"Cipher Messaging" Featuring the photography of Angela Fama and the painting of Rebecca Chaperon

Cipher Messaging is the exhibition of new artworks from the artists Angela Fama and Rebecca Chaperon brought to you by Initial Gallery. The works shown are from Rebecca Chaperon's "Antarticus" series and Angela Fama's "It's a Sign" series.

Opening night: Thursday Oct 17th 6-9pm

Exhibition continues until November 21st.

Gallery hours: Tuesday - Saturday 12-6

"Angela Fama images billboards that have long since had their say and are now falling into disrepair. But these empty facades are not silent. Where former eras were marked by artistic or religious movements, this era was marked by products, lots of them. Manufacturers were required to think of new ways to inform potential consumers and in the result, the highway billboard was born. Super highways, high fuel prices and competitive airlines slowly depleted their audience. Digital billboards mark the new high speed roads with 24 frames-per-second efficiency. However, there is a nostalgic affection for these giants left to weather the elements alone. The classic billboard, like them or not, were simple in form and substance. The simplicity of that time decays with its messenger.

Rebecca Chaperon inserts geometric shapes in her landscapes to describe a narrative around other fading forms of communication, letter writing and storytelling. Painting surreal representations of two different worlds that she interprets through handed down letters and memories of stories told to her as a child, her paintings create two distinct landscapes. One is the tropical island of Mauritius and the other, its opposite, the frozen Antarctic. Although extreme opposite both of these landscapes share the mythical quality of memory.

Rebecca Chaperon describes the abstract elements of both artists work when she explains how the insertion of large geometric shapes in the landscape serves as an interruption that creates questions for the viewer, a mystification that causes an urge to identify. These disturbances call the viewer to participate and engage in the work by bringing their own images and ideas to answer the question. In answering these questions, personal meaning becomes invested as the individual draws on their own unique experiences

The juxtaposition of Fama’s “It’s A Sign” and Chaperon’s “Antarticus” demonstrate the similar tone and sensibility that both mediums are able to create. The representational precision of the photograph and the abstract imagery of the painting reveal an adept use of medium by both artists to create a tone and sensibility of their message."

- Ron Reagan, Initial Gallery

www.angelafama.com

www.thechaperon.ca

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