Regatta regalia; it was he who left the massive model ship to be repaired. Gluing thin rope and then reattaching the toothpick pushpit. “Thanks for spending time.” At the doorway. Every time repeating the action reinforces tide. Draw: art about art.

Chris Shepherd (b. Grimsby, ON) started off his artistic career as a painter, before turning to photography. He studied Art History, Film and Artistic Practice at Ryerson, Waterloo and McMaster Universities. In the late 80s he moved to Toronto permanently and photography helped to familiarize a city that he initially felt very alienated from. During this important process of exploration, Shepherd solidified his interest in the passed-over or ignored movements and places of day-to-day metropolitan life.

Chris Shepherd is represented by Bau-Xi Photo. His most recent and fourth solo exhibition at Bau-Xi Photo, "Wandering," was exhibited in January 2013.

http://chrisshepherd.net

http://www.bau-xiphoto.com/dynamic/artist_photo.asp?ArtistID=51938&CategoryID=Wandering

Chris Shepherd

All images © Chris Shepherd, unless otherwise noted.

Chat Conversation Start

Today

Chris

8:48pm

Candida Höfer

Candida Höfer "The Metropolitan Opera New York VIII" 2005

@ Rena Bransten Gallery

Otino

8:49pm

You got it.

I literally just found her gallery website.

We are good to start then?

Chris

8:51pm

Yup. I do love her work. I just saw an older original at Birch Libralato a few months ago.

Paterson Ewen, "Rain on Coastline", 1977, acrylic on gauged wood;

Francis Alÿs, "Ghetto Collector", 2003,

tin, magnets, rubber wheels (sculpture), edition 97/99;

Candida Höfer, "Rohbau Müncher VII", 1997, C-Print;

All courtesy of Jeanne Parkin and Birch Libralato Gallery

Otino

8:52pm

I'm a fan of your work as well so thanks for taking the time to discuss your practice.

Can I start with a preamble for this dialogue?

Chris

8:53pm

Certainly.

Otino

8:54pm

I think it may be helpful to list the route I traveled in the context of requesting an interview with you.

JB Painting, no identified source.

It started with Justin Bieber and the idea young Canadian men (especially those in the spotlight) have the potential to be positive role models for others... in the Arts and beyond, etc...

Then I started thinking about Justin Trudeau and the weight of historical significance resting on his shoulders each day...

From the "Collection of Pierre Trudeau Letters" @ Steve Szentesi Fine Art

JT | © FRED CHARTRAND / THE CANADIAN PRESS

And then I arrived at your work. Maybe I should explain further?

Chris

8:57pm

That's circuitous and timely because I just saw an image of Justin Bieber parading through an airport without his shirt.

Otino

8:58pm

I'll have to post the image here. thanks.

In my own work I've been considering aspects of mentorship.

Chris

8:59pm

The weird thing about the idea of mentors is that I sort of wish I had one now. I've always liked the model of learning by passing on information.

Otino

9:00pm

Exactly. Or even a literal apprenticeship: the opportunity to work alongside and develop with an experienced artist as rite of passage and progression towards new approaches and results.

Chris

9:02pm

To a some degree I help other artists, yet I'm pretty new myself.

I came to visual art photography late in life.

This picture of me was right around the time I really wanted to be a dancer or an actor and I really thought I'd go to RADA or some other crazy art school.

At the time the romantic ideal was to work so hard at something in a process akin to formal apprenticeship.

Otino

9:03pm

Yes. Recently, I’ve been trying to study with dancers myself.

I thought this dialogue would be interesting since we are both colleagues and I hope I am not presumptuous to state equals as artists?

Chris

9:04pm

I would consider this flattering. In the past, I could be a little self-deprecating at times; I really do like the idea of calling myself an artist now, and I always considered you one.

Otino

9:05pm

I'm thinking this exchange then could be less hierarchical as we juxtapose our respective notes on visual art practice - your work considered alongside other artists whose work I think could be of interest to possibly other (younger male? or gender/age-free?) artists?

So my main intention for this discourse is to possibly enact character development.

Chris

9:07pm

I quit any formal training I had over 25 years ago and never really conducted formal studies much since. To a degree I'd call Sara Angelucci a mentor.

Sara Angelucci,"Lacrimosa (Maddelena)", 2010

Sara Angelucci,"Lacrimosa (Pia)", 2010

Sara Angelucci,"Lacrimosa (Silvia)", 2010

She's a visual art photographer who's given me the most guidance and encouragement.

Otino

9:07pm

Great. Let's talk specifically about your work first.

“Tree - Don Valley Pathway Fall”

Chris

9:09pm

That's a piece that was born out of desire to move from a totally urban focus to a more natural setting and at the same time to invoke a bit of humour. It was a found object though, so that also played into it.

Otino

9:09pm

Reminds me the work of my good buddy Andrew Wright.

Andrew Wright, from the "Illuminated Landscape" series, 2001 - present

Andrew Wright,"Tree Correction 5", 2012

Miles Coolidge,"Bed", 2006 @ AMCE Los Angeles

Chris

9:10pm

I was channeling Jon Sasaki.

Jon Sasaki,"Hang In There", 2012 HDV 2:48 silent, looped

I hope that's not to presumptuous, Jon is an artist I totally respect and I love his work.

Otino

9:11pm

"Tree CNE Grounds" seems to provoke this notion of nature surviving against all odds.

Almost like the struggle of analogue processes in photography still lingering. Are you fully digital now?

Chris

9:12pm

I'm glad you see the positive. A lot of people view this piece, or others like this one, and think I'm being negative, when the exact opposite is true. It's about this type of perseverance.

Yes I'm fully digital now. I actually question the current analog discourse. I mean, I love analog photography, but not as a badge of validity.

Nevertheless, I do have a view camera upstairs I plan to utilize in a very complicated way.

Otino

9:14pm

Works like

"City Land - Inside the Clover Leafs of Toronto" and

"City Land - Inside the Clover Leafs of Toronto 1"

remind me of a photo essay published in Toronto Life featuring images of the Don Valley Parkway during one of the two seasonal durations when it is closed for cleaning and repairs ~ images of beautiful landscapes with finally no cars in sight.

Catherine Opie created a series like this of LA freeways.

Catherine Opie,"Untitled #40" (Freeway Series), 1995, Regen Projects

Catherine Opie,"Untitled #9" (Freeways Series), 1995, Regen Projects

Catherine Opie,"Untitled #34" (Freeways Series), 1995, Regen Projects

Where are the "Clover Leafs" located in Toronto?

Chris

9:15pm

The Clover Leafs are right beside the DVP at Eglinton Avenue in Toronto. It is the greenbelt beside my day job office tower. I guess it's really called the Flemingdon Park area.

Those spaces are very powerful for me. I feel like an explorer in a place where nobody bothers to travel. This idea of visiting the less-explored surfaces a lot in my previous subject matter as well. These little ecosystems are so amazing, yet so passed over... literally.

Otino

9:16pm

So they are like photographic pastoral escapes?

Chris

9:18pm

Definitely, yet there's also something strangely exciting about their "pedestrian" appearance. It's not a large landscape area...

I'm searching for the word that's usually used to describe epic landscape painting and nature.

Otino

9:19pm

Ansel's 'Sublime'?

"A Clearing Yosemite Storm" | © The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust

Chris

9:20pm

Sublime! That's it.

Anyway, nobody sees this beauty and I want to capture it and maybe call it out.

Otino

9:20pm

"Don Valley Pathway Twin Towers"

These massive apartment buildings are just south east of Leaside: Thorncliffe in East York Centre, right? Many new Canadian Immigrants live in this area - true?

Chris

9:21pm

Tons of immigrants live in this area.

Those Towers were shot from the Don Valley Pathway…

same place I shot the log in the road.

It's a super interesting mix of cultures with lots of great places to eat.

Otino

9:22pm

Yeah, IQBAL Kebab & Sweets Centre was one of my favourite places to eat when I lived in the area.

"Harris Water Treatment Plant Toronto" seems to have a historical documentation slant. The project here partly seems to be to record these modern relics and their architectural timelessness before they are gone.

And "Horizon Triptych No.1" looks like Toronto's waterfront in the balance.

Chris

9:25pm

That's true of the "Harris Water Treatment Plant" image. I was originally drawn to the water around it. It became a sort of muse for my earlier work that was in a very Hiroshi Sugimoto type vein, but then I fell in love with the buildings and the machinery and the history that Michael Ondaatje talks about I think in Skin of a Lion about building the Bloor Bridge and other distinctly Toronto things.

Otino

9:27pm

"Thinking of Friedrich" also seems to give away your intentions here with these.

Chris

9:28pm

“Thinking of Friedrich” had nothing to do with it when I took it.

The ‘Friedrich’ part was more in response to Andrew Wright's latest Polar Photograph that's called “After Freidrich” which I love. But it was a truly romantic photograph and that's not what I'm known for. Studying Art History, I liked him and others in the Hudson Valley school of (again) sublime natural landscape painting.

Otino

9:28pm

"Signals Junction Triangle" is my fav from your series of natural landscapes featuring hints of urban evidence lingering as a second thought.

To a degree I feel manipulated by these images. The slight saturation of colour, pulled focus and the clouds coerce the viewer into a romanticized view of both traditional landscape photography and contemporary, even Vancouver School-esque aesthetics.

Chris

9:30pm

I can't escape from the Vancouver School, nor do I really want to.

Jeff Wall, "The Stumbling Block" 1991, Ydessa Hendeles Art Foundation, Toronto

I saw the Jeff Wall show at Ydessa Hendeles' some 25 years ago and it has really stayed with me. I sometimes think I want to replicate his work, but I want my work to be comprised of all found subjects rather than constructed ones. I don't fully understand all the rhetoric of the Vancouver School; still, I love the idea of showing in Vancouver this August 2013.

Otino

9:31pm

It will be interesting to see how the West Coast Art Community reacts to your work when East Coast reads of this vein have been somewhat critical. Are you hoping to find acceptance or affirmation of your work there at all?

Chris

9:31pm

I'm less interested in acceptance now than simply expanding my horizons. I hope to progress the work through the context of public gallery shows. I love what I do and really want to continue to expand my photo-based work into painting, sculpture and performance. All this ties into photography, however I'm not really keen on being described solely a "photographer" as defined by most.

Toni Hafkenscheid, "Kelowna Highway", 2006, Birch Libralato Gallery

The pulled focus thing was an unintentional nod to Toni Hafkenscheid who commands the technique. I'm referencing a lot of people here as my work is based on significant earlier artists and their practices.

Toni Hafkenscheid, "Hoover Dam", 2009, Birch Libralato Gallery

Otino

9:33pm

I always thought Adobe Systems should have named the new CS6 blur tools after Toni. The "Iris Hafkenscheid" etc...

Toni Hafkenscheid, "Hope Old Cars in Yard", 2012, Birch Libralato Gallery

Your work is quite eclectic and diverse although some of your "Google Street views" appear to almost mimic your own style.

Like in "Google Streetview Alaska Crossroads".

Was this intentional or a move to distinguish your appropriation of this genre from other similarly formal practices – e.g. Jon Rafman?

John Rafman, "2368 IA-141, Dodge, Iowa, USA" 2009, Angell Gallery

Chris

9:39pm

I like the idea of being a ‘jack of all trades’ and I say that without a bit of irony. I'm not interested in being the best photographer in the world or the best "anything" - I'd rather engage discussion and thought. What really is best?

Otino

9:39pm

"Google Streetview Japan Dirt Pile"

It seems as though you also 'composed' these images as well.

Chris

9:42pm

The Google stuff came out of a serious bout of melancholy. I'm exploring. Others have explored this avenue before me; still, the Google car doesn't see what it photographs. It takes someone else to look at the millions of images it captures and contextualize them. I'm just interpreting them with my own aesthetic as a guide. Again the concept about seeing what's already there comes to mind. Yeah, in this regard, I definitely composed the images you mention.

Otino

9:42pm

I especially like the uber-photo dialogue set-up in

"Google Streetview Aquarium Tourists Singapore "

also inset in the detail of missing tourist torsos.

How did you find this image?

Chris

9:45pm

I'm weirded out about people taking pictures of everything. It's like they can't remember. The camera reduced to a tool for memory is lame. I mean it functions well in this regard, however, there are so many better uses for it than simply remaining a recorder of life events.

This is why I'm not interested in people as subject matter. When I go to a concert and there are 100 nobs filming and taking pictures on their phones it bugs me. Just watch and experience. If you can't remember it than it wasn't worth remembering.

I found that image in a very strange way. I literally looked at Singapore for hours until I discovered these unique, little, single streetview dots taken by the photographers. I'd have to show you.

Otino

9:46pm

How was "Google Pon Construction" composed?

Chris

9:46pm

Google Pin Construction was actually made in Photoshop. I took a single pin and replicated it and moved it around the canvas until I had it completely covered.

Otino

9:46pm

crazy man.

I want to return just for a second to our starting point.

Chris

9:47pm

Take the conversation anywhere.

Otino

9:47pm

I really think your images offer (younger?) photographer/artists a lot to consider.

Chris

9:48pm

That's very flattering but why?

Otino

9:49pm

Words of advice always seems quaint; yet I find these next signature works (I hope it is o.k. to call your series of vacant rooms your signature approach) to be the most elucidating images on many levels.

Chris

9:50pm

I'll always shoot vacant rooms.

Otino

9:50pm

Let's face it:

"Tux Condos Empty Office"

is classic Shepherd - right?

Chris

9:51pm

I've shot that place in about 5 different incarnations and I remember it when it was an auto garage.

Otino

9:51pm

I also find the school environments to be the most poignant like

"Nelson High School Large Gymnasium"

"Nelson High School Small Gym"

These are formally ‘perfect’ and yet they also seem to reveal a remainder of 'regret'?

Jeff Koons, "Board Room" 1985

Can I take another side road for a second?

Chris

9:53pm

Side road away.

Otino

9:55pm

So I hear the word "respect" tossed around a lot in the context of Character Development strategies in educational circles, especially regarding: self-respect; respect of property; respecting your parents, adults and elders, etc...

Yet I wonder if it makes more sense to focus on “regret” in terms of making the best choices at the time - decisions best for all - rather than promoting social mores in the façade of etiquette?

I think your work does a great job of healing the past and showing future potential using photographic space as a stage.

Chris

9:58pm

I'm not sure I follow.

Otino

9:58pm

In my perspective, your work isolates these timeless moments as visual locations for contemplation bracing sustained thought and review?

Chris

9:59pm

That's pretty insightful I think.

OK, sustained thought and review I can totally get.

Otino

10:00pm

"Medical Offices on Roncesvalles"

It is impossible not to place subjective narratives into these spaces ~ right?

Times we were injured, time to heal, patient, waiting...

"Seaforth Surgical Changeroom" the conversations from these walls are loud and silent at the same time to me.

Chris

10:02pm

Pretty much so. Although for me they're mostly line, angle and colour.

I think I’m interested in the manner in which these specific images operate because they are uncomfortable places, although when you focus on their compositions you see something else altogether.

I like the idea of architecture changing people, when the term architecture truly begins to mean something. Most of what we see in the city is not architecture, it's building. Those medical offices I shot on Roncesvalles are brutal!

Otino

10:03pm

"Hospice Room Seaforth Ontario" seems reflective of these significant moments of architectural manifestations towards narrative then?

That is a narrative set-up in purely formal terms?

Chris

10:07pm

“Seaforth” was again about seeing place through others eyes.

Yes, I felt uncomfortable in hospitals as a patient, but as a photographer I feel excited and amazed. It was also acknowledging the fact workers in hospitals are very comfortable in these areas where others are not.

The Hospice room is again personal, but not in a narrative way.

It's just what my Brother and Sister do for a living and they are good at helping people. We all die, so if I can become comfortable about dying whenever, I'll have done something good. This room was the favourite in the little hospital because although it was full of pain, people did important things in there. They died. That's good work.

Otino

10:07pm

"Retail Vacancy 5th Avenue" reminds me of Justin Bieber again. Maybe it’s the purple neon.

Chris

10:08pm

This photo was the first time I found a good vacant spot in New York.

I love New York but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what the space used to be used for. I have a good anecdote about NYC cops involving photographing this shop as well.

Otino

10:08pm

I'm all for a good cop story.

Chris

10:11pm

In short, he approached me after I had taken that photo and I thought I was in sh*t. Instead, he just started talking about cameras and which one should he buy. He was so friendly, in fact my greatest memory about New York is everyone was so friendly. The preconception of the place scared the crap out of me on several occasions. I always thought I was going to get abused or bugged by someone and every time they turned out to be super-friendly and simply inquisitive.

Otino

10:11pm

ha. awesome.

"The Bronx NYC Mezzanine"

I grew up riding the TTC. So although set in NYC your subway shots also speak to me in a way enabling me to revisit and reconsider the context and situations I was faced with as a young artist.

Chris

10:12pm

I'd like to live in New York - in Queens, the Bronx or Brooklyn.

Otino

10:12pm

"Times Square NYC Tunnel"

Somehow I think your work would be well suited there.

Chris

10:12pm

I wouldn’t want to permanently relocate, just spend a year two to take pictures and make art. It would be so impossible not to get lost in the millions of people who are also trying to produce work successfully there!

Otino

10:13pm

"Tarps No.1" seems to be about possible next steps as ‘projects in the works’?

"Tarps No. 2" as in 'white' cloth?

or under 'light' cloth rather.

Chris

10:15pm

Yeah, I'm confronted on several sides by tarps.

I just recently saw work by Betty Goodwin that freaked me out.

Betty Goodwin "Tarpaulin No. 3", 1975

I was working away on my ghetto Christo ideas and all of a sudden I find her tarp stuff. Now, more and more, I see artists using tarps in their work. I might have to abandon the idea just because of this repetition.

I really want to wrap myself up in the stuff and take self-portraits so I need to find a studio assistant to help so I don't suffocate myself.

Jeanne-Claude and Christo “Running Fence”, 1976

Otino

10:15pm

You'd be a great mentor I’m sure Chris.

Chris

10:16pm

I don't produce enough, unless ideas count.

I do find myself being more and more optimistic though.

I mean, I might be slightly melancholy at times; yet I believe in people, goodness and all that dreamy stuff. If I stop now there wouldn't be much point.

Otino

10:16pm

I'm still considering your great "ghetto Christo" line.